When I was reading up on the latest social media news that has hit the web I came across this new start-up company called "HearSay Social." At first I thought it was yet another social network that was trying to set itself apart from all the other ones that are striving for stardom. Instead this was a sidekick for companies looking to utilize Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to market themselves. According to Tomio Geron of Forbes blog.com HearSay has helped raise 18 million dollars for local social media management. What hearsay does according to Geron is they help companies such as State Farm who are global local based organizations. For example there are many state farm insurance agents in every city or town around the country. Hearsay provides tools for national media managers to pass on to local media mangers for state farm. The whole point of Hearsay Social is to cut down on the amount of time it takes for media managers to check the content that is posted by users visiting their various social network outlets such as twitter and facebook. No one has enough time to go down every minute of every hour scouring for negative and outlandish remarks that can diminish the companies reputation in a heartbeat.
I think this is a good and bad idea. Yes we should be allowed to have the ability to micro manage what is left on our social media websites. However there is one thing to filter and there is another to censor information. Perhaps there is true information that someone wanted to be a watch dog for the good of the public. Following the outcry the company eliminates the source by simply deleting the comment. Is that fair to the general public who help keep these companies alive? I don't think many people would find this to be fair at all. Now say someone is being a "troll"(When I say troll I am referring to someone who constantly is posting false and misleading information to sabotage a companies reputation) and they are filtered out due to false information. This is the only concern I have for Hearsay as it will do great things for companies that want to clean out any of this terrible misleading information.
I look forward to hearing more about this new start-up company and I hope they take this in the direction I think they should. Until next time take care everyone.
I think that the idea of the company "HearSay Social" is an interesting one; however, it is going on the constant debate on when it is censoring and when something should be allowed. I think that the people in HearSay are walking a thin line because the truth is that some comments may be negative but they have to be heard. I think it is extremely hard for a company to have only positive comments, in fact, I think it is impossible. I also believe that a company should be strong enough to handle the negative comments, listen to them and use them to help their company. I think that HearSay will definitely work if they are helping eliminate comment that are untrue and are only trying to hurt the company but they will have a tough job discerning between the comments that are true, and those that are made up. All in all, I think that HearSay has taken a job that is both hard and rewarding and I hope they are able to discern between comments without censoring the public.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's ever a good idea to censor user comments for posts on the internet. Even with blogs that require user comments to be approved by the author before they will show up is too strict. When users participate in a conversation, they expect their messages to be seen as soon as they submit it. To implement any sort of censorship or adding an extra hoop that they have to jump through will only discourage conversation. However, I do think it's a good idea to make sure posts by agents who work for the organization are moderated so mistakes on their part won't compromise the organization or cause a PR crisis.
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