We have finally come to the final installment of the roundtable critique of Jonathan Crow of ThinkFree’s Social Media Experiment. First of all, I want to thank Jonathan for the opportunity once again to participate and exchange thoughts with such a great group of communication smarties. Also, thanks to the late Marc Orchant for helping start put the band back together, and of course to Aaron Brazell for initiating the original roundtable. Let’s do it again, folks!

The final discussion centers on advice for feedback mechanisms. I focused on what can you do to get responses? I don;t think the answer is chained to social networking, but I hope you find it useful. The full question and my response are below. For the full post please go here to read everyone’s answers. Also, look back to Jonathan’s original post explaining how he began his experiment.

The premise:

Jonathan used several social networking sites to try to expand his business reach, and was curious what people think of his results, and his methods. To that end, he brought in fresh pairs of eyes:

• Chris Brogan
• Aaron Brazell
• Cathryn Hrudicka
• Brian Solis
• and me (Doug Haslam)

Question 5:
How can I build better mechanisms into the framework to increase feedback?

Doug Haslam
Feedback is the hardest part of social media and social networking (or any marketing campaign). One thing to remember is that the things you say (ok, your “messages”) get heard far beyond the folks who actually respond. A recent personal example: I posted some videos to my blog (and via Twitter, YouTube and Seesmic in my own little experiment) about my horrid commute (gratuitous link).* I got some comments, maybe a few more than usual, but not many. However, I found when I ran into people from my peer group a t a Boston Social Media Breakfast a few days later, almost everyone greeted me with “I saw your video.” So, message received; but how to call people to action? Here are my thoughts:

• Ask: did your outreach specifically ask people to do something? Go to a Web site? Answer a question? Provide advice? Begging can work as well (how did you get your Pownce beta invite?), but let’s not call it that.
• Offer: What do people get if they act? A free trial? A gift? Membership in a group? Think about what would motivate people to respond back. Let’s not go overly cynical and call this a bribe, but when I was in market research you could not get a survey completed, even with your own panel, without offering incentives for completed questionnaires. Sure, a nice outward message, a great product or service, and a stellar reputation helps, but sometimes people just want something.
• Give Value: Dialing back the cynicism and bribery theme a bit, let’s invoke the Golden Rule: treat others as you would like them to treat you. This goes back to participation, and becoming a part of the group you have joined or started. Do you answer the questions others pose? Do you check out there links and offer feedback? If you don’t, should you really expect others to do for you?

So, if you want something; ask, have something they want in return, and reciprocate (or “pre-reciprocate”). Plus, don’t forget all the people that didn’t respond. They’re probably not ignoring you.