Analytics Is King

For as much as I advocate staying focused on the present, the social media world is one that lends itself well to thinking about what's next. Quite often the answer is, "I don't know," but that doesn't stop us from talking about it. It's no different with social analytics. What are the next great listening tools to hit the market? How do we bring together data we're pulling from the social web with our more traditional offline market research activities? And, for the record, while I agree with the folks at P&G that the value of traditional market research activities is waning, we're still a long ways from outright replacement. We're also curious about the interplay between the engagement professional and the analytics professional. Are the lines blurring? Yes. Are we experiencing a democratization of data across the enterprise? Sure. Is everyone an analyst within an organization? Absolutely not. Should they be? HELL NO! Should they be comfortable with data? Yes, absolutely.

These, among other questions are ones we social analytics dorks consider all of the time. There aren't any answers, yet, but we do have some smart people thinking and talking about it. Next week (Saturday, 4/30, at 1pm EST), I have the good fortune of taking part in an FIR Live show with Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz where we'll no doubt be discussing this and many other things within the social analytics realm. Joining me for the session are Ken Burbary, Katie Paine and Aaron Weber. I'm assuming you know all of these people, but if you don't, shame on you. All incredibly brilliant people within this field.

I'm hoping during the session we have an opportunity to discuss what each of us thinks is next for social measurement and analytics. It's a pretty fascinating topic (at least for nerds like me), with widespread enterprise implications. For example, what happens if I'm wrong about everybody being an analyst within an organization? Do those not comfortable with data get shoved aside even if they are brilliant content creators? Honestly, I have no idea. Before the session next Saturday, I thought it might be interesting to jot down some of the thoughts I've had over the last few months on where I think social analytics might be going

1. Democratization of data will continue - More data available to the enterprise is a good thing, at least in my view. However, because we're going to see more data spread throughout the organization, there will be greater pressure placed on the "modern day" market research professional to be able to adapt. Can they train people to interpret information from a social listening tool if they've never done it before? Can they work with parts of the organization they've never worked with before? Again, democratization is good, if the market research pro can simultaneously adapt.
2. The trend toward more data isn't going ot be slowing down - For as much belly aching as some people do about there being "too much data" available to brands, I don't see that trend slowing down. Interactions on the social web create way too many data points of interest to companies to just ignore. Ahh, this brings us to #3 in this list.
3. Crossing the "insights chasm" - I was having a discussion with an old colleague, Andy Boothe (smart as hell), the other day and I dropped this term in relation to getting people across the (GREAT) divide between data and insights. If we're going to be accessing more data in more spots throughout the enterprise, we need to be making it more actionable than we currently are. That's the chasm, and let me tell you...it's a GIANT one.
4. Future listening tools will look more like BI tools - Whether it's in partnership with companies like Clarabridge, or it is a standalone product, the future listening tools will find a way to incorporate all media and OFFLINE market research data into one powerful dashboard. I'm not talking about Microsoft's Looking Glass here that hasn't been able to gain serious traction because of costs. No, this is embedded into a tool you already are using for a marginal increase in costs. Trust me, if you've ever seen data pulled together from disparate sources to deliver insights it's pretty powerful stuff.
5. Listening teams will become more pervasive - There are a handful of companies who already have such teams (Kodak and Dell being two), but the reason they established them in the first place is that the value proposition of listening in real-time to customers (or just key stakeholders more generally) was painfully obvious. As more companies are exposed to the value of listening, we'll start to see dedicated listening teams cropping up all over the place. And, before you get any crazy ideas, I don't mean 23 year olds you've plucked from their parent's bedrooms.
6. The one stop shop model - Anyone that's done more traditional research in other disciplines, particularly investor relations, knows that these tools go through violent consolidation cycles. In IR, specifically, we've reached the point where public companies are using IR management tools like ThomsonReuters or Shareholder.com and very little else. The social listening tool that brings together CRM, social listening, offline data and anything else you can think of into one spot will win. Trust me, brands don't want to have to hunt through hundreds of different providers. Chaotic buying environments make them nervous.

Anyway, these are just a few thoughts I had in anticipation of next week's discussion. Hopefully you'll be able to tune in.

[caption id="attachment_87" align="alignleft" width="270" caption="Photo by wasabicube"] [/caption] I've been thinking (sorry Ben. I stole your blog's title) a lot recently about the abundance of data that's available on the social web. Yes, before you make any jokes about how geeky that sounds, I do think about things that impact our profession quite often. In its most basic form, the Internet leaves a trail of breadcrumbs for brands (or enterprising individuals) to follow. Why? Why do brands give a damn where you've landed after doing a search on Google? The answer is obvious to those of us working in the space: If we know where our current/future consumers are spending their time it makes it much easier for us to target them with advertising/marketing material.  This is what we do, right? We find customers, then we target customers and then we hit them with a barrage of marketing material that hopefully causes them to buy our widget. That's overly simplistic, but I think you get the point. Anyway, as you traverse the Information Superhighway (p.s. how long has it been since you've heard that phrase? I really just used it for posterity) talking, sharing, offering up reviews, posting videos, posting photos, editing Wikipedia there is likely someone like me sitting behind a computer somewhere far away trying to analyze your behaviors. I'll give you a moment while you're thoroughly freaked out by the thought of me looking over your shoulder as you use a computer... (cue Jeopardy theme music)........ Ok, are you ready? Right, back to it. Now, let me hit you in the face with another often forgotten fact: The practice of following the purchasing behaviors and intents of consumers has been going on for a lot longer than the social web has been around. Why do you care now? Is it somehow because we're tracking you while you are in the comforts of your own home/office? I'm assuming, just for the sake of this discussion that it is not blind naivety, though I'm sure there is plenty of that going around.  Can it go too far? Absolutely. If you needed any proof of that, check out what happened to Nielsen when they were caught scraping a public forum. A nice write-up in the Wall Street Journal is what happened. I'm not going to go on about whether or not companies should be tracking online behaviors. My personal point-of-view is that we need to get over it. The data gathering process either by Google, or some other vendor is a multi-million (if not billion) dollar industry. That means, in simple terms, that the industry isn't going to change unless forced to by the changing of social norms or government regulation. And, whether or not we have a right to privacy when we're posting things in a public forum is a discussion for someone much smarter than me. No, what I want to touch on is the difference between gathering data and gathering data to derive actionable insights. We're doing far too little of the latter. This is where companies (and the agencies that help them) get lost. More and more brands are starting to listen to online conversations. However, most often we're listening but not really digging as deeply as we need to be. Make sure you check out Connie Bensen's post on Jay Baer's blog yesterday for more information on how you can take listening beyond gathering share of voice, media mix and tone. Since I'm a numbers/equations dork, here's how I'd think about this: The right amount of data = timeliness + solves a business problem. There's no magic bullet for how much data you could/should be gathering. However, if you are gathering data in an effort to solve a business problem, and it's timely, then you are on the right track.  I'd argue that if the data isn't timely, it's just interesting information. If it doesn't help further a goal, or solve a problem, it's just interesting information. Right now, unfortunately, we're gathering data for the sake of gathering data. There's far too little actionable insights being developed as a result of this data collection. So before you start down the path of data gathering ask yourself a few questions: 1. Where is the data going to come from? 2. How do we incorporate it with existing data? 3. Will the process happen quickly enough for the data to still be timely? 4. How does the data help solve a business problem? (Notice I said nothing about cost here. This kind of data is invaluable. It's often the reason we do or do not do something. You can't place a cost on that accurately). There's no such thing as too much data. There is such a thing as too much data that's not actionable. Don't think about the problem of an abundance of data as anything more than an opportunity to solve a business problem. If it doesn't, throw the information in the trash. Have you encountered situations where you think you have too much information? How did you overcome?