Key take-out:How we as marketers, PR professionals (and whoever else we have onboard) can use social media monitoring to inform our marketing strategies, improve product development and manage our brand reputations.
People are talking about your brand right this second...
They could be “liking it” “digging it” “Googling it” “Yahooing it” or “Tweeting it”. Words we hadn’t even heard of 10 years now represent things we couldn’t live without. What did we do before we Googled it? And for brands and marketers this is more important than ever. It changes the traditional approach we took to target our consumers. Now they target us...anywhere, anytime.
Whether your a big brand or a small brand social media doesn’t discriminate. You will be talked about regardless.
Discuss the recent details between search companies and social networks
This is just to highlight to those people who haven’t seen how Google has integrated Twitter to see what it looks like.
- This only highlights just how much social Media is giving consumers a voice – causing brands to take responsibility!
We will now look at the steps to setting up social media monitoring to draw intelligence
The first step to uncovering insight is to stop and listen. But its not just about listening. Having an alert service that pulls through a feed of results is good but its difficult to really to anything with it. You need to be able to analyse the data in order to draw proper insight.
With Alterian SM2 the data goes back 3 years. By end of this year Alterian anticipate the data warehouses will at least double due to a new deal with platforms such as Facebook which will allow access to more information. The reach is huge and so is the opportunity.
Monitoring tools such as Alterian SM2 make listening and the process of uncovering insight and drawing analysis much more automated than DIY tools.
Then you need to prepare for engagement with your audience in the Social Media space. Identify influencers, manage issues before they go viral etc. If theres people talking about you in Twitter set up a channel...same goes for YouTube...find opportunities for your brand to engage online.
Once you have tapped into the right conversations you unlock the 3rd dimension of customer insight. You can use the social intelligence to gain valuable customer feedback on new or existing products (as was the case with Kraft!), you can manage your reputation and potentially see crisis before it comes to the surface e.g. Mainstream news headlines and you can use it to get new sales leads. These are just some of the ways our clients are using the tool.
Not just a listening tool its an analysis and insights tool. I have chosen the launch of isnack 2.0 to help illustrate some of the features and functionality of the tool.
Monitor the daily volume of search results to view when the peaks and troughs of activity occur. In the case of isnack 2.0 we can clearly see the huge spike of conversation that occurred when isnack launched. But interestingly the interest in social spheres hasn’t maintained over time.
You can break it down by media source so you can see where the conversation is taking place. In this instance it isn’t a surprise to see that microblogs/ twitter are the most popular area for discussion.
You can also create categories and then compare these categories against each other. In the example of isnack 2.0 I created a category for isnack which was the early campaign naming competition, isnack which was the chosen name and caused the most controversy and then the decision to move to cheesybite. We can see that although it caused a massive without it there would have been next to no discussion!You could also use the feature to compare competitors against your own brand
Snap shot of the key themes...you can see the standard brand related terms which we would expect but look a little deeper and you start seeing some interesting things emerge....Fat, Weight, Lose, Eat....people are obviously slightly concerned about the nutritional benefits of the spread. This is a good customer insight and if Kraft could debunk this or at least bring out a light version of the product then that’s drawing from a customer insight.
Drill down into the top domains to see exactly where you are being discussed and pinpoint potential media opportunities. In the example of isnack we can see that there were lots of conversations on weightloss forums and also on new mum or mum to be forums such as Bub Hub. This further highlights the insight I showed on the previous slide about weight being a key theme.
Delve down even further to see more information about the conversations. Bub Hub even ran a poll which we picked up...what better way to gain customer insight? And you didn’t even have to pay for it!
Look even further to see user comments...
To determine the sex the tool uses a dictionary of common male and female names...age based on what people publicly put on social profiles...
Sentiment shows you what the tone of conversations in relation to your brand or product were. In the case of isnack 2.0 we can see a mixed sentiment with a key towards negative
Edit results, view full details, mark as spam...view the popularity of the contributor
This is your chance to identify potential brand influencers and monitor them ongoing...what is driving the sentiment of this result? As we can see from this author he is Australian based
Click down into the analysis even further to review the users bio, see there blog and find out their popularity ranking.
Use the workflow interface to assign results to team members to follow up. Great for following up on customer service enquiries.
Use these keywords to gain an understanding of how customers are referencing your brand or organisation or products. They may be calling it something you didn’t even realise...”vegefail?!”You can also use these words to information your SEO or SEM strategies...remember these are the terms peop0le will use when they are searching for you.
See the spread of conversation from a global perspective. Click on the green pins to see exactly how many conversations are taking place in certain areas.
Summary of what Kraft may have learned. Please note the Kraft example was used because it was a good example of an issue that erupted in social channels and it was a good way to illustrate some of the features of Alterian SM2.