The Anatomy of a Social Media Command Center

12 Nov

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The Anatomy of a Social Media Command Center

Posted November 12, 2012 by lauraleewalker in Business, Customer service, Marketing, small business, social media. Tagged: Tags: Business, Command center, Facebook, Gatorade, hootsuite, HootSuite - Social Media Dashboard, Marketing and Advertising, Public relations, small business, social media, social media listening post, social media monitoring, Twitter, YouTube 1 Comment

What is a social media command center and how can it help your business? A social media monitoring station or listening post is used to monitor your brand and how it’s being received by others. This can help you quickly deal with a potential PR crisis, negative press or complaints and find out what’s helping and hurting your brand.

Oregon Quackcave

Two Oregon students run the QuackCave with two iPads that are used to navigate a range of screens and incoming information, such as tweets with #GODUCKS and @mentions, Facebook comments, and sentiment on YouTube and Pinterest using a social dashboard tool, such as Hootsuite or Radion6.

Gatorade Mission Control

Gatorade follows a more advanced strategy using twice the employees compared to the Oregan Quackcave (four vs. two) with double the costs and double the level of customization. They monitor not only Gatorade mentions, but a range of keywords and data relating to what’s important to the brand, such as what being said about certain athletes and sports teams. They use customized visualizations to effectively interpret data using the agency STRUCK, Undercurrent and Radion6.

RedCross Command Center

Three RedCross employees spend about the same amount as Gatorade does, with a system powered by Dell, on a social media command center that collects a moderate amount of information. They boast a whopping eight screens to monitor social networks so they can effectively direct relief efforts and help those in need.

Setup Your Own Listening Station

How can you setup your own social media command center? Well, you can do this yourself for free or a fraction of the cost using Hootsuite (a free version is available or shell out some rupees for the pro version) and Tweetdeck to track social conversations across your networks. Setup Google Alerts to monitor keywords related to your brand and hashtags.org to keep up with current trends.

What tools do you use to monitor your social networks?

Credit: Brianna Smith is co-creator of the Social Media Command Center infographic.