The Future of Social
Media Research!
Or how to re-invent social media
monitoring in 10 steps




Francesco D’Orazio
@abc3d | PulsarPlatform.com
legacy!
Since it emerged 15 years ago, the industry has been
largely responsible for driving some of the most
interesting evolutions in the research space, such as the
democratization of text mining and computational
approaches to mining qualitative information.
qual/quant!
blurring!
This is an approach that for the first time enables both a
granular and a birds-eye view of the data, making it
possible to produce qualitative observations on a mass
scale. A new perspective that is blurring the lines
between qualitative and quantitative thinking.
a new
epistemology !
And with computation also comes the ability to mine
larger (and messier) datasets, which is in turn steadily
shifting the focus of what we call knowledge, from
understanding causation to identifying correlations.
Social media monitoring is a growing industry but
one that is stuck in its old ways. And in need a of a
urgent re-think. Or As McLuhan would have put it,
we look at social data through the rear view mirror
the 480+ smm
platforms are
broken!
Add to this the more systemic revolutions the
industry is facing, such as the visualization of social
media, which is going to pose huge challenges to an
industry that’s been entirely built on text mining.
#tumblr: !
85m post / day!
84% images !
social media
research is not
web analytics!
It’s not
quantitative
data!
It’s qualitative
data on a
quantitative
scale!
Drop the
‘media’. !
It’s ‘social
media data’!
It needs social
science not
‘media
monitoring’!
How can 

social research 

fix smm 

in 10 steps!
1!sampling
beyond
keywords!
Great	
  Britain	
  
Indonesia	
  
USA	
  
Malaysia	
  

09	
  am	
  

Nigeria	
  
Ireland	
  
India	
  
Spain	
  
France	
  
South	
  Africa	
  
Other	
  

10	
  am	
  

11	
  pm	
  

10	
  pm	
  

9	
  pm	
  
8	
  pm	
  

12	
  pm	
  

11	
  am	
  

1	
  pm	
  
2	
  pm	
  

7	
  pm	
  
07	
  May	
  2013,	
  10	
  pm:	
  
the	
  rumour	
  spreads	
  
on	
  Twi?er	
  

6	
  pm	
  

5	
  pm	
   4	
  pm	
  

3	
  pm	
  

How fast does news travel?
Conversations about Alex Ferguson
retirement by the hour by country
4	
  maps	
  by	
  visibility	
  
4	
  maps	
  by	
  visibility	
  
Mentions of brand x!

@Brand follower activity!

0.1%!
Decoding your online audience
Discovering clusters of fans using Social
Network Analysis
"
Detecting social communities in "
Question Time’s Twitter audience
NHAparty!

WillBlackWriter!
RippedOffBriton!

OwenJones84	
  

SalmaYaqoob!

johnprescott	
  

richardcalhoun!

ChrisBryantMP!

PennyRed!

steveclarkuk!

mehdirhasan!
davidschneider!

fleetstreetfox!

paulwaugh!

oflynnexpress!

RicHolden!

bbc5live!

BBCNews!

afneil!

bbcquestiontime	
  
Orange Cluster

41%	
  
59%	
  

- 42 y.o. White British
- Manufacturing professionals, Nurses, Teachers
- From London (48%), Manchester (6%), Liverpool (5%)
- Jewish, Christian
- Into politics, tech news, environment, cooking, tennis;
- Following @BBCBreaking, @Ed_Miliband, @Queen_UK.

Fuchsia Cluster
Green Cluster

37%	
  
63%	
  

- 28 y.o., White British
- Students, Musicians and actors
- From London (41%), Manchester (10%),
Liverpool (4%)
- Christian and Jewish
- Into partying , reading, comedy, football;
- Following @stephenfry, @RealDMitchell
and @daraobriain

- 32 y.o., White British
- Manufacturing professionals,
Nurses, Teachers
- From London (48%),
Manchester (6%), Cardiff (3%)
- Jewish, Christian
- Into Business news, reading,
history, rugby, tennis and golf;
- Following @BBCBreaking
@Number10gov @Lord_Sugar.

44%	
  

56%	
  

Blue Cluster

Pale Blue Cluster

31%	
  
69%	
  

- 20 y.o, White British, Black
- Manufacturing professionals, Nurses, Teachers
- From London (48%), Manchester (8%), Belfast (4%)
- Muslim, Christian
- Into Gaming , comedy/humor, sports;
- Following @jimmycarr, @andy_murray, @rioferdy5

20%	
  

80%	
  

- 35 y.o., White Birtish
- Senior Managers , Journalists,
Writers and Lawyers
- From London (50%), Manchester
(3%), Leeds (2%)
- Christian and Jewish
- Into Politics, dining and wining,
tennis, football;
- Following @David_Cameron,
@stephenfry, @Number10gov
2!

from 

content to
context!
© Alexandre Farto aka Vhils 2010

Most Social Media Monitoring
platforms focus on just Content
© Alexandre Farto aka Vhils 2010

But we also wanted to understand
Context and Behaviour
Dimensions of Social Data
Content

Demographics

Social Graph

Interest Graph

Behaviours
Nose-to-tail indexing

or Bigger Big Data


Behaviours	
  

Social	
  Graph	
  

Demographics	
  
Interest	
  Graph	
  

Content	
  
Data anthropology
3!

from 

analytics to
intelligence

frameworks!
AnalyticsIntelligence

How many What time of the week

Tweets/Hour?
 is best for what?


 
How many What’s the brand
negatives?
 equity?
Measuring Visibility
4! down 

break
the social silo!
Predicting the
Oscars

Integrating social data
with multiple external
datasets to increase
predictability
Images
Location

EXP #1
Reality Mining

Call Log
SMS Log
Bluetooth
Accelerometer
Gyroscope
Orientation
Activity
Running Apps
Battery
Screen
Browser Searches

THE	
  PICTURES	
  
AS	
  TEMPORAL	
  
AND	
  SPATIAL	
  
MARKERS	
  OF	
  
THE	
  JOURNEY	
  
5! scalable 

human-analysis!
6!machinelearning!
7!
dataUX !
A data canvas
Visual Mining
Data Transparency
8!decisionmaking!
9!

hybrid 

methods!
SOCIAL PANELS > real-time segments

Dynamic
Segments
Real-time Audience
Insights
Pulsar	
  |	
  Social	
  Data	
  Intelligence	
   	
  

	
  

	
  @pulsar_social	
  |	
  PulsarPla]orm.com	
  
A Nation Divided?
A Social Panels case study

50k readers

50k readers

23,000 Tweets

50k readers

22,000 Tweets

50k readers

50k readers

63,000 Tweets

47,000 Tweets

50k readers

32,000 Tweets

12,000 Tweets
A Nation Divided?

How 300,000 readers of six top UK newspapers
are feeling about the death of Margaret Thatcher

Positive towards Thatcher
Negative towards Thatcher
Neutral: hidden

The Daily Mail
23,000 Tweets

10%

8%

23%

The Guardian
26%

16%

22,000 Tweets

19%

The Daily Mirror
63,000 Tweets

The Independent
47,000 Tweets

The Telegraph
8%

32,000 Tweets
12%
15%

18%
23%

19%
10!






making
research
programmable

Social	
  Data	
  Intelligence	
  

	
  

	
  

	
  @pulsar_social	
  |	
  PulsarPla]orm.com	
  

Future Social Media Research