Over the past few months, I have been debating the issue of how AR pros should use social media tools to enhance their analyst relations. Whilst it is clear that there is indeed a huge momentum of the use of blogs, twitter, wikis, facebook etc, what is unclear is whether it is AR’s job to be involved.
For example, does an analyst really want to be ‘friends’ with you or should the line be clearly drawn between what is an acceptable location for AR and analysts to interact? Indeed who’s job is it to comment or engage with analysts within social media? Is it the role of the senior execs or AR… or PR?
Another issue of course is content. Can AR use social media to influence analysts or at least understand what they are thinking? And what about when things go wrong – whilst it may be quite clear what the escalation path would be if a vendor disagrees with something that is written in a report – what process should we follow if we disagree a blog or a twitter post?
What is clear, is that there is a great deal of confusion about AR’s role within social media.
The next IIAR meeting hopes to address this and are delighted that social media experts Josh Bernoff (Forrester), Dale Vile (Freeform Dynamics) and Dean Bubley (Disruptive Analysis) will be joining the forum to take part in a moderated Q&A session to address these questions and more.
This panel session will conclude the next IIAR meeting (Institute of Industry Analyst Relations) that will be held between 3.45pm and 6.30pm on September 17 at Edelman’s offices in London. The first half of the meeting is only for AR pros with the objective to share best practice and elect new members to the board.
If you would like to attend, please either contact me or the IIAR’s secretary Hannah Kirkman.
Pingback: Are local analysts “untouched” and influential? « The IIAR Blog