Posts Tagged ‘Insights’
Tuesday, September 28th, 2010
Social Media has been a very powerful and influential medium for companies and officials to understand people who voice out their concerns. This has helped companies and governments to have a closer relationship with the citizens and to reach out to them to promote their products, without any hassle, and of course, for free. One example would be the Twitter account that was opened by President Barack Obama’s commissaries. This tool has greatly helped him hear the people’s concerns and what they would expect from the President of the United States. However, despite its easy reach and convenience for the company or to the people maximizing social media’s capabilities, this could also bring destructive results in a click.
Two companies share their experience on how Social Media has ruined their brand’s reputation and how they were able to retrieve their position and repair their scarred brand name:
Ann Taylor is one of the biggest clothing chains in the United States. LOFT, one of the brands Ann Taylor Inc. owned, received great criticisms only because of pictures of their collection that was posted on their Facebook page. Netizens commented that the trousers worn by the 5’10” tall, stick-thin model would not look as good to those who have a heavier or shorter size.
This February, a director named Kevin Smith was kicked off the flight on Southwest Airlines from San Francisco to Los Angeles because of the reason that he was “too fat”. Apparently, he failed the armrest test and was required to purchase another extra seat to be able to fit into the airline’s seat. Since there were no extra seats available for such flight, he was asked to get off the plane but was offered a $100 voucher because of the incident. However, Mr. Smith was quite unhappy and not content with the offer. With a fan base of almost 1 million in Twitter, he voiced out his concern and the seemingly unjust treatment he received from the airline company. This started a vast outrage and social media was instantly filled with reposts and negative sentiments towards the incident.
Even though these incident with social media left a big mark that could not be removed on the brand’s reputation, they did learn a thing or two from the incident and was alert in resolving the mistake that they have caused. Here are the ways that they were able to regain the people’s fancy for their brand:
After LOFT’s photo fiasco on Facebook, Ann Taylor Inc. immediately took down the photos and replaced it with their own staff wearing the same trousers worn by the model. They clearly sent the message that “real women” can wear the same pants whatever size or height they may have. Through such action, the company proved that they are open to suggestions and criticisms and they are willing to correct their mistakes for their customers.
Southwest airlines held a strong image to the netizens after the incident of Kevin Smith. Despite the constant tweets done by the director, Southwest Airlines analyzed the problem they had before resolving the issue at hand. They released a statement regarding the issue, apologized to Kevin Smith for the damage that was caused and even offered a refund.
Social media, whether one likes it or not, greatly affects those brands which use it as a tool for their advertisements and services. It should not be expected that all sentiments towards the products would be generally positive which is why companies should not be dismayed when negative comments arise. This is more of a learning lesson for them to be more alert of the control of social media to destroy a brand if no proper action has been taken.
Source: http://mashable.com/2010/08/30/social-media-attacks-brand/
Tags: Branding, Insights, Sentiments, Social Media, Twitter
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Thursday, August 26th, 2010
The 2-day conference held at M Hotel was highly enriching and we enjoyed mingling with the participants and other speakers. Some photos of the presentation by our Business Development Director, Kelly Choo, who presented on the applications of Social Media Analytics to business needs.
 Kelly Choo presenting 
Tags: Event, Insights, PR
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Friday, August 20th, 2010
The first ever Esteé Lauder Companies Digital Media Day was held today on the 19th of August 2010, at the Metropolitan Pavillion in New York, and it was a resounding success.
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 The Brandtology Booth
 Our Colleagues Dorothy and Jay at the Brandtology Booth Brandtology was honoured to be invited to showcase at the event. The event was exceedingly well planned, with thought provoking speeches from the likes of the Esteé Lauder Companies leadership (past and current CEOs), brand representatives from PepsiCo, Jetblue Airways, Eastman Kodak, social media companies like Google, Foursquare and Facebook, and BazaarVoice, Forrester and Resource Interactive on the consultancy and research side of things. There was even a Guru Bar where “experts” on various subject matter like search, social media or marketing were present to answer queries from the attendees.
One key thing was the fact that the leadership was very clear about the direction that Esteé Lauder was headed with digital. How can Esteé Lauder be different? By staying ahead of the digital game, according to Fabrizio Freda, CEO of The Esteé Lauder Companies Inc. The company will invest more in the digital space in the next 3 years, creating positions worldwide to address this evolving space.
 Estee Lauder staff at the event Great case studies were shared throughout the day from the various brands. Notably, it was highlighted to the audience to “look outside your industry” for best practices by players in other verticals, and try and marry the parts of what they have successfully implemented into their own digital strategies.
The discussion was very consumer centric, with the understanding that with digital, the consumer is now far reachable than before, and also wields the power to influence millions across the globe, truly exemplifying the phrase “global village”.
Closing with a particularly memorable quip – “Like I always say, fail fast…but fail cheap”, Fabrizio’s comment immediately elicited laughter from the audience. The significance of this is that Esteé Lauder understands that social media is not a spectator sport and is willing to take some risks, willing to put time and resources into moving the entire organization forward in the digital space, and this undoubtedly will propel the company further than those who adopt the wait and see mentality.
 William Lauder, Executive Chairman, The Estee Lauder Companies Inc
Tags: Corporate, Insights, social media intelligence
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Friday, July 16th, 2010
According to a recent McKinsey & Company survey, online community members visited Web sites nine times as often, stayed five times as long, and represented 65% of sales. A 2006 survey of midsize and large companies suggested that 89% of them had adopted at least one of six community-building tools, such as blogs, wikis, social networking, or content-tagging. This is to say that the wide gap of social media reach between it and the consumers is getting slimmer. The fact that community management has played an undeniably significant role in attaining these figures stands strongly.
How does community management supplement the need of consumers for more reliable and accurate concepts? Community management isn’t just online issues management and discussion moderation anymore. It’s a far more fundamental business role, one that ties together responsibilities from a number of different places, both online and off.
Community management has evolved in its sense from basic online engagement where listening, monitoring, and getting involved in discussions online are the driving mechanisms, to touching and supporting many of the other areas of the organization to deliver content, provide insights and feedback, deliver subject matter expertise, and act as a bridge both inside and outside the organization.
This perpetuates the idea of making a community the central resource for information and intelligence that can help people do their jobs better as questions and topics that customers are interested in related to social media are tackled. Community management becomes a channel for sales, customer service and communication in that it functions as a hub for many different disciplines integrated with online and offline efforts such as customer/client service, PR, marketing, business development, building relationships, creating contents, responding to conversations about the brand and the content, ensuring input/feedback gets channeled to the appropriate internal functional group, managing tools – mostly social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc) and blogs, and planning and developing strategies for increasing engagement and conversion.
All these, however, sound hypothetical without guidelines tailored for people involved in achieving the goals for community management. So, to catch some relevant ideas, Michael Brito, VP for Edelman Digital, discussed the three lessons to consider when managing a community :
- Embed within your community – Spend time getting to know others in the community and engage in simple and personal conversations.
- Don’t just focus on monetizing – The most important strategy to drive revenue for a business is to build the community, earn members’ trust, and delicately ask for their permission to market your service.
- Don’t just listen, get the community involved – Building a strong loyalty is not just listening but also acting and embedding yourself within the community and becoming a trusted voice there.
The major goal here is to provide infrastructure and management that drives awareness and a sense of connection to the brand with tens of thousands or millions of customers. Customers benefit greatly by interacting and building relationships with other customers, as well as getting introduced to affiliated product and service providers who can help them maximize their value. To end this note, William Azaroff (who pioneered ChangeEverything.ca) aptly mentioned that social media, when executed well, engenders great trust among the users and participants. He added that the beauty of social media is that it spills over into people’s lives, because people are in the driver’s seat.
Tags: Digital Strategy, Insights, social media intelligence
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Wednesday, June 30th, 2010
At the very beginning, cellular phones were large bricks we used to call other people, a new tool of communication. But as time passed and consumer electronics improved, mobile phones continued to get smaller, stylish, and ultimately more useful. Well, the hottest things in the market now aren’t called smartphones for nothing.
Consequently, the market for smartphones has become a large, anything-goes battlefield for cellphone makers, each trying their best to capture the essence of the ultimate smartphone and put it in a box. As technology continues to improve, the demands of consumers also continue to be greater. And with every mobile phone brand trying to meet these demands, there is almost always a mobile phone model that suits our style and needs.
Using the May 2010 data of Brandtology Mobile among English-language channels, issues regarding mobile phones can be monitored. Data from international English-language channels including the United States and Singapore shows that bloggers are the most active netizens when tackling the monitored mobile phone brands. These include Apple, RIM, HTC, LG, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson, and suggest a growing culture of product testing and reviews of mobile phones offered by these brands.
Operating System
May 2010 Brandtology data shows that blog entries and reviews on new smartphone models basically focus on operating systems and overall physical design. For instance, one blogger complained about Google Nexus One and commended HTC Incredible when tackling Android phones, giving emphasis on faster and more ergonomic user interface employed in the latter model. The same blogger also had difficulties using Google Nexus One as a professional phone and preferred a BlackBerry.
Another blogger also expressed disappointment with the Motorola mobile phones, citing how the brand is slow in developing its operating system, effectively making the phone brand lag behind major competitors. The company’s apparent concentration on the United States market is also criticized as European and Asia-Pacific markets are left out by Motorola.
Service Providers/Carriers
The carrier by which a phone model operates is also a hot topic for netizens. For markets like the United States, negative views are given to phones that are exclusively available on AT&T (Apple iPhone, for instance) because of the highly saturated 3G network that hinders the full utilization of smartphones. Verizon is seen as a better service provider with a better 3G network. Keeping this in mind, those who are not eager to buy a particular phone model end up choosing mobile phone models based on their preferred carrier.
Applications
Applications available for download are also a point of discussion for most bloggers. Apple iPhone applications, although largely popular, are criticized for its “Disneyland” quality where relatively safe and Apple-approved contents are the only ones allowed for download. In contrast, the Android platform has a more free approach not only in its choice of applications but also when it comes to application developer policies.
Picked up by most netizens are the feud between Apple, Adobe and Nokia. While the Apple-Nokia patent lawsuit focus on Nokia innovations supposedly used in several Apple products, the Apple-Adobe feud stems from the lack of flash support on Apple devices, which continues to hinder the viewing of flash videos and applications.
Apple’s refusal to allow the use Adobe’s flash-based application developing tool for Apple iPhone is also criticized, as Apple is seen to be forcing their products on consumers.
Customer Support
Another important issue for netizens is customer support, especially for smartphones that can be very complicated to use at times. A netizen, for instance, has been continuously complaining on Twitter about the poor customer support from Motorola.
HTC’s abandonment of the HTC-Singapore Facebook page as a customer support outlet also received many backlashes from netizens. Aside from disappointment from netizens, HTC-Singapore was perceived to be “anti-social” and “confused” on how to answer queries and address consumer complaints. This emphasizes the importance of using social media as a way to address the concerns of mobile phone users, especially with the amount of time spent by users online.
Truly, there is more to a mobile phone than meets the eye.
Tags: Branding, Buzz, Competitor Intelligence, DCMS, Digital Strategy, Insights, social media intelligence
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Thursday, June 24th, 2010
Global Online Intelligence Leader, Brandtology releases Digital Conversation Management System v2.5 with enhanced measurement and tracking capabilities
24 JUNE 2010 – Brandtology, a global online intelligence service provider has rolled out the latest version of its Digital Conversation Management System (DCMS). The DCMS v2.5 comes with a comprehensive set of metrics to aid global brands and agencies in measuring key aspects of social media involvement, such as engagement, reach, influence and sentiments.
The various social media metrics newly introduced in the system will enable brand managers and consumer insight teams to grasp an overview of all subjects being monitored (be it their brand, competing brands or their various product lines) in the social media space and discover market leaders and laggards.
For instance, the ‘Engagement’ metric quantifies the content creation and response level of a particular subject. The number of conversations unilaterally initiated, as well as the number of relevant comments and responses are taken into account in determining their relative engagement as compared to other subjects in the entire category. Thus, a brand that pushes out boring articles methodically without garnering responses will fare very poorly on the engagement front.
Similarly, the ‘Influence’ metric measures whether conversations being made are by key opinion leaders online, thus translating to response generation and consequently readership. On the other hand, when measuring ‘Reach’, we look at how deep and wide the conversations relating to a particular subject ‘travel’ among influential channels online. A high reach score indicate the ability of a subject to spread related conversations far and wide. Last but not least, the ‘Sentiment’ index looks at the average net sentiment score of all conversations within the subject. More details on each metric can be found in Appendix A.
Commenting on the new DCMS v2.5, Eddie Chau, CEO of Brandtology said: “As brands divert their focus to social media marketing and consequently their budgets, there is a need to seek a more quantifiable manner of measuring the ROI of their activities on the social media platform. In response to feedback from our clients and partners, we have developed this new metric system for the purpose of such analysis.”
Besides the social media metrics section, the new system features five other new components such as an account profiling statistical overview, enhanced Social Media Equity charts to enable comparisons over time, conversation thread trend charts, a bookmarking feature to allow efficient workflow management and last but not least, a new chart sampling function unique to Brandtology.
By combining proprietary crawler technology to extract high volumes of relevant conversations from influential channels with trained social media analysts who recheck a portion of these conversations Brandtology is able to provide highly relevant and accurate insights. The new chart sampling feature leverages on this unique model to provide clients the option to toggle between the entire raw data set and rechecked conversations to show share of voice charts with near 100% accuracy.
“Due to the high volumes of conversations in countries with a large netizen base, such as USA and China, this chart sampling feature will allow clients the flexibility to manage and draw insights from large volumes of data but still be able to produce highly accurate charts for key categories for management reporting,” Eden Lau, Managing Director of North Asia, Brandtology, opined.
Apart from new feature, menus in the new DCMS v2.5 have also been reorganised into more intuitive sections to facilitate navigation and extraction of vital data required – namely Trends, Insights, Channels, Influencers and Social Media Equity. In addition, an FAQ section and tooltips have been added to explain the various data sections.
“With the new DCMS v2.5, we are confident of going beyond simple data collation to providing analytical insights that can integrate with strategic business processes and directly contribute to our clients’ bottom line,” added Kelly Choo, Business Development Director of Brandtology.
For more information and a demo of the new DCMS v2.5, please contact:
About Brandtology
With more than 140 staff in 12 global locations, Brandtology’s business and brand online intelligence services enable global brands to manage and glean invaluable insights from consumers’ conversations. Using proprietary technology, processes and trained professionals, Brandtology is able to provide a high degree of accuracy and relevancy in multilingual analysis, unlike any other automated monitoring tools. Astute global organisations utilise Brandtology’s intelligence in multiple functional areas such as sales, marketing, PR, media planning, customer service and product development. For more information, please visit www.brandtology.com
Appendix A – Detailed explanation of Social Media Metrics
More details on http://www.brandtology.com/blog/dcms-v2-5/
a) Engagement ( 0% – 100%)
The engagement metric quantifies the content creation and response level of a particular subject. The number of conversations unilaterally initiated, as well as the number of relevant comments and responses are taken into account in determining their relative engagement as compared to other subjects in the entire category. Thus, a brand that pushes out boring articles methodically without garnering responses will fare very poorly on the engagement front. Likewise for a brand that has low activity levels and relies on spill-over buzz from other articles which primary focus is not on them.
b) Influence ( 0 – 100)
Conversations by key opinion leaders online or what we term as influencers are gauged on their influence level. Their influence score is derived based on various parameters such as the total number of posts made and replies to their posts. The median of all influencers discussing a particular subject is then presented as the influence of that subject.
The higher the influence score, the more powerful the conversations relating to a particular subject is in terms of generating comments and consequently readership levels.
c) Reach ( 0% – 100%)
The voice of a brand may be concentrated within a few key sites or virally discussed across various influential channels online. When measuring reach, we look at how deep and wide the conversations relating to a particular subject ‘travel’ among influential channels online. A high reach score indicate the ability of a subject to spread related conversations far and wide.
d) Sentiment Index for the Subject ( -100% – 100%)
Sentiment index looks at the average net sentiment score of all conversations within the subject. This index denotes whether the average sentiment of all buzz relating to a subject is more positive or more negative.
Tags: Branding, Buzz, Channels, Competitor Intelligence, Corporate, DCMS, Digital Strategy, Event, Influencer, Insights, Marketing, PR, Regional, Reports, social media intelligence, Social Media Monitoring
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Monday, June 21st, 2010
How do I measure my Social Media influence/reach/engagement?
Ever so often, we hear this query raised by our clients and partners. As brands divert their focus to online marketing and consequently their budgets, there is a need to seek a more quantifiable manner of measuring the ROI of their activities on the social media platform. There are various metrics on our existing platform to aid in such analysis, but in response to feedback, we have decided to carve out an entire new section in our Digital Conversation Management System version 2.5.
The new system features six main new components:
1) Social Media Metrics:
Engagement
Reach
Influence
Sentiment
2) Chart sampling feature – ability to toggle between rechecked conversations and the entire data set to generate quantitative and qualitative charts
3) Account Statistical Profiling:
Buzz & Sentiments
Conversations & Voices
Channels
4) Enhanced Social Media Equity Charts – allowing tracking of Social Media Equity (a 4d chart measuring buzz, sentiment, influence) over time and across subjects
5) Conversation Trends – provision of buzz trends within a single conversation thread
6) Bookmarking – enabling users to tag individual posts for easy follow-up and data export
Menus have also been reorganised into intuitive sections to facilitate navigation and extraction of vital data required – namely Trends, Insights, Channels, Influencers and Social Media Equity. In addition, an FAQ section and tooltips have been added to explain the various data sections.
Enhanced Metrics for ROI measurement and strategic business planning
1.Social Media Metrics
The various social media metrics newly introduced in our system enables brand managers to grasp an overview of all subjects being monitored (be it their brand, competing brands or their various product lines) in the social media space and discover market leaders and laggards.
a) Engagement (0%-100%)
The engagement metric quantifies the content creation and response level of a particular subject. The number of conversations unilaterally initiated, as well as the number of relevant comments and responses are taken into account in determining their relative engagement as compared to other subjects in the entire category. Thus, a brand that pushes out boring articles methodically without garnering responses will fare very poorly on the engagement front. Likewise for a brand that has low activity levels and relies on spill-over buzz from other articles which primary focus is not on them.
b) Influence (0-100)
Conversations by key opinion leaders online or what we term as influencers are gauged on their influence level. Their influence score is derived based on various parameters such as the total number of posts made and replies to their posts. The median of all influencers discussing a particular subject is then presented as the influence of that subject.
The higher the influence score, the more powerful the conversations relating to a particular subject is in terms of generating comments and consequently readership levels.
c) Reach (0%-100%)
The voice of a brand may be concentrated within a few key sites or virally discussed across various influential channels online. When measuring reach, we look at how deep and wide the conversations relating to a particular subject ‘travel’ among influential channels online. A high reach score indicate the ability of a subject to spread related conversations far and wide.
d) Sentiment Index for the Subject (-100%-100%)
Sentiment index looks at the average net sentiment score of all conversations within the subject. This index denotes whether the average sentiment of all buzz relating to a subject is more positive or more negative.
New Charting Features for Data Accuracy
2) Chart sampling feature – ability to toggle between rechecked conversations and the entire data set to generate quantitative and qualitative charts
By having trained social media analysts re-check the automated analysis performed by our technology, Brandtology ensures an exceptionally high accuracy and relevancy level of the data set provided to our clients. However, when doing an industry wide scan of conversations on competing products and other potential interest areas, clients typically only need an overview of the share of voice of their brands. Hence, the sampling feature allows the clients to see the share of voice clearly.
Nevertheless, to differentiate between the automatically rated sentiments & buzz charts and buzz of rechecked conversations, especially for generating visual charts, we have added a feature to allow users to toggle between these 2 data sets.
Statistical Profiling of Conversations for Deeper Insights
3) Account Statistical Profiling
The new account profile section gives a quick statistical overview snapshot of all subjects being monitored in terms of a) Buzz & Sentiments, b) Conversations and Voices and c) Channels.
a) Buzz & Sentiments
This table gives a summary of the total buzz for each subject, as well as the breakdown in sentiment for each subject. The numerical statistics are also colour coded, thus allowing you to quickly identify weaknesses or strengths of all subjects monitored in terms of buzz and sentiments.
b) Conversations and Voices
This Conversation and Voices table provides a summary of the new conversations, comments, as well as active voices engaging in a given subject.
This is particularly useful for identifying popular conversations which are garnering a lot of comments/replies, as well as identifying the number of netizens contributing to the buzz. Interestingly, this would also enable clients to quickly detect ‘hot topics with numerous comments/replies but actually fuelled by a very small group of netizens. Such abnormalities would be easily picked up from this table.
c) Channels
The Channels table shows the total number of channels where conversations are taking place about each subject and further categorises them by channel type. This would help clients to identify dominant channel types for each subject and better plan their engagement/advertising efforts.
Tracking of Social Media Equity over time for brand and campaign measurement
4) Enhanced Social Media Equity Charts –allowing tracking of Social Media Equity (a 4d chart measuring buzz, sentiment, influence) over time and across subjects
The Social Media Equity chart is a 4-dimensional chart that plots the position of a specific product or service in relation to other competing brands or other products/services within the same brand.
This bubble chart is based on 4 factors – Average Sentiment, Average Influence, Buzz Share and Time. The x- and y-axes represent the average sentiment and influence respectively, with the size of the bubble indicating relative buzz share. The time factor can be adjusted to show the movement of individual bubbles along the chart over a specified time period.
The Social Media Equity chart helps to gauge relative position not just amongst competitors but also amongst a brand’s stable of products and services. This is especially useful for product development departments to track the performance of various products.
In this latest release of our DCMS, the Social Media Equity charts allow brands to track the performance of various subjects over time. In particular, this would be useful to track performance before a campaign, during a campaign and after a campaign to see if a campaign has resulted in a positive and sustained effect on a brand’s social media equity.
Deeper Conversation Thread Analysis
5) Conversation Trends – provision of buzz trends within a single conversation thread
The ability to track the buzz trends of a particular conversation thread is also a new feature in the system. This allows brands to closely monitor hotly debated threads to see how the buzz unfolds. For positive seeded word-of-mouth, a long-tail effect is ideal but for negative brand conversations, it best to observe a decline in buzz after a few days.
Bookmarking of Posts for Workflow Management and Efficient Follow-up
6) Bookmarking – enabling users to tag individual posts for easy follow-up and data export
For clients and partners who are more hands-on, a new bookmarking feature will allow them to bookmark selected posts for collation into a list for further analysis or export. This will facilitate research on specific conversation topics, or aid them in shortlisting posts which require further follow-up actions.
Try out the new DCMS v.2.5
If you are keen to see a demo session of our new DCMS, please do not hesitate to contact us via contact@brandtology.com
Tags: Channels, DCMS, Influencer, Insights, Sentiments, social media intelligence, Social Media Monitoring
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Friday, June 4th, 2010
Sharing a great article from e-marketer on Social Media being the no. 1 emerging channel for lead generation for tech marketers. The article struck a chord with us as we are seeing more and more clients globally looking into the social media space not just to investigate what consumers are saying about them, but to turn such conversations into actionable leads. More and more, we see efforts to filter and integrate useful information within established CRM and management reporting systems. This trend is revving up in 2010 and it can only grow stronger as the volume of conversations online takes off globally with new social media platforms and exciting new mobile apps/devices.
The article from e-Marketer.com is appended as follows:
Social media is developing a reputation for being valuable not just for customer interaction and brand awareness but also for lead generation. In February 2010, for example, inbound online marketing platform HubSpot found Twitter usage could double monthly leads, and Onesource reported in January that business-to-business salespeople were looking to LinkedIn for prospecting.
According to virtual events provider Unisfair, social media is the top emerging channel for lead gen among technology marketers surveyed in May 2010.
Lead generation was marketers’ first priority, with 66% saying it was their greatest concern for 2010, compared with just 17% who chose brand awareness.
When online marketing firm R2integrated surveyed US marketing professionals in April 2010 about why they had a social media strategy, the No.1 response was to increase lead generation.
Unqualified leads are a major problem, with one-third of Unisfair respondents saying they normally rejected 16% to 30% of their leads as unqualified.
The most important types of information for determining whether a lead is valuable include interest and demographic information—which might make social media an even more useful prospecting channel, since profiles can include exactly the type of data salespeople are looking for. In addition, social media can provide a venue for nurturing leads that are not yet ready to buy.
Tags: Advertising, Branding, Competitor Intelligence, Digital Strategy, Influencer, Insights, Social Media, social media intelligence
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Monday, May 10th, 2010
Information Overload; Tool Overload; Platform Overload; System Overload.
The nature of social media is different from the media of old. Inherently, the sheer amount of information present out there dwarfs what a normal human being can possibly digest on a daily basis. While information has been increasing, human capacity to process this information has not grown significantly with it. Marketers, PR and other social media professionals grapple with the reality that they have to fight for attention on a daily basis just to register in peoples’ minds.
Tools and applications were then designed to help to cope with the mountains of data in social media. There are countless applications being developed out there on the web. Which are the necessary ones? The ones that improve productivity? The ones that improve connectivity? There should be some stringent criteria to determine if an application is worth its salt. One cannot be switching to a new tool that does “everything but clean the kitchen sink”, each time developers release a new application/tool. Let’s not even go into how many different social media platforms there are out there, or even the aggregators that try to combine all the streams of information into one centralized place.
Powerful features, but how many are used?
Social media also has a largely DIY nature so far. It hardly makes sense to have a tool so complex that it cannot be easily adopted – social media evolves so quickly, that a platform/tool could very well have evolved if one does not catch up. People will vote with their feet and hop off to the next platform or tool that serves their needs better.
Tools will always exist, and change quickly. One may be inundated with all the quirky features offered by a tool/platform, but only use a few main ones after a while (really). Most important is that what you’re using helps you achieve your aims.
Sometimes, you may have to go where the crowd goes. Community platforms that currently form the social media landscape and have a gained significant traction include main players such as Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Flickr, just to name a few. Newer ones to watch might include Foursquare and the recently released Google Buzz.
At the end of the day, it is important to understand the aim and purpose that one has:
- Measuring social media ROI?
- Establishing thought leadership in your field?
- Collecting data on what people are saying about your organization/brand? For market research? For immediate PR responses?
- Having a new channel to be able to communicate with your stakeholders, for promotions, WOM campaigns?
- Doing it just because your competitors are? (what does this say about your strategy?)
Regardless of which tools one chooses to use, as long as the aims are achieved, a campaign/initiative can be considered successful.
It’s not about the tools. It’s about the people. People can make sense of the data and situation, technology is simply an enabler to better that process.
This is not a new line of thought, but one that has been discussed even years ago. Ending off with this quote-worthy paragraph:
“The thing is about the new technologies is not that they provide new, more efficient – better targeted or more relevant – messaging opportunities for businesses to exploit, but rather that it connects people to each other and that allows us to see each other (which you will hopefully remember allows us to emulate and thus drives the spread of behaviors and ideas).”
Tags: Digital Strategy, Insights, Social Media, social media intelligence, Social Media Monitoring
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