社交媒体指挥中心席卷商界

    “休斯敦，我们来了一条微博。”从佳得乐（Gatorade）到戴尔（Dell），再到各个重点大学，越来越多的跨国公司和机构正在耗资数百万美元成立自己的社交媒体指挥中心。它们的任务就是通过Facebook、Twitter和其它渠道监控、回复社交网络上的评论和咨询。这种指挥中心里挂着成排的显示屏和监控器，可以追踪大量的实时状态和指标，比如从Twitter上的“提及”，到消费者的总体情绪和社交媒体的市场份额。

    其中一些最好的社交媒体指挥中心甚至不逊于美国国家航空航天局（NASA）的指挥中心。比如据知名科技博客读写网（ReadWriteWeb）报道，戴尔的社交媒体控制中心位于德克萨斯州的圆石市，共有70名员工，监控着来自全球各地的社交网络对话。这个团队每天要用11种语言处理2.5万起关于戴尔的社交媒体事件，并在24小时内回复大多数的咨询和投诉。

    Altimeter集团的业务分析师沙琳•李近日在一篇文章中指出，虽说并不是每家公司都会在社交媒体上被人提起成千上万次，但随着社交媒体用户越来越多，消费者对中型企业和品牌也提出了更高的要求。她说：“今天，66%的美国网民都在活跃地使用社交网络，但只有16%的企业使用社交媒体与顾客进行交流。如果你标榜自己是一家以顾客为中心的企业，但在社交媒体渠道上却忽略了顾客，那你纯粹就是在吹牛。”

    随着越来越多的消费者涌向社交媒体，加之许多企业都把Facebook和Twitter纳入了自己的商业战略体系，如今社交媒体控制中心正在成为大企业的标准配置。用来追踪广告投放效果和社区参与情况的应用以及进行危机管理的应用也层出不穷。佳得乐公司2010年率先探索了社交媒体指挥中心的理念。它在芝加哥总部设立了一个社交媒体指挥中心，内有6块报告屏，5名员工。如今他们主要利用它分析产品接受情况，并在Twitter上把明星运动员介绍给自己的粉丝。今年早些时候，红十字会（Red Cross）也成立了一家数字运营中心。该中心有3名员工，主要负责联系自然灾害的受灾人群。它在社交网络上发布的内容也多种多样，从寻人启示到新闻报道无所不包。克莱门森大学（Clemson University）最近也成立了一家社交媒体监听中心。这个中心有6块显示屏，主要任务是通过筛选社交网络数据，研究如何更好地应对校园突发事件。

    社交媒体指挥中心热背后反映的是目前存在的信息过量问题。有了社交网络之后，企业获取了空前大量的新分析方法、指标和用户数据。但了解这些数据的含义却是一个艰巨的挑战。指挥中心分析的数以百万计的庞大会话内容中不仅包括Facebook和Twitter上的内容，也包括视频网站YouTube、商务社交网LinkedIn以及博客等。社交媒体的回复、推荐以及总体消费者情绪等数据的分析结果会以彩图、图表等几十种不同的形式体现在挂在墙上的大屏幕上，因此分析团队可以非常直观地了解成千上万用户的社交趋势。如果没有社交媒体指挥中心的话，则可能要花数小时、甚至数天才能筛选出这些信息。

    Houston, we have a tweet. Growing numbers of global organizations -- from Gatorade to Dell and major universities -- are building multimillion-dollar mission control centers for social media: dedicated physical hubs for monitoring and responding to the torrent of social commentary and queries flooding in via Facebook, Twitter and other channels. Decked out with giant flat panel screens, sleek mood lighting and banks of monitors, the command centers track a dizzying array of real-time stats and indicators, from mentions on Twitter to general consumer sentiment and social media market share.

    The glitziest of the bunch would give NASA a run for its money. Dell's social media ground control and command center in Round Rock, Texas, has a total of 70 employees monitoring social conversations from around the globe, according to ReadWriteWeb. Scanning Facebook (FB), Twitter and other networks, the team processes 25,000 daily social media events about Dell (DELL) in 11 different languages, responding to most queries and complaints within 24 hours.

    While not every company is swamped with thousands of social media mentions, even mid-sized businesses and brands are facing increasingly daunting demands from social-savvy customers, says Altimeter business analyst Charlene Li in a recent post. "Today, 66% of online Americans are actively using social networking, but only 16% of companies use social media to engage with customers," Li says. "You cannot have credibility saying you are customer-centric if you ignore your customers in social media channels."

    With consumers flooding social media, and companies integrating Facebook and Twitter into business strategy, command centers are becoming standard equipment. Applications range from tracking ad campaigns and monitoring community engagement to handling crisis management. Gatorade pioneered the social command concept in 2010, deploying a mission control center in its Chicago headquarters with six reporting screens and space for five workers. Today, they use it to analyze product reception and connect followers with star athletes via Twitter. Earlier this year, the Red Cross launched a digital operations center staffed by three people to reach out to victims during natural disasters, with modules displaying everything from posts by people seeking family members to recent press coverage. And Clemson University recently developed a social listening center where students monitor a half-dozen screens, pooling data for, among other purposes, research on how to better respond to campus emergencies.

    Behind the sudden command center craze is a serious case of data overload. Social technologies have given companies access to an unprecedented flood of new analytics, metrics and user data. But making sense of it all has been a challenge. Underneath the hood, command centers are wired to analyze millions of social conversations from not just Facebook and Twitter, but YouTube (GOOG), LinkedIn (LNKD), blogs and more. Results are spit out onto wall-mounted screens customized with dozens of different modules -- colorful charts and graphs tracking everything from retweets and Facebook Likes to buzz in the blogosphere and overall consumer sentiment. At a glance, teams can take in social trends from thousands of users that would otherwise require hours, if not days, to sort through.