1. The Four C’s
Of Social Media For
The C-Suite
How Social Intelligence
Is Helping Provide Clarity For
The C-Suite Around The Critical
Factors Of
Confidence,
Customers,
Connections &
Cash

2. “Social Intelligence is
Finding Intelligence In The Social Explosion the concept of turning
Social media is becoming the executive equivalent to catching customer actions across the social web and
social media data into
lightning in a bottle. It has quickly gone from the ultimate focus aim to boil it down to actionable insight,” he actionable marketing and
group and brand popularity contest to a very serious digital said. Marketers trying to do this alone will spend business strategy.”
marketing platform. As it does, it has bubbled up from a quirky, countless hours digging through spam-filled - As defined by Forrester Research
unpredictable experiment to a measurable customer lab. search results.
As this phenomenon moves to an even more intense level, it That report from Forrester Research validated
needs the attention of savvy and digitally sophisticated C-level the concept of social intelligence. Originally
executives. When it gets that attention, executives will need to called “Defining Social Intelligence,” Hofer-Shall is working on
have confidence in their social media campaign plan, metrics an update. As he begins his research he wrote toward the end
around customer engagement, and connections to automated of March 2012, “It’s been two years since our first public use of
technology to consistently analyze and measure their efforts. ‘social intelligence,’ yet I still see many companies monitoring
social media, some listening to customer conversations, and
Traditional measurement methodology makes the social media
few beginning to find intelligence in the data they collect. As a
data explosion useless for the C-suite. However, new technology is
result, I’m currently working on a report addressing a social data
helping smart companies understand what’s happening on social
maturity model.”
media. This new discipline is called social intelligence. According to
Forrester Research, it is “the concept of turning social media data into His original research called out the following specific advantages to
actionable marketing and business strategy.” On a more tactical level, automating social intelligence measurement:
social intelligence is providing a process and strategy for companies to
1. Optimizing marketing and product planning
evaluate and generate actionable insight about their own brands and
services, as well as their competitors. 2. Understanding purchase triggers
Forrester analyst Zach Hofer-Shall urged marketers to take 3. Assessing the competition
advantage of social media monitoring tools and listening
platforms: “These solutions help speed up the process of tracking
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3. Social networking now
Turning “Big Data” Into The Right Data accounts for 19% of all
Social data maturity cannot wait for analyst pushes or Exactly what is “big data?” IT analyst site time spent online, a major
anything less than an automated intelligent approach. You’ve Wikibon says: “Big data is data that is too difference from a mere 6%
undoubtedly seen the staggering social numbers. More than large to process using traditional methods. back in March of 2007.
300 million tweets per day. 800 million Facebook users. Map It originated with web search companies
- comScore December 2011
it to consumer behavior and the numbers are even more (that) had the problem of querying very
impressive. A December 2011 report from comScore says social large distributed aggregations of loosely-
networking now accounts for 19% of all time spent online, a structured data.”
major difference from a mere 6% back in March of 2007. This
That’s what social media has become. It is
continual spike in consumer social behavior, as well as the
simply too big and growing too quickly to process by traditional
amount of data generated by almost every purchase and
methods. A report from global research house Connotate shows
non-transactional element of daily activity, has created the
that more than half of companies surveyed have used big data
concept and reality of “big data.”
to better understand either competitors or their own brand (60%
and 52%, respectively). Companies also looked at big data
for marketing-related strategy, such as product and pricing
information (40%), or revenue-generating data services (39%). This
syncs up exactly with the way that social media and its data can
help today’s CMO. Social data is a challenge. Social intelligence is
the best way to meet that challenge.
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4. A recent IBM survey of
1,700 global CMOs found
that more than 50% of
The C-Suite Connection respondents think they are
underprepared to manage
Although the potential of social media and big data is becoming the data explosion (59%) and
clear to C-suite executives, there is still apprehension around
social media (57%).
managing it. A recent IBM survey of 1,700 global CMOs found that
more than 50% of respondents think they are underprepared to
manage the data explosion (59%) and social media (57%).
CASE IN POINT: Large Automobile Manufacturer
This data shows a huge gap between the opportunity and the
Taps Social Sentiment For Purchase Intent
ability to execute on social data and customer behavior. C-level
executives do not have to be daunted by social media. Almost A large automobile manufacturer illustrated the potential for social intelligence
50 million messages can be measured in real-time, similar to the surrounding customers. It used rudimentary tools to see how often people
analytics available from retail and Internet traffic behavior. This mentioned their brand in social media conversations, and to detect the sentiment
real-time nature of gathering and disseminating social intelligence of these conversations. But the data lacked true intelligence. Leveraging social
bridges the gap. It is one of the leading-edge technologies that media analytics technology, the company was able to drill down into that
can develop the confidence in this new data opportunity and use sentiment. Why did people feel positively about their brand? Why did they have
it as a key element for executive decision-making. negative feelings?
The automobile manufacturer tried to convey this idea through its communication
and marketing, but it found more varied ways that customers were expressing it. If
somebody says, “I feel like a 15-year-old driving in my car,” or “Taking my wife out
on a date in this car makes me feel young again,” that’s the idea the company
wants to promote. Traditional measurement won’t produce these results. The
report also shows how the brand can capture something critical, like intention
to purchase. When you look at the range of insights here, you can see why an
understanding that people feel positively about your product isn’t enough. It’s
much deeper than that.
4

5. The Four C’s
In order to manage, analyze and measure social media — and
recent case studies show that this can be done — today’s C-level
executive needs to focus on four areas:
1. Confidence: Because social media 3. Connections: Measurement connects
cannot be measured with traditional to results. The right technology can connect
methods or tools, new processes and to better brand awareness, higher sales and
technologies must be embraced in order to stronger customer relationships. The right
provide the C-suite with the confidence that measurement tools can track specific topics,
the marketing programs and product rollouts they are banking graph daily mentions, produce averages, conduct sentiment
on are resonating with customers. Without confidence, analysis and other types of data mining. It should also create
experimentation and the chance for inefficiency are greater. automatic alerts for unusual or increased activity. It should
With a comprehensive understanding of consumer opinions, connect a company’s total effort with consumer perception
brand sentiment and competitive set information, confidence and behavior.
in social media measurement can be reliably developed.
4. Cash. Revenue. Capital: Call it
2. Customers: Customer intelligence has what you want, but at the C-level, decisions
graduated to social intelligence. Smart are based on revenue.
C-level executives need to move away from
the chaos of social media data and toward
gleaning customer intelligence in real time.
5

6. The Confidence Quotient
C-level executives, as we’ve seen in the IBM report, lack interested in creative projects, such as cooking, painting or
confidence in managing big data and social media. Which begs making videos. On the other hand, those with health concerns
the issue, how do they become confident? Two key answers come seemed most interested in sharing personal stories. Overall, the
up time and time again: social intelligence gathering generated valuable customer insights
about the brand and helped executives make new decisions for
1. Develop brand monitoring
repositioning it.
2. Develop insightful decision making
For example, Microsoft recently measured usage and consumer Click to Download
perception to refine the brand positioning for its Bing search the full Microsoft
Bing
platform. Despite the expertise inherent in its product and Customer Succes
s Story
company, Bing was unable to quickly sort through and make
sense of the information it had collected. It couldn’t identify
customer affinity, customer problems or overall sentiment about
the brand. After analyzing one month of online conversations,
Microsoft Bing had insights regarding where online conversations
take place, drivers and behaviors for key segments, and who
influences the online conversation. Once conversations were
analyzed on both blogs and forums, Microsoft was able to identify
the top 20 forums for each of the two key audience segments. With a goal of targeting specific interest groups,
Bing needed a clear understanding of each
The analysis yielded a surprising result. The target segments viewed group’s needs and habits. While the company
actively harnesses social-media channels in its
the online channel as a preferred way to share their thoughts marketing efforts, it needed a way to better
and experiences rather than to find answers to their questions. manage the flow of online conversation.
For instance, feedback dominated the conversations of those
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7. The executive that has $20
Drilling Down For Deeper Confidence million riding on a major
Two key elements defined the Bing experience and will also be Social interactions shift and create sentiment in
product launch needs an
critical for C-level executives as they proceed in social media: real-time. Data is generated at an astonishing up-to-the minute, fact-
rate in real-time. Twitter currently generates 300 based pulse of the target
Brand monitoring and analysis: The way in
million messages a day. Facebook numbers in consumer. It’s available. It’s
which C-level executives measure their product and service
excess of 800 million users, at least half of which a confidence essential.
performance has changed with social media. Brand lift studies are
log on each and every day and often multiple
good at past performance, but don’t predict very well. Whether
times per day. Those same users interact with
or not consumers “like” or follow your brand is also becoming more
over 900 million pieces of content: pages,
suspect as a metric. When the CMO Council asked Facebook
groups, events and more. Every day, over 250 million photos are
users in Q4 2011 about their expectations after “liking” a brand
uploaded. Traditional measurement methods will not capture the
on Facebook, the top expectation (67%) was to be “eligible for
“big data” element of social media.
exclusive offers.” The smart C-level executive will look at new
methods of monitoring the mass or “big data” generated socially.
New technologies are able to rapidly monitor hundreds of millions
of news and social media posts. That’s a new method and a new
scale. Both are necessary to proceed with confidence.
Decision-making: C-level executives make million dollar
decisions every day and are accountable for them. Social
intelligence can help predict the success of these decisions by
measuring consumer attitude and potential brand affinity. But
you can’t do it through current analytics. The executive that has
$20 million riding on a major product launch needs an up-to-the
minute, fact-based pulse of the target consumer. It’s available. It’s
a confidence essential.
7

8. “Businesses can be forgiven
Putting Customer for getting swept away by
Intelligence To Work Connections To Conversions the hype of surrounding
Before social media, “customer intelligence” was the term used The ability to generate and measure social social media and wanting to
for the limited amount of information generated by purchase
intelligence connects to results. Traditional invest in such activity as soon
behavior and surveys. Now it’s part of “big data.” An intelligent
analytics, including semantic search and as possible. ... But results
keyword monitoring, will not connect efficiently
approach to big data is stepping up your ability to collect and show that those businesses
to social data. It will not manage big data. New
act on the right data. Enter “social intelligence.”
social measurement technology will translate
tempted to lead with such
Social intelligence, the information that can lead to insight on the the sarcasm or irrelevant semantics that can techniques will quickly find
C-suite, is a relatively new concept. But it is essential to learn. A pollute social media results. It can provide themselves out of step with
Pitney Bowes-sponsored survey from November 2011 showed only
a scalable, repeatable approach as social customer thinking.”
media spins into a new orbit of growth.
15% of those responding said social media would encourage their - Pitney Bowes 2011 Survey
loyalty to a company. However, it concluded: Early success stories and use cases have
shown that gathering and implementing social
“These findings will give decision-makers pause for thought,” the
intelligence will happen in three phases:
report stated. “Businesses can be forgiven for getting swept away
by the hype of surrounding social media and wanting to invest Phase One: Audit and assess. Traditional “buzz” marketing
in such activity as soon as possible. ... But results show that those measurement tools will not achieve the depth of sentiment
businesses tempted to lead with such techniques will quickly find needed to make intelligent branding decisions. A realistic
themselves out of step with customer thinking.” assessment of what a brand has for social data, and what
it doesn’t have, must precede any measurement initiative.
Analyzing statistical patterns used to express opinions delivers
insight beyond a simple “positive” or “negative.” Real time market
research delivers this immediately. The timing of current social
media measurement should also drive new measurement. The
speed of analytics and the depth of consumer insights are the
most relevant metrics in social intelligence measurement.
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9. Phase Two: Identify sources and outputs. After assessing the Phase Three: Act on insights. All the analysis and intelligence
current state of social media intelligence, brands will need to assess available is useless without a change in business practices.
technology platforms. Going beyond the ability to automate Just as Bing reached out to more conversations, brands
social intelligence, the elements that need to be considered in this need to put learnings into action. It should inform marketing
phase are features, functionality and benefits. Features from the first campaign strategy and messaging. It could change entire
generation of “buzz” measurement tools should be improved upon media approaches. It could change an approach to customer
in favor of newer platforms with more robust analysis capabilities. segmentation. But the ever-changing social media world should
generate enough insight about the most influential individuals
Examples:
regarding your brand, category or topic to rapidly create a
• The volume of social media mentions is generally not as smarter company that’s more aligned with its customer.
impactful as the meaning of the conversation.
• Keyword counting should be replaced by statistical analysis.
Click to Download
the Webinar “How
• Language limitations should be considered when global to Move from Soci
Monitoring to Soci al
analysis is desired. al Intelligence”
• Accuracy of the social media analysis should be high enough
to support strategic business decision-making.
A truly futuristic, intelligent platform dashboard should graph daily
mentions, produce averages, conduct sentiment analysis and
measure progress against campaign goals. It should also identify Uncover key challenges marketers face in today’­ rapidly
s
what’s driving negative sentiment to keep track of issue resolution evolving social media marketplace, including:
or escalation. • Business challenges that can stem from first-generation
social media monitoring practices
• Weaknesses of only measuring in reactive ‘what-
happened?’ mode
• Differences between basic brand monitoring and true
Social Intelligence practices
9

10. When consumers were
Converting Intelligence By executing a social intelligence program,
companies will understand the following things
exposed to social media
in addition to other online
Into Cash about their customers, marketing and positioning.
ad formats or marketing
• It will monitor and manage
A recent study found that when consumers were exposed to channels, such as search,
reputation, crisis management and
social media in addition to other online ad formats or marketing email and display, the
consumer sentiment.
channels, such as search, email and display, the average revenue
average revenue per
per order was more than double the order size compared to the
• It will add more data to pre- and post- order was more than
average of all digital channels.
campaign tracking efforts. double the order size
How will a company act smarter as a result of social intelligence? compared to the average
• It will understand the effect or lack of all digital channels.
thereof from brand positioning.
• It will more effectively track and
make changes for product and
service satisfaction.
• It will make fact-based and consumer-sentiment-based
decisions around pricing.
• It will generate more data around best practices for
new product introductions.
• It will quickly produce deep insight into market trends.
• It will provide better competitive intelligence.
10

11. The right social media
Cashing In On Million Dollar Decisions measurement model will
analyze social media
For C-level executives, social media takes the conversation The right social media measurement model
conversations to answer
with the customer and turns it into a near real-time focus group. informs those million dollar decisions. It will
important business
Marketers have always spent money to support that conversation, analyze social media conversations to answer
questions and reveal
but all too often it has been a monologue. In fact, that’s where TV important business questions and reveal
actionable insights about
advertising started: by talking to — and not with — the customer. actionable insights about your brand, your
your brand, your consumers
consumers and your competition. The current
Social intelligence informs important business questions and and your competition.
state-of-the-art in social media analysis tools
reveals actionable answers about your brand, consumers,
give brands the ability to learn from both the
messaging and competition. The ROI for such insight is so valuable
context and the tone of those conversations.
that it is actually hard to calculate. Bottom line: Social media can
inform multi-million dollar decisions.
Click to View an Ov
erview Video
from Crimson Hex
agon
Achieving Social Intelligence:
Best-in-Class Social Media Analysis with the
Crimson Hexagon ForSight™ Platform
11

12. “Social media will be the
Conclusion: Clarity For The C-Suite main engine of discovery,
giving us the ability to find
the signal within the noise.
Confidence, customers, connections and cash. Without those four elements, C-level executives don’t
have a business. With them, they have the essentials for managing “big data” and the biggest drive
As people’s networks and
behind it: social media. And it’s not slowing down for any executive to catch up with it. As YouTube co- interactions expand, massive
founder Chad Hurley recently predicted: “Social media will be the main engine of discovery, giving us data sets will generate
the ability to find the signal within the noise. As people’s networks and interactions expand, massive data predictive models that will
sets will generate predictive models that will know what you want before you look for it.” know what you want before
Those brands that are applying social intelligence models to gauge consumer opinions, purchase you look for it.”
sentiment and competitive analysis are able to confidently support their million dollar decisions around - Chad Hurley, Co-founder, YouTube
marketing campaigns, product rollouts and pricing models.
Without the ability to monitor and act on social intelligence, companies are operating at a competitive
disadvantage. Trying to analyze real-time interactions and conversations with traditional analytics only provides part
of the story but fails to sort out what can be a chaotic and complex sea of data.
The reality is, deeper social intelligence can translate to better strategic decision making, predictable revenue streams
and stronger customer relationships, as well as better alignment. By tracking specific topics, brand mentions, and
conducting sentiment analysis and other types of deep data mining, leading edge brands will have more informed
C-suites, as well as better alignment across all stakeholders.
12

13. Output Examples
About
Company Overview Analytical Capabilities
Crimson Hexagon, founded in 2007, offers a best-in-class • Primary drivers of opinion and key topics of
social media intelligence solution. Crimson Hexagon’s conversation over time
proprietary algorithm, developed at Harvard University, • Share of voice, trends and net sentiment for
combines human judgment with computer scalability to comparison and benchmarking
analyze unsolicited consumer opinions expressed through • Most influential and most prolific authors; Tweets by
social media. Crimson Hexagon joined Twitter, Google, state and country
Foursquare, Microsoft, Zynga, Netflix, Tumblr, Stockwits • Exploration features: Word Cloud, Word Cluster,
and Conaco Productions as being named one of Fast Topic Wheel and Verbatim Post List
Company’s “10 Most Innovative Web Companies.” Key Differentiators
Content Coverage • Recognizes nuance in conversation (e.g. passion,
nostalgia, sarcasm)
• Historical content dating back to May 2008
• Language-agnostic (including character-based
• Collecting ~450 million conversations per day;
languages like Japanese)
more than 140 billion conversations stored to date
• Margin of error +/- 3%, supported by validation
• Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Blogs, Forums,
studies
Comments and News
• License to full Twitter Firehose since July 2010
13