1. HOW TO HARNESS
THE POWER OF REAL-TIME
SOCIAL MEDIA INSIGHTS

2. HOW TO HARNESS THE POWER OF REAL-TIME SOCIAL MEDIA INSIGHTS | Developed and Produced by SMS Management & Technology 2
Introduction 3
Have you developed your social media strategy? 4
The power of real-time social insights 5
The biggest social media challenges 8
Social insights checklist 12
How to gather live insights 13
CONTENTS

3. 3
INTRODUCTION
Social media is part of everyday life for your
customers. With 2.3 billion active users
worldwide, there is no question that social
networks are an established part of the
modern media landscape. Amazingly 80%
of SME’s in Australia do not have a social
media strategy and 33% have a social media
presence1
, however if you lack a strategy
then you will find it difficult to measure
your investment.
1
Sensis Social Media Report May 2015
WHAT HAPPENS
IN AN INTERNET MINUTE?
2.78M
Video Views
20.8M+
Messages
701,389
Facebook
logins
69,444
Hours
watched
972,222
Swipes
2.4M
Search
queries
38,052
Hours of music
1.04M
Vine loops
38,194
Posts to
instagram
347,222
New Tweets
120+
New Linkedin
accounts
$203,596
In sales
$51,000
App downloads
from Apple
527,760
Photos shared
1,389
Uber rides
150M
Emails sent
60SECONDS
HOW TO HARNESS THE POWER OF REAL-TIME SOCIAL MEDIA INSIGHTS | Developed and Produced by SMS Management & Technology

4. HOW TO HARNESS THE POWER OF REAL-TIME SOCIAL MEDIA INSIGHTS | Developed and Produced by SMS Management & Technology 4
If the answer is no, you are missing out. With customers engaging on social 24 hours
a day, you have access to a valuable source of real-time insights that will inform your
understanding of your business and your customers. Social media is a living and
breathing entity that changes every second. Your organisation needs to be on top of
it if you want to reap real business benefits and engage customers.
HAVE YOU DEVELOPED YOUR
SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY?

5. THE POWER OF REAL-TIME SOCIAL INSIGHTS
YOUR CUSTOMERS ARE CENTRAL TO YOUR BUSINESS SUCCESS. PROMOTING YOUR BRAND ON SOCIAL
MEDIA PUTS YOU IN DIRECT CONTACT WITH YOUR BIGGEST FANS AND CRITICS. YOU NEED TO PLAN
WHAT MESSAGES YOU WANT TO PUBLISH AND BE PREPARED FOR THE INEVITABLE FEEDBACK BOTH
POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE.
HOW TO HARNESS THE POWER OF REAL-TIME SOCIAL MEDIA INSIGHTS | Developed and Produced by SMS Management & Technology 5
The increase in social media engagement can largely be
attributed to the increase in the adoption of smartphones
as consumers’ main digital device. Smartphones mean that
consumers can engage with social media at any given time
throughout the day: while waiting in line for a coffee or on
the treadmill at the gym. They’re constantly viewing, liking,
commenting, tweeting, and sharing content.
With so many customers engaging with your brand at any
given time, it’s important to monitor interactions in real time
so you can respond quickly. If someone tweets something
damaging to your brand, you want to know about it straight
away. Similarly, if an influencer shares glowing praise, live
insights will help you leverage their influence, while a quick
response will strengthen the relationship.
The brands with the most successful social media strategies
are building a community of active followers and engaging
in conversations. Whether your customers are spending
time on Facebook or LinkedIn, you need to constantly
monitor what they’re posting and engaging with. With the
right strategy in place, you can generate useful insights
about your customers, products and brand that have a real
impact on revenue. Here are some of the main benefits of
live social media monitoring:

6. HOW TO HARNESS THE POWER OF REAL-TIME SOCIAL MEDIA INSIGHTS | Developed and Produced by SMS Management & Technology 6
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
Customers are increasingly turning
to social networks to air frustrations,
make complaints or ask questions.
A Lithium Technologies survey
found that 78 per cent of people
who complain to a brand via Twitter
expect a response within an hour.
This kind of prompt reply is difficult if
you’re not monitoring in real-time. If
there’s a rush of customers making
similar complaints, live insights can
help you identify problems quickly
and immediately take action. This can
also point to issues with your other
customer service channels, which
will help you to improve the overall
customer experience.
IDENTIFY OPPORTUNITIES
By staying up-to-date with what your
customers are talking about, you
can identify opportunities to join the
conversation. Tracking feedback
trends will also identify potential
product improvements based on
how they’re being used. Monitoring
rival brands offers useful competitive
insights. Identifying a gap in the
conversation or tracking customer
perception of their products and
services will help you pinpoint
strategic opportunities for your
business.

7. HOW TO HARNESS THE POWER OF REAL-TIME SOCIAL MEDIA INSIGHTS | Developed and Produced by SMS Management & Technology 77
IMPROVE STRATEGIES
Social media also has a direct
impact on revenue. With customers
conducting their own research online
before making a purchasing decision,
social media pages can play a big role
in positioning your brand. Sensis found
that 41 per cent of consumers inspect a
brand’s social media presence before
making an online purchase. Gathering
insights from the type of content your
followers interact with will help improve
your company’s social strategy,
boosting the customer’s perception of
your business.
“With customers engaging on
social 24 hours a day, you have
access to a valuable source of
real-time insights that will inform your
understanding of your business and
your customers. Your organisation
needs to be on top of it if you want
to reap real business benefits and
engage customers.”

8. 8
THE BIGGEST SOCIAL MEDIA CHALLENGES
GATHERING REAL-TIME INSIGHTS FROM SOCIAL MEDIA CAN BE CHALLENGING, ESPECIALLY IF YOU
HAVE LIMITED RESOURCES OR LITTLE EXPERIENCE WITH ONLINE COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT. FIGURING
OUT HOW TO DEAL WITH THESE CHALLENGES IS THE FIRST STEP WHEN CONSIDERING A MORE ACTIVE
SOCIAL MEDIA APPROACH:
HOW TO HARNESS THE POWER OF REAL-TIME SOCIAL MEDIA INSIGHTS | Developed and Produced by SMS Management & Technology

9. HOW TO HARNESS THE POWER OF REAL-TIME SOCIAL MEDIA INSIGHTS | Developed and Produced by SMS Management & Technology 9
MANAGING
OVERWHELMING VOLUME
The sheer volume of content being
shared on social networks can be
overwhelming. With more than
30 million messages posted on
Facebook every minute, how can
you zero in on the ones that are
most important for your business?
Having a clear understanding of what
insights you’re looking for will help
you skip to the most relevant content.
Notifications for particular influencers
or keyword alerts will also help you
monitor in real-time without scrolling
endlessly through feeds.
BEING CONSTANTLY
RESPONSIVE
Social media is constantly updating,
so staying on top of it at all times
is almost impossible. At the same
time, you need to be across any
major events so you can respond
quickly. If your company receives
an avalanche of complaints over
a weekend, but there is nobody
monitoring your accounts until
Monday morning, customers will be
even more frustrated by your slow
response. You need clearly defined
policies about monitoring social
channels outside of business hours.

10. HOW TO HARNESS THE POWER OF REAL-TIME SOCIAL MEDIA INSIGHTS | Developed and Produced by SMS Management & Technology 10
HAVING CLEAR
OWNERSHIP ON POLICIES
Without clear escalation policies
or defined roles, your social media
accounts can quickly get out of
hand. Responding to issues quickly
is critical but you also don’t want
to make matters worse with a reply
that positions your business in a
bad light. When joining real-time
conversations, it’s important to have
clear direction on style and tone,
so you don’t have a fragmented
approach when different employees
are managing your accounts.
PROVIDING SUFFICIENT
RESOURCES
To generate insights and engage
customers in real-time, you need to
have enough resources to monitor,
respond to customers and schedule
content, otherwise your team will
find themselves working on social
around the clock. It’s a good idea
to have extra staff trained on your
strategy so they can respond to
comments in the event of an issue,
or monitor trends and responses
during a particularly busy time like
an event or launch.

11. KEEPING UP WITH
VISUAL CONTENT
Monitoring trending hashtags or
comments is one thing, but social
media is increasingly focused on
visuals with the rise of Instagram and
Pinterest. Tracking visual content is
much more time-consuming because
you need to watch videos in full
and look closely at images to make
sure your brand isn’t associated with
anything inappropriate.
“To generate insights and engage
customers in real-time, you need
to have enough resources to
monitor, respond to customers
and schedule content. Without
sufficient resources, your team
will find themselves working on
social around the clock.”
HOW TO HARNESS THE POWER OF REAL-TIME SOCIAL MEDIA INSIGHTS | Developed and Produced by SMS Management & Technology 11

12. HOW TO HARNESS THE POWER OF REAL-TIME SOCIAL MEDIA INSIGHTS | Developed and Produced by SMS Management & Technology 12
SOCIAL INSIGHTS CHECKLIST
MARKET RESEARCH
Gather information about your target
audience
Identify trending topics in your industry
Keep an eye on changes or industry shifts
BRAND MONITORING
Identify people talking about your brand
Monitor engagement with your content
Track common topics of interest or issues
CUSTOMER SENTIMENT
What is the tone and sentiment of people
discussing your brand?
Identify positive and negative themes
Look for people talking to you, as well as
about you
COMPETITIVE RESEARCH
Monitor the social media activity of competitors
Track what consumers are saying about them
What content are their followers engaging with?
AUDIENCE SEGMENTS
Segment your audience by demographics
like industry, location or job function
What is the sentiment across these different
segments?
Identify the topics that are trending within
each group
INFLUENCER CONTENT
What content are relevant influencers sharing?
Look for content you can leverage or share
Keep an eye out for influencers mentioning
your brand
GEOGRAPHIC TRENDS
Track the customer issues experienced
in different locations
What content is trending in different regions?
Look out for local events or news that you
can leverage
THE FIRST STEP TO GATHERING
REAL-TIME INSIGHTS IS TO DECIDE
WHAT YOU WANT TO MONITOR.
THIS WILL DEPEND ON YOUR
OVERALL BUSINESS GOALS, BUT
SOCIAL MEDIA CAN PROVIDE
YOU WITH ALL KINDS OF INSIGHTS,
FROM MARKET TRENDS TO
INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR TARGET
AUDIENCE AND COMPETITORS.
HERE’S A CHECKLIST OF SOME
OF THE MOST IMPORTANT
THINGS TO MONITOR, TO HELP
GET YOU STARTED.

13. 13
HOW TO GATHER LIVE INSIGHTS
THE TECHNIQUES YOU USE TO MONITOR SOCIAL MEDIA IN REAL-TIME WILL DEPEND ON YOUR BUDGET,
RESOURCES AND DESIRED OUTCOMES. THE KEY IS TO FIND METHODS THAT INTEGRATE INTO YOUR DAY-
TO-DAY BUSINESS PROCESSES AND CAN BE MANAGED WITHOUT CONSUMING TOO MUCH OF YOUR TIME.
HERE ARE SIX SIMPLE SUGGESTIONS TO GET YOU STARTED:
HOW TO HARNESS THE POWER OF REAL-TIME SOCIAL MEDIA INSIGHTS | Developed and Produced by SMS Management & Technology

14. HOW TO HARNESS THE POWER OF REAL-TIME SOCIAL MEDIA INSIGHTS | Developed and Produced by SMS Management & Technology 14
MONITOR HASHTAGS
An easy way to monitor social media
is by monitoring relevant hashtags.
In particular, users on Twitter and
Instagram make use of hashtags
to help people to find their content
or provide their posts with context.
These can vary from serious topics
to tongue-in-cheek captions. Monitor
those relevant to your business, such
as industry topics or an official event
hashtag. Looking at all the content
shared with a hashtag will help you
identify trending attitudes or discover
relevant posts.
BRAND MENTIONS
Set up alerts so that you’re notified
whenever anyone mentions your
social media handle, hashtags your
brand name or uses the name of
your business in a post. This will
allow you to see what people are
saying about you, even if they’re
not speaking directly to you. It’s not
always appropriate to join these
conversations, but it helps to gauge
perception of your brand or pinpoint
common customer issues.
If someone does tag your brand,
real-time alerts mean you can
respond straight away.

15. HOW TO HARNESS THE POWER OF REAL-TIME SOCIAL MEDIA INSIGHTS | Developed and Produced by SMS Management & Technology 15
EMPLOYEE MENTIONS
Some members of your company will have a prominent public profile or strong personal brand.
Monitor social networks for mentions of these employees so you can share any relevant content that
positions them as thought leaders. Employees with strong social media networks can also help you
to extend your reach, so follow their activity for opportunities to leverage content. Track mentions of
prominent staff, like your CEO, to stay informed of any negative remarks from the public.
Mention and hashtag monitoring tools:
++ To track mentions of your brand, employees or topics of interest across the web, Google Alerts
is a free tool which will send you updates for every mention or a regular summary.
++ Social scheduling tool Hootsuite will provide you with a live stream of any posts including
a particular keyword or hashtag, such as your brand name.
++ More comprehensive tools such as NUVI and Heartbeat also provide extensive keyword
and hashtag analytics in a live, user-friendly dashboard, as well as mobile alerts.

16. HOW TO HARNESS THE POWER OF REAL-TIME SOCIAL MEDIA INSIGHTS | Developed and Produced by SMS Management & Technology 16
INFLUENCER MONITORING
Identify relevant influencers for your business – these are likely to be people within your industry
with huge social networks, high-profile bloggers or online personalities who receive media attention.
Monitoring the content influencers are producing can help to identify industry trends, as well as the
content your customers are likely to be interested in. By tracking it in real-time you will quickly discover
opportunities to join in or share posts with the hope of reaching a wider audience.
Influencer monitoring tools:
++ Klout provides people or brands with a social influence score between 1-100, based on the
engagement, response and discussion they generate across their social platforms.
++ Buzzsumo will allow you to search for key influencers in a topic area or location and filter lists by
authority, reach, engagement and more.
++ Followerwonk will help you connect with new influencers in your industry. You can also compare
influencers to determine who is most relevant for your specific content.

17. HOW TO HARNESS THE POWER OF REAL-TIME SOCIAL MEDIA INSIGHTS | Developed and Produced by SMS Management & Technology 17
LOCATION ACTIVITY
Track social content being produced
from a certain location. This is
particularly useful if you have a
physical store or are hosting an event.
You can keep an eye on relevant
posts from a particular location, even
if they don’t use your brand name or
hashtag. This will allow you to identify
instances of poor customer service,
uncover new opportunities and
monitor event-related posts.
Location activity tools:
++ NUVI includes a unique tool that
allows you to pinpoint social
media posts on a map, enabling
you to determine where brand
mentions or complaints are
predominantly situated.
++ This tool will also allow you to
define a very specific location,
such as an event venue or
postcode, so you can monitor
and engage with posts from
a particular place in real-time.

18. HOW TO REMOVE BARRIERS TO INNOVATION WITH THE CLOUD | Developed and Produced by SMS Management & Technology 18
REAL-TIME DASHBOARD
The best way to actively listen to conversations and monitor insights is by setting up a real-time
dashboard. There are many dashboard tools available with comparative functionality, whichever option
you select make sure all of your major platforms and metrics are included. With a dashboard updating in
real-time, your team can look in one place to measure sentiments, trends, alerts and activity on your own
posts. This reduces the resources needed to look at multiple channels and allows you to respond quickly.
Real-time dashboard tools:
++ Dashboard tools such as NUVI and Heartbeat present live social media data in easy to
understand visualisations.
++ NUVI provides real-time monitoring of competitor mentions, positive or negative sentiment trends
and live updates on your reach and engagement.
++ Heartbeat will display mentions from 189 countries and make sense of posts in 186 languages.
You can also tag specific conversations for easy monitoring or analysis.
++ Radian6 extends monitoring beyond social media to listen to blogs, news and more.
This means you can leverage content on social in real-time, or respond to issues in the media.

19. ABOUT SMS
A leader in advisory, solutions and managed services, SMS cultivates innovation, digital,
mobile and design-led business and technology capability to empower organisations
across all industry sectors. With over 1700 staff across Asia Pacific, SMS promotes and
delivers next-generation customer-centric outcomes for our clients.
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