A common refrain that SageCircle strategists hear runs along the lines of “Yeah, there are a lot of analysts in your Analyst Twitter Directory but a lot of them never tweet. So they don’t count.”
It is not uncommon for SageCircle strategists to receive an email from an analyst or analyst relations (AR) professional starting with “I saw your tweet…” When we check the Twitter page of the sender it’s not unusual to find someone who rarely or never tweets.
Tying the two stories together provides a lesson that just because an analyst has a Twitter handle and is not tweeting does not mean they are inactive. They could be what Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff described in Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies as “lurkers” or “spectators.” Those analysts who you think don’t count could be reading your and your colleague’s tweets, learning and forming opinions.
- Never assume that an analyst is not monitoring your company’s social media
- AR teams need to periodically ask their most relevant analysts whether they have social media accounts (e.g., Twitter, blogs, LinkedIn and others) and how they are using them
Bottom Line: Lack of visible activity on Twitter does not mean that an analyst is not an avid reader of what vendors and other analysts are tweeting. AR needs to talk with their analysts to determine for certain what the analyst is up to when it comes to social media. This should be a topic that AR drops into conversations (e.g., briefings, inquiries, et cetera) because analysts’ opinions on social media can change frequently.
Question: AR – Do you regularly ask your analysts about how they use social media?