Social media for research: Beyond the technology

Transcription

1 Social media for research: Matt Rhodes 21 st April 2010 Today is about three things 1 Why tools will never solve all our problems 2 3 A dive into social media monitoring What the future could look like

2 How would you like your coffee? Sometimes a little bit more effort is needed

3 Too many brands think that social media is a revolutionary new tool They think they will get their answers at the push of a button

4 They won t Let s take a look at social media listening

5 Successful social media monitoring Combination of The right tools Research and analysis skills Social media experience Definitions Listening To make an effort to hear something We believe Social Media Monitoring is more like listening you have to apply effort to get the most from the tools Real insight comes from probing deeper and not by reading a standard report

6 What does listening help you with? Insights Emerging trends and consumer behaviors Brand perception and attitudes Identifying barriers to purchase Communications Tracking online conversations relating to brands Measuring the impact of campaign activity Identifying influential individuals and advocates PR Identifying leaks relating to new products Discover both positive and negative conversations and influencers Identify specific sites where conversations about competitor brands are taking place How do we do it? FreshMinds listening tools Research Communities Engagement Social Media Audit Social Media Monitor Investment

7 Key principles of our approach to Listening 1. Clear business objectives 2. Plan the listening well as a research exercise 3. Use the right tools and effort 4. Create actionable insights 5. Learn and feedback What metrics can we measure? tim S en en t Buz z ce u en Infl each &R in g erg E m em e s th

8 Sentiment & buzz Sentiment Finding accurate, automated sentiment analysis is tough That s not to say that automatic sentiment analysis isn t valuable as a technique for flagging emerging themes and trends. You can t simply reply on standard outputs. 15% 80% Buzz 5% A top-level but sensitive measure easily affected by definition. Useful for determining which communities may be of interest for further analysis. Influence, reach and emerging themes Influence & reach Tools attempt to identify key conversations or individuals leading conversations Many ways to look at this and no consistent way Does not see influence of closed communities Emerging themes Tools attempt to identify key topics associated with brands Very sensitive to the tool settings and the natural changes in the online conversations leading to false readings

9 Selecting the right social media monitoring tools Benchmarking / coverage Customer service APIs Syndicated / Custom data sets Services Spidering capability Pricing Languages Development roadmap Flexibility Reporting capabilities Open / Closed communities Workflow Real time Organisational risk Data extraction Social Media Audit Case Study The client A national mobile phone provider The challenge How to minimise the threat posed by the launch of the much-hyped iphone by anticipating the product features which would be a hit with consumers and feeding this into our client s own NPD strategy The solution Monitoring social media networks, blogs and review sites for 2 weeks prior to the launch of the iphone in the UK to see what product features were going to be a hit with consumers The result Project turned around in 2 weeks 500 qualitative verbatims about the iphone and the features which consumers were most and least excited about A clear sense of which features should feed into our client s NPD strategy

10 Social Media Monitor Case study The client The Co-operative The challenge Following a corporate rebranding across all of The Co-operative s businesses, a national advertising campaign was launched comprising TV, press and online elements. The Co-operative wanted to assess the impact of this campaign on consumer perceptions of the brand. The solution As part of a wider evaluation, FreshMinds tracked online buzz relating to The Co-operative and its new campaign The result A punchy PowerPoint presentation, delivered at the end of each month for 8 months Key insights into the elements of the campaign which were and weren t resonating with consumers Additional metrics to quantify the impact of the campaign s success Influencer Case Study The challenge To understand who are the most influential bloggers around a key topic to assist engagement. The most prolific The most useful The most valuable The solution Using social media listening tools and desk research identified key forums that discussed the client brand. The result FreshNetworks were able to easily locate valuable influencers on behalf of the brand. Influencer case study

11 The future 2010 Listening tools will improve as more clients use them More free tools will become available Influence measures will become more prevalent Sentiment, maybe it will become more accurate and allow easier focus on important conversations 2011 the focus will be on linked up social CRM Listening and the conversation engagement will come closer together through the tools 2012 Survival of the fittest, preferred suppliers and methodologies rise to the top and Listening becomes business as usual The future Summary 1. Listening tools alone won t give you the answers, they are an input to the insight process like any other research methodology 2. Things change every week, so could your tools 3. As with all research an appropriate methodology, choice of tool and synthesis of the outputs is required to create actionable insights 4. Learn and feedback 5. Finally, look beyond the technology Summary

12 That s it Social media for research: Matt Rhodes 21 st April 2010

13 Coffee machine: Making an espresso: Facebook: