Social Media Hype?

June 19, 2009 (bMighty Weekly Digest) This week, like most every week these days, has been consumed with hype about social media. We've seen everything from Facebook letting folks have meaningful URLs for their profiles, to some pretty nasty Twitter backlash. So what's really going on here? Is this social media stuff a real benefit for small and midsize companies, or just the latest fad spinning out of control.

The answer, of course, is a bit of both. As I wrote about the predictions of Twitter's impending destruction, it could very will be true. There's going to continue to be churn among these sites and services (will the last person leaving MySpace please turn out the lights?). But whatever happens to Twitter or MySpace or Facebook or the site du jour, social media isn't going away.

So, what do you do with it? Web metrics guru Marshall Sponder says the key is to learn to measure how your company is being talked about online, and he offers insight into a selection of tools and processes to do that. Once you can measure how social media affects your company, you can begin to understand it, and use it for marketing, customer service, market research, recruitment and so on. Just don't think it's going to be quick or easy, natch.

-- Fredric Paul, Publisher / Editor-in=Chief

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