One of the toughest things about social media is measuring its effectiveness. What may be harder still is measuring the effect of not being involved in social media, and being unaware of negative buzz about your company — or being aware of it and deciding to do nothing about it.

I chatted about this today with Paul Philp, VP Product Development for dna13, and I suggested the term “brand shrinkage” to describe the difficult to measure but very real effect of unchecked consumer dissent.

In the retail industry, shrinkage is the percentage of inventory that breaks, is spoiled, is stolen by employees, or that simply vanishes. For many retail businesses, a few percentage points of shrinkage are considered an acceptable cost of doing business. It’s a strange concept really, having a business problem with a significant and measurable impact, and instead of dealing with it, choosing to write it off as acceptable.

But the same thing is happening to companies that ignore what’s being said about them on social networks and other online forums. They are experiencing brand shrinkage — a decline in the value of their brand — and choosing to “write it off” by not participating.

It’s common to see people “slamming” service companies in particular. Telecoms companies get it all the time, as do IT companies and the airlines are a constant source of aggravation to consumers. And it’s a mistake to say, “people are prone to complain, we can’t respond to every disgruntled troublemaker with a blog or a Twitter account.” Because the business costs of failing to respond are very real. Because, for consumers, the next step in these conversations is to change providers, a process made highly efficient by their network of online friends ready to suggest an alternate provider. I don’t think it’s constructive to mention company names here, but I have SEEN this happening. It’s a real business cost. It’s a real risk of deciding not to “do” social media.

To see what people are saying about your company, or a company you do business with, do a Twitter search on the company name, or search on “worst customer service” to see a list of favorite targets. Also, check out Get Satisfaction.

Is brand shrinkage, and the resultant loss to reputation and revenue, something that should be considered an acceptable cost of doing business? And if the cost of mitigating the risk is simply to monitor a few search engines and a few social networks, and respond to negative buzz when appropriate, why wouldn’t you? From a traditional cost/benefits analysis, failure to participate in these discussions at some level simply does not make sense.

Tags: brand shrinkage, social media, business costs, business benefits, risk, get satisfaction, twitter

I’ll be giving a keynote Oct. 15 at the Executing Social Media Conference in Atlanta. The organizers have put together a couple of great promotions and a contest:

Register at http://www.communitelligence.com/psps/psitem.cfm?psid=221 and use the promo code esm08300 for $300 off regular conference admission.

To save even more, there’s a 2-for-1 registration offer which allows two people to register for the price of one.  Purchase online and put the 2nd person’s information in the Ship To field of the registration form.

And last but not least, you can win one of two free tickets they’re giving away by entering the Executing Social Media Atlanta contest at http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/survey.zgi?p=WEB228B2MXGDUG

Entrants need to answer this question by Thursday, Sept 9: In 300 words or less, what tactics would you use to introduce one of the following social media tools into an existing, conservative organization? (Blogs, wikis, RSS, podcasting, online video or social networking).

Tags: Executing Social Media, Atlanta, Conference, Discount, Promo

The UK Prime Minister’s office does a really nice job with social media and sets an example others can learn from. I discovered what they are doing first through their Twitter account, @DowningStreet. Everything here is done right.

The Twitter home page features a clean design, and clearly identifies the account as “the official twitter channel for the Prime Minister’s Office.” The web site link goes to the prime minister’s web site, at a .gov.uk domain.

The Twitter stream includes official news, comings and goings at Number 10, and personal notes.

The design of Number10.gov.uk is extremely up to date and easy to navigate, and makes good use of social media without throwing in too many features, feeds and services, sticking to the basics of Flickr, YouTube and Twitter.

All in all, they’ve done a nice job demonstrating that even the “highest office in the land” can participate in social media.

Tags: UK, prime minister, number 10 downing street, twitter, downingstreet

On the eve of the Jewish High Holidays, ABC columnist Ben Knight writes, in a sophomoric essay titled Oh God, not another holiday,

“If you ask someone in Israel to do something they don’t really want to, they might reply with a Hebrew saying that translates literally as ‘after the holidays’. But its meaning is deeper; it’s the Jewish version of ‘manana’.”

Knight suggests Israelis use the Jewish holidays to avoid work and commitment, which is insulting and nonsensical. Knight manages to insult Mexicans and Jews alike with a single word, ‘manana,’ which in American slang (and presumably in Australia, where Knight comes from,) denotes constant procrastination due to being laid back or lazy. If you’re going to stereotype people, neither laid back nor lazy applies to the Israelis.

This is not just “another holiday.” This week begins the period known as the High Holidays, so called because they are the most important and most solemn of all Jewish holidays. The first of these is Rosh Hashanah, which falls this week and marks the start of the New Year. Next week is Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, in which we petition God for forgiveness for our sins and indiscretions. Most Jews fast for 24 hours on Yom Kippur. (I did when I was younger. I currently do not.)

No one in my family ever shouted: “Wee hoo! It’s Yom Kippur!”

Knight’s piece might have been mildly humorous some other time of year, though I doubt it. But this week it’s ignorant and ill conceived, bordering on outrageous. Why not take it down, tweak it a bit, and repost it on Purim?

By the way Mr. Knight, any plans yet for Boxing Day?

Tags: ABC, Ben Knight, Jewish High Holidays, manana, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur

As I write a chapter on the future of social media for my SocialCorp book, I asked people on Twitter last night whether they had favorite social media apps and which if any offered hints at the future. Here are the responses:

• Imho, Qik, and Seesmic a close second. I have never seen a single 12second.tv video that made any sense whatsoever.
• chi.mp One profile to rule them all.
• Check out Socialbrowse.
• Tumblr and disqus
• none. i have tumblr, disqus, 12 seconds, but i wouldn’t say any of them are predictors. i would say Twitter is the one i go to see what is happening around the world 24/7.

One of the more imaginative scenarios came from Chris Grayson who suggested “some cross between the iPhone App called Loopt with iChatAV and Second Life in a discrete virtual vision visor display built into your eye wear.”

What do you think the future holds? What about Friendfeed and other aggregators? And whether you love or hate Plurk, and everyone either loves it or hates it, you have to give them credit for exploring a new user interface. Or not. Maybe Yammer and other apps that encroach on the corporate firewall, or internal clones like Pfizer’s Pfacebook and IBM’s BlueTwit will become popular.

SO COME ONE! SPEAK UP! WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Please add your ideas for most progressive or innovative applications to the comments on this post. Thank you!

Tags: , chi.mp, tumblr, disqus, twitter, seesmic, 12seconds, qik, iphone, loopt, ichatav, second life, future of social media, plurk, friendfeed, yammer