Is Facebook Your Next Customer Feedback Tool?

As CMOs try to figure out how social media fits into the marketing mix, there has been a lot of discussion in the marketing community about what role social media plays in outbound marketing, but many (although not all) have ignored the amazing value that social media and specifically Facebook can play when it comes to inbound feedback.  When I say not all have ignored it  – there have been some really interesting stories about brands who have leveraged Facebook and blogs to really engage customers and get their thoughts on everything from marketing campaigns to products and services.  Most of the feedback is typically related to a campaign of sorts – see this great list of the 20 “most innovative” Facebook campaigns, but there are some brands who have and who plan to leverage the relationships they are building on Facebook, the time their consumers spend on Facebook and the great opportunity Facebook provides to get feedback from customers to gather feedback to make their businesses better!

Now I don’t believe that Facebook, as a customer feedback tool, will replace surveys (or even the now less used Focus Groups or Panels), but it will be a nice addition to the feedback arsenal that provides an opportunity for:

1) More real-time feedback…marketers can just get on, ask a question or  join a conversation. New ideas can be thrown out there, impromptu panels formed.

2) Access to an involved customer segment. Those who “like” your brand and are engaged on Facebook tend to be a more active customer (or at least one that is really into social media!)

3) Testing ideas, new marketing messages/campaigns, new products or services, etc. Marketers can get fast feedback before pursuing something that is untested.

In order to enable companies to understand this feedback, to track the discussions over time, to gather Facebook survey responses and to leverage this new consumer medium for getting feedback from customers that is available in a way that is accessible and actionable by the business, Attensity announced  today an extension to our Facebook analytics offering.  The offering includes out of the box access to Facebook content including posts, conversation threads, survey responses and more.  Business users, through a wizard, can choose a specific Facebook interaction and easily set-up analytics for a specific survey, set of posts and threads.  It’s as easy as clicking the “like” button!  Below is an example of some Facebook reports that also come out of the box. They include everything from sentiment analysis to detailed analytics around issues, response categories, compliments and complaints, how many “likes” resulted from the interaction and more.

Is your brand using Facebook to gather feedback from your customers?

Photo credit: by pshab