intelligence into the organization to build unique customer ... social media monitoring in the following ways: .... the
CONTENTS 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14
Summary
2
Introduction
3
The Characteristics of Social Media Monitoring
4
The Practice of Social Media Monitoring
5
Operationalizing Social Media Insights
8
Brand Protection & Management
11
Competitive Intelligence & Customer Insights
13
Lead & Demond Generation
13
Future Needs Analysis
14
Actually listening or Waiting to Talk?
15
Exploration & Mon itori ng
15
Recommendation & Integration
17
Sources
18
About
19
Summary A question some companies currently fail to answer is; "how are you using the information gathered from monitoring? " Social media is enabling companies to bring new levels
of
3
Settle on what parts of social media monitoring can be-or indeed should beautomated by software, and what is necessary to acquire from experts.
intelligence into the organization to build unique
Ultimately, social media monitoring should not be seen as revolutionary - the desire to know value proposition. This white paper breaks through consumers' sentiment towards a product or brand the clutter to explain how you can benefit from has been within offline customer engagement
customer relationship and ultimately a stronger
social media monitoring in the following ways:
models for years. The internet and social media merely facilitates the consumers' expression
I
2
An overview of the different components and roadmaps involved in setting up a monitoring program Helping to understand the vast amount of conversations, structure information so it's meaningful, and how to use it for future messaging.
of this
sentiment and should equally be seen to empower you to discover it. Furthermore, this enables the brand to monitor, structure data and act on the conclusions from consumer-to-consumer dialogues.
2
introduction As socia l media continue to expa nd and simultaneously relocate the primary consumer discourses on market needs, products, services, brands , etc. to the on line pla~orm, it is becoming increasing ly pivotal that companies utilize social media pla~orms in new ways. Currently, compa nies' engagement and uti lizatio n of social
"A survey by Harvard Business Review shows 75% of companies do not know in which forums their most valuable customers are discussing their products and services."
media are, however, to a large degree still based
of commu nica tio n and remini scent of TV, magazines and
on a o ne way idea marketing that is
ObViously, some companies are further ahead
newspapers, wh ich does not capture the full
th an others, but socia l media and th e intrinsic
potential of social med ia . This approach to social
monitoring are on a general note on a one
media is mainly due to compan ies having
way street towards increased usage. The
difficulties in operatio na lizing a nd executing on the jou rney does, however, not end there as the insig hts and recommendatio ns they derive from
next step fo r compa nies is to operate in
their social media endeavors. On thi s note, it is
accordance to their social media experiences
interesting that a survey by Harvard Business
and the consumer insights they obtain from
Review shows 75%
of companies to
not know in
wh ich forum s th eir most va luable customers are discussing their products and services .
monitoring it. To thi s end, a missing link presently seems to exist between the investments in obtaining va luable business inSig hts fro m social media and improved performance. The present
By 2012, 10 of companies with emRloyees will be using social media 01
88 100+
23% currently use social media analYtics,
w hite paper assesses, ana lyzes, and concludes on the challenges and opportunities of social med ia mo nitoring, and proposes ways compan ies can operati ona lize inSights from socia l med ia on online and offlin e pla~orms to improve performance.
(this will undoubtedly rise swiftly in 2011)
3
The Characteristics of
Social Media Monitoring To understand the potential
of social
based on false information. The user may not
media
be dishonest on purpose; however, for reasons of interpretation it appears so.
monitoring and how to operationalize the insights it can deliver, it is imperative to have an understanding of the fundamental elements
of
social media. Needless to say, insights derived from social media monitoring cannot exceed the quality or reliability
of the
own experiences and not answering questions from presumptuous surveys.
information pool they
are based on. Hence, to obtain valuable insights from social media it is pivotal to understand what kind
3
Users are expressing and reprodUcing their
of information analysts and
4
of the
information sources within social media.
assessed, and possibly discarded in o rder to find relevant information .
marketers are
dealing with and the idiosyncrasies
There is "noise" that needs to be Iocacted,
As
of 201
1, Global Webindex reports that user
trust on social networks has increased by 49%
of
In this regard , the information derived from social
since July 2009, w hich is both an indication
media has specific characteristics:
user serenity and information quality. Meanwhile,
1 2
not all partiCipants' voices are raised o n social Social media depicts actual behavior. Conversations can be misleading as users' know ledge levels vary. Comments can be articulated incorrectly, be w holly untrue or
networks, which makes it imperative that brands assess how representative the information is in each scenario.
4
The Practice of
Social Media Monitoring The emergence
of social
media monitoring has
.•
Insights
given birth to discourse dominating phenomena like "Social Intelligence", "Social CRM", "Socia l listening" etc. These terms accentuate the importance
of not only gathering
...
information from
social media , but to interpret the findings and develop recommendations . To this end, a range
of
consultancies within the industry propose frameworks that roughly can be summarized as Figure 1.
• • •
The model is comprehensive and useful in depicting the numerous levels
of analysis
necessary for obtaining valuable social media insights, but it does not emphasize the iterative
of social media monitoring , address the dynamism of social media and the users, or how
aspects
RowDoto Figure I
brands execute on the derived recommendations. In this regard , it should be emphasized that to go from one level
of analysis to the
next is a complex
and time consuming process that includes adjustments
of search
keywords, filtering data,
complex analyses etc.
The need to go further than merely subscribing to automated tools is amplified by the fact that such tools only monitor "open" forums as they do not have access to "closed" forums gated by Iogins. This inability entails that brands will not include information from potentially essential forums in their monitoring efforts, which - depending on the
Hence, subscribing and employing social media monitoring tools (e.g. Radian6, lithium or Alterian) is a good start, but it should be kept in mind that it
importance
of content of these forums -
will skew
the relation between reality and the results from monitoring.
is challenging to effectively use these tools and secondly to convert the results from the tools into actiona ble recom mendations.
5
liThe widely available software and its relatively low costs have increased the ~ol of information the brands need to relate to, place even more pressure on marketers to filter market information." An increase in software vendors for social media
Since social media is no longer a question of
monitoring has caused a drop in costs, which is
"if", but a question
beneficial to brands looking to monitor social
challenge of brands is how to move forward
media, but monitoring is not just about collecting
on the platform with the tools available to
data from social media, e.g. setting up the
them. To this end, brands are finding insights
software for a comprehensive and accurate
from social media (mostly with aid from
monitoring is complex. Consequently, the Widely
consultancies), but continuously struggle to
available software and its relatively low costs
generate genuine business value on social
have increased the pool
of information
that
of
"how," the main
media platforms; demonstrating that brands
brands need to relate to, placing even more
are not utilizing the platform or
pressure on marketers to filter market information.
operationalizing the insights from social
The increase in information is arguably already
media. Accordingly, research by SAS Institute and
providing valuable insights to brands, but brands
HBR Analytics Services shows a wide range
are not exploiting social media data to a degree
pressing issues that are all centered on what value
that puts them in a position to achieve success
social media can deliver in regards to the brand's
within this specific area.
business objectives (Figure 2).
Understanding the potential of social media to make a difference in your business
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Measuring the effectiveness of socia I media activities
40SVo
Linking social media acitivies to an impact on company financials and/orROI I mproving your ability to fully utilize social media within the organization
of
31SVo
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Getting people across the organization to see the value of social media activities
28SVo
2SSVo
~--~==~~==~
Educating your staff on how to use social media Integrating social media analytics into your broader company analytics
• • •• • • 22SVO • • • •• • 19SVO
Leveraging social media insights across your organization Systemizing sharing of social media insights to they are quickly addressed by relevant department
~~======~====~
Responding to findings from social media (Le., quickly resolving/addressing an issue raised via social media)
Capturing/analyzing online conversations about your brand products/services
Figure 2
Finding qualified staff who can work on social media activies
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lSSVo
• • ••
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l
14SVo 13SVo
7
liThe main challenge of brands is how to move forward ... brands are finding insights from social media, but continuously struggle to generate business value on social media platforms."
Qperationalizing.
Social Media lnsights challengers
By comparing research, available services,
leaders
company executions etc. it becomes apparent that brands engage, monitor, and conclude on social media, i.e. do all the right things, but still have not performed in accordance to business objectives and expectations. This picture is confirmed by a screening by Gartner which shows that even social media CRM vendors are haVing difficulties in executing in a manner that influence markets
N"lelsen Buzz Metrics
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(Figure 3).
Furthermore, only 7%
~
•
of brands are able to
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integrate social media into their marketing activities; which indicates brands arguably are haVing difficulties in operationalizing recommendations. Thus, to brands, social media
niche players visionaries ' - - - - - - - completeness of vision - - - - - - - . . Rodm6WO$_;..dbt~;nl>;>
