Elastic Thought

Intestine-Based Decision-Making

In the pilot episode of the political satire program "The Colbert Report," the term Truthiness was unveiled by Stephen Colbert and was used to describe "things that a person claims to know intuitively or from the gut without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts."

There is a long background to this term, but it is the "gut feel" that I'm curious about right now.  Where it was maligned in earlier criticism of former President George W Bush, and then reiterated from the New York Times to Canadian Parliament, it seems to be gaining in popularity.  And most often in the social media field right now.

After hearing a Southwest Airlines presentation on social media, the question was asked about what tools they use to monitor, gauge trends, measure, and qualify conversations to join and which to avoid, and general research practices.  The answer?  Roughly "gut feel."  Actually, it's more like "when you are participating in the space, you have a general feel for what is going on and you can generally tell what needs to be done and where to go."  (paraphrased)  And if it weren't for the 4 or 5 other Fortune 500 companies that have responded in the same manner within the last month or so to the same question, I would have let it go at that.  From podcasts, to presentations, to blog posts, they are heralding the intuitive properties of some of their youngest employees guts.  (maybe because they are in better shape than some of the older ones?)

But why gut feel?  Why would these companies not want further evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or other means of quantifying this field that is becoming more and more important to brand perception, company reputation, and purchase decision/behavior?  Marketers for years have used data from focus groups, point of purchase data and a myriad of psychological data to hone their craft.  Yet with social media, Fortune 500 companies are letting their online reputation be managed by gut feel.  And in some cases, those guts have only been out of college as long as social media has been around.  Barely enough time to truly understand the company's many efforts in other channels, or understanding of crisis communications, corporate reputation as a practice, or otherwise.

But they know how to use Facebook and Twitter.

Now, I'll grant you that I learned a lot from Malcolm Gladwell in Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking but I'm not sure he was promoting "gut feel."  He does argue that "intuitive judgment is developed by experience, training, and knowledge."  And granted, with the immediate nature of the online world, there will need to be some gut calls made in response.

But to publicly celebrate gut feel?  To eschew intellectual examination?  I'm not sure if that is truly what is best for the companies, their online presence or the practice of social media.  I still remember the episode of "The Office" where Michael drives his car into a lake because that's what the GPS told him to do.  Perhaps a combination of technology, tools AND gut feel will be the answer.

Until then, I look forward to a representative from one of these Fortune 500 companies that explains the intellectual side of their thought out, reasoned, and evidence-based plan.  As much as I like Stephen Colbert, I hope that the practice of Social Media or it's "best practices" are not shrouded in truthiness and that those that learn from these presentations do not go away thinking that they, too, can manage their company's online reputation on gut feel.

Illustration: Timo Elliott

Study: Online Reputation Affects Click-Through-Rate

A few weeks back there was a new report that was written dubbed "ENGAGEMENTdb" that looked a little further into social media participation.  We've been watching this closely as we often time include engagement as one of our metrics we watch for our clients as opposed to simply breadth (how many boxes can you check off the social media list to say your are doing them?)

To quote a summary: "What makes this report even more interesting is the correlation of engagement and financial performance. The analysis groups each brand with the greatest depth and breadth into a category titled “Social Media Mavens”. On average, those who were classified as “Social Media Mavens” grew 18% in revenue over the last 12 months. On the other hand, the companies who were least engaged with consumers on the social web unfortunately suffered an average of 6% decline in revenue."  (credit: Altimeter Group)

This obviously is a great story to tout to our clients to show not only social media's relationship to the bottom line, but to emphasize the need to actually use the tools you/they spent money building.  It reinforces the participatory part of social media and the payoffs that can come from it.

However, we want to put forth a corollary finding that we are actively pursuing.  If your clients are anything like ours, social media is just part of the mix.  You are playing alongside email marketing, banner advertising, pay-per-click, paid sponsorships/links and other channels that get measured with the click-through-rate (CTR) percentage.  What we've learned through these programs is that the higher the overall "sentiment" is for the company, the greater the CTR.

To repeat:  the more engagement there is online, and the more that engagement is positive in nature, the more likely people are to engage with other digital marketing tactics (i.e. click through to the company's target location).

This makes logical sense to us.  If you dislike a brand, you will be less likely to click through one of their other online advertising properties.  On the contrary, if you are neutral to positive about a brand, you are more likely to click through.  Now, we are not diving into the waters of words/colors/message and placement where a purchaser is more likely to purchase.  We're simply making a connection from sentiment to CTR.  And depending on what type of agency you are, this could either make you a great parter to the other agencies in the mix for your clients, or improve your own digital marketing tactics if you have them all under one roof.

But this outlines how important reputation online becomes.  And it brings the "online reputation management" discussion out of the the confines of corporate communications, and broadens that internal discussion to marketing and other areas within the company.

Admittedly, we have a small sample base right now.  Companies and marketers are not likely to publish their CTR percentages, so we've relied on our own experience, clients, experiments and those of our friends in the industry.  If you have access to CTR percentages, or if you've found similar results, we welcome your comments here.  Together, we can put together the next "big" finding in social media and it's importance in the world of communications.