Let’s take a second to talk about blind spots – not just in your data but also in where you’re LOOKING for data. Focusing on social channels is a fantastic example of how tunnel vision could give you an incorrect perspective on the truth of behavior.
Consumer Experience:
One example that we often see is when a distinct channel is polarized but unlike all others in sentiment, that’s a behavioral red flag. Why is this one isolated and different? What does that say about the makeup of the audiences within it, the visibility, the subject matter, and the helpfulness in influencing others? Difference is a data point. However, the danger is often less obvious to those who just look at a small subsection of channels. (Provider healthcare is a great example here – often review sites are flypaper for predominantly emergent care reviews; not representative at all of key service lines or specialty care.)
Employee Experience:
This can happen over in your employees as well. Feeling overconfident (or overly concerned) about your internal sentiment and culture is easy to do if you only stare at the channels you’re most familiar with. This showed up recently in a client study where trends on a select set of channels portrayed a far rosier picture than the channel or channels that had bigger impact and visibility.
Concluding ProTip:
Often it’s the channels with the least or no dialogue (ex. Google Reviews, GlassDoor) that differ the most from channels with robust discussion from the same types of peers / stakeholders / audiences (ex. Reddit, forums). This is why Digital Ethnography as a methodology that prioritizes discovery and importance of channels FIRST is key.
There are many other kinds of data blind spots and we’ll tackle other types in future blogs.
by Dean Browell
Dean Browell leads Feedback’s research as resident PhD with a passion for how generations interact online and is the co-author of the book Don’t You Forget About Gen X: One Generation’s Crucial Role in Healthcare. A frequent speaker across many industries, Dean has also briefed data on military family quality of life to The White House. He is a co-founder of Hidden In Plain Site and on the boards of The Poe Museum and Firehouse Theatre. Dean teaches courses at VCU School of Business and University of Richmond’s Institute on Philanthropy.