????“休斯敦，我們來了一條微博?！睆募训脴罚℅atorade）到戴爾（Dell），再到各個重點大學，越來越多的跨國公司和機構正在耗資數百萬美元成立自己的社交媒體指揮中心。它們的任務就是通過Facebook、Twitter和其它渠道監控、回復社交網絡上的評論和咨詢。這種指揮中心里掛著成排的顯示屏和監控器，可以追蹤大量的實時狀態和指標，比如從Twitter上的“提及”，到消費者的總體情緒和社交媒體的市場份額。

????其中一些最好的社交媒體指揮中心甚至不遜于美國國家航空航天局（NASA）的指揮中心。比如據知名科技博客讀寫網（ReadWriteWeb）報道，戴爾的社交媒體控制中心位于德克薩斯州的圓石市，共有70名員工，監控著來自全球各地的社交網絡對話。這個團隊每天要用11種語言處理2.5萬起關于戴爾的社交媒體事件，并在24小時內回復大多數的咨詢和投訴。

????Altimeter集團的業務分析師沙琳?李近日在一篇文章中指出，雖說并不是每家公司都會在社交媒體上被人提起成千上萬次，但隨著社交媒體用戶越來越多，消費者對中型企業和品牌也提出了更高的要求。她說：“今天，66%的美國網民都在活躍地使用社交網絡，但只有16%的企業使用社交媒體與顧客進行交流。如果你標榜自己是一家以顧客為中心的企業，但在社交媒體渠道上卻忽略了顧客，那你純粹就是在吹牛?！?/p>

????隨著越來越多的消費者涌向社交媒體，加之許多企業都把Facebook和Twitter納入了自己的商業戰略體系，如今社交媒體控制中心正在成為大企業的標準配置。用來追蹤廣告投放效果和社區參與情況的應用以及進行危機管理的應用也層出不窮。佳得樂公司2010年率先探索了社交媒體指揮中心的理念。它在芝加哥總部設立了一個社交媒體指揮中心，內有6塊報告屏，5名員工。如今他們主要利用它分析產品接受情況，并在Twitter上把明星運動員介紹給自己的粉絲。今年早些時候，紅十字會（Red Cross）也成立了一家數字運營中心。該中心有3名員工，主要負責聯系自然災害的受災人群。它在社交網絡上發布的內容也多種多樣，從尋人啟示到新聞報道無所不包?？巳R門森大學（Clemson University）最近也成立了一家社交媒體監聽中心。這個中心有6塊顯示屏，主要任務是通過篩選社交網絡數據，研究如何更好地應對校園突發事件。

????社交媒體指揮中心熱背后反映的是目前存在的信息過量問題。有了社交網絡之后，企業獲取了空前大量的新分析方法、指標和用戶數據。但了解這些數據的含義卻是一個艱巨的挑戰。指揮中心分析的數以百萬計的龐大會話內容中不僅包括Facebook和Twitter上的內容，也包括視頻網站YouTube、商務社交網LinkedIn以及博客等。社交媒體的回復、推薦以及總體消費者情緒等數據的分析結果會以彩圖、圖表等幾十種不同的形式體現在掛在墻上的大屏幕上，因此分析團隊可以非常直觀地了解成千上萬用戶的社交趨勢。如果沒有社交媒體指揮中心的話，則可能要花數小時、甚至數天才能篩選出這些信息。

????Houston, we have a tweet. Growing numbers of global organizations -- from Gatorade to Dell and major universities -- are building multimillion-dollar mission control centers for social media: dedicated physical hubs for monitoring and responding to the torrent of social commentary and queries flooding in via Facebook, Twitter and other channels. Decked out with giant flat panel screens, sleek mood lighting and banks of monitors, the command centers track a dizzying array of real-time stats and indicators, from mentions on Twitter to general consumer sentiment and social media market share.

????The glitziest of the bunch would give NASA a run for its money. Dell's social media ground control and command center in Round Rock, Texas, has a total of 70 employees monitoring social conversations from around the globe, according to ReadWriteWeb. Scanning Facebook (FB), Twitter and other networks, the team processes 25,000 daily social media events about Dell (DELL) in 11 different languages, responding to most queries and complaints within 24 hours.

????While not every company is swamped with thousands of social media mentions, even mid-sized businesses and brands are facing increasingly daunting demands from social-savvy customers, says Altimeter business analyst Charlene Li in a recent post. "Today, 66% of online Americans are actively using social networking, but only 16% of companies use social media to engage with customers," Li says. "You cannot have credibility saying you are customer-centric if you ignore your customers in social media channels."

????With consumers flooding social media, and companies integrating Facebook and Twitter into business strategy, command centers are becoming standard equipment. Applications range from tracking ad campaigns and monitoring community engagement to handling crisis management. Gatorade pioneered the social command concept in 2010, deploying a mission control center in its Chicago headquarters with six reporting screens and space for five workers. Today, they use it to analyze product reception and connect followers with star athletes via Twitter. Earlier this year, the Red Cross launched a digital operations center staffed by three people to reach out to victims during natural disasters, with modules displaying everything from posts by people seeking family members to recent press coverage. And Clemson University recently developed a social listening center where students monitor a half-dozen screens, pooling data for, among other purposes, research on how to better respond to campus emergencies.

????Behind the sudden command center craze is a serious case of data overload. Social technologies have given companies access to an unprecedented flood of new analytics, metrics and user data. But making sense of it all has been a challenge. Underneath the hood, command centers are wired to analyze millions of social conversations from not just Facebook and Twitter, but YouTube (GOOG), LinkedIn (LNKD), blogs and more. Results are spit out onto wall-mounted screens customized with dozens of different modules -- colorful charts and graphs tracking everything from retweets and Facebook Likes to buzz in the blogosphere and overall consumer sentiment. At a glance, teams can take in social trends from thousands of users that would otherwise require hours, if not days, to sort through.