Analytics Is King

Reactions to Yesterday's Salesforce.com/Radian6 Announcement

31 Mar 2011
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Social Media Analytics radian6 salesforce.com social media listening social media monitoring

If you are involved with social media at all, you likely heard the announcement that Salesforce.com has acquired Radian6. It was literally the only thing that was in my Twitter stream for several hours during the day. Rightfully so, by the way, this is huge news for the listening and social media world. It isn't a secret that I'm a big fan of Radian6. They've been very helpful to me in my career, and I think the world of their product and people. There's a reason people call them the "industry leader." It didn't take long for the posts to come out dissecting the news (more on that in a second), but I wanted to wait a day before diving into it. So, here are some takeaways that I've had from the news:

Positive news for Salesforce.com - It seems pretty clear that this is going to be a huge value-add for the Salesforce.com product. Further incorporation of social listening data with CRM (notice: I didn't say social CRM) can only be a winner. Our motto should be, "the more I know about my customer, the better." This new relationship should only help that.
Industry consolidation has started, but should now pick up in earnest - Listen, there's nothing I like more than learning about new monitoring solutions. I'm a data geek. However, in 2009 it became pretty apparent that we had too many players on the stage. When conducting due diligence, companies were looking at dozens of different companies when the differences between them were really miniscule. The same consolidation happened with Investor Relations tools to the point, now, where if you don't use ThomsonReuters or Shareholder.com it's a complete anomaly. That's OK by me. If I can go one place for the entire solution suite I'd consider that a win.
More resources behind Radian6 - Truth be told, there was a period of time as Radian6 was ramping up where the customer service suffered. It has improved significantly as they've added more people, but the considerable resources of a public company should only help add to the people arsenal of Radian6. For those of us who are heavy users, the more potential touch points we have within the organization, the better.
Innovation will continue - Radian6 has a long history of product innovation. I remember seeing it in 2007 and thinking that the data was cool, but wasn't entirely there as an offering. Now, it's the industry leader. That growth has happened because they've been diligent about innovating the product. Salesforce.com has that same tradition of innovation. Together, it should be a power house. I don't buy the notion that big public company stifles innovation...at least in this case.
The cost of the acquisition shows just how big this market has become - $276 million dollars (plus $50 million in stock) is a gigantic sum of money. It's hard for me to wrap my mind around that because I see it as an excellent monitoring solution. Someone paying that much money seems foreign to me, but it's a testament to the work Radian6 has done. It also shows how important listening to social conversations has become for brands. Trust me, Salesforce.com isn't going to spend the money on a solution like Radian6 if they don't think they can turn around and sell it to companies.
Move toward making social analytics more mainstream - Just so we're clear, I don't view Radian6 as a social analytics tool. I view it as a listening tool, and the "analytics" part comes from an analyst. That being said, the more mainstream we make social analytics/data, the more likely we are to continue advancing the space. Data is an integral part of the strategic planning process in social media. Companies are starting to notice it more, but still not to the level it should be. When they are exposed to that power through a CRM platform like Radian6, adoption rates should go up.

As I mentioned above, there was a race to be the first person to dissect this announcement from top to bottom. One of the better ones dissected the implications for Radian6, Salesforce.com and the broader analytics market. There's a lot in that post I agree with, but a few things I completely disagree with:

We're taking the word "analyst" a little too far - Not everybody is an analyst just because they have access to the tool. If an enterprise has heavier data crunching needs, they are not putting Radian6 in the hands of a PR person or marketer. And if they do, that PR person or marketer should be smart enough to involve market research professionals.
Immaturity of the market doesn't mean consolidation shouldn't happen - The social listening market is very new, and definitely green. However, the race to create a listening platform helped to sufficiently muddy the waters for brands when in truth there was very little difference between the platforms. I'm no economics wiz, but supply had outstripped demand. Consolidation was an inevitable byproduct.
Innovation will continue - Similar to what I mentioned above, but I dispute the notion that an acquisition leads to the disintegration of innovation within a company. Have you met the guys from Radian6? Ditto Salesforce.com? Those people are always working to perfect the product. I have no concerns there.

Anyway, those are just some of my takeaways from this news. I want nothing but the best for my friends at Radian6, and the industry at-large. Net result of this news should be positive for the industry...At least in my humble opinion.

Trashing Social Media? Shut Up and be Grateful!

19 Mar 2011
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Dix & Eaton Gary Vaynerchuck General Posts Jason Falls Keith Mabee SXSW Tom Webster arik hanson blogworld social media social media listening social media monitoring

In my post recapping SXSWi, it should've been clear that the biggest value driver of the conference for me is networking. I love getting a chance to talk with people I don't see that often who are working hard in this business. The content isn't terrible, it just isn't for me. If I'm trying to learn something I'll go to a smaller event, like Blogworld Expo (shameless plug - Arik Hanson and I co-organize the social business track), where I know the content is more focused and practical. That being said, one of the lasting impressions of the event has to be Gary Vaynerchuck's talk. Gary's premise, based on his new book The Thank You Economy, is that brands need to become more "human." The book goes into great detail about how companies can scale that humanization. This isn't a book review (disclaimer: I've not read it, but am planning on it), rather it is me agreeing with Gary's idea that brands need to become more human. After his talk ended I thought about how my clients could achieve this vision, but also how some people in the social media world should start heeding his call. One of the things that drives me nuts are blog posts or tweets proclaiming the death of a particular platform. A common refrain is, "blogging is dead because of Twitter," or "Quora is a Twitter killer." How on earth would anybody know that? Do you have a crystal ball that the rest of us can't see? Those kinds of posts make for excellent linkbait, but the truth is that none of us really know for sure what's coming down the line. This space is expanding so quickly it's hard to know what's going to happen tomorrow, let alone a year from now. Similarly, there are those who are hyper-critical of what social media has become. Let me be clear for a second...constructive criticism about the value of these tools is certainly warranted. Certain technologies are not for every brand, and there are definitely some snake oil salesmen out there who convince companies that they should establish a presence on every network under the sun. However, slamming a social network because it is no longer you and your four buddies is not only dumb, but incredibly shortsighted in my view. Guess what? You owe part of your career to that explosion. And please, spare us the bullshit of "you've worked harder than everybody else." Most of the people in this space who are recognized for thought leadership are working hard. No, the move of social networks toward more mainstream adoption means you have more career options, most likely a cooler job than you had a few years ago and ultimately more money. Its opened doors you never thought could be opened. Hell, this space has created a book opportunity for me that I NEVER thought would've been possible before getting involved in this space. I think it is time for us all to take a moment to be grateful for those who have:

Taught us something new about this space - Guarantee there is someone out there who teaches you something on the regular. Have you thanked them for that recently? I know I haven't. With that in mind, I'd like to take a second to thank Tom Webster. Incredibly smart guy, with an eye for numbers that this space really needs. Read him if you don't already.
Gave us our start in this business - Chances are good there's someone out there who told you about these platforms. Or, better yet, helped you gain your first real exposure to others working in the space. For me, that guy was Jason Falls. I pitched him a blog topic in 2009 about social media listening and he published it. I don't thank him enough for that opportunity...So, Thanks, Jason. I appreciate it.
Challenged us to continue pushing the space forward - There's someone out there who is pushing you to do better. It could be your boss. It could be a friend. Whoever it is, acknowledge them for what they are doing. For me, that guy was Keith Mabee, now Vice Chairman at Dix & Eaton. I owe him so much for his advice that I could never repay him. Thanks, Keith.
Encouraged us to be better human beings - At the end of the day, we can always be better human beings. Have we taken the time to help someone less fortunate than us? Bringing it back to this context, have we thanked someone for going out of there way to provide us with a piece of information we were looking for? I know I need to do this more....You?

So, the next time you are planning to trash social media as "not as cool as it used to be," or proclaim the death of blogging (or insert social network here), take a second to realize that the media you are about to trash has a lot to do with where you are in your career. Resist the temptation to be ungrateful or, in more crass terms, an asshole. The traffic to your site isn't worth it. Thanks, Gary, for helping me refocus on what matters.

Searching for the "Perfect" Monitoring or Measurement Solution? Stop Looking!

15 Feb 2011
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Listening Todd Defren kasey skala social media listening social media measurement social media monitoring

For all of the good information that is shared online there is just as much that could be (generously) considered questionable. Two of the areas where you see the most misinformation is in monitoring and measurement. Why? Frankly, some of the blame has to be at the feet of the challenges we've faced in traditional communications. We've had a hard time truly grasping the utility of monitoring beyond a reputation management function for years. Similarly, traditional communications measurement has been butchered seven ways to Sunday despite the great work of Katie Paine (and others) to educate everyone. For the record, I refuse to blame that butchering on communications professionals not liking math. That feels like a thoroughly uneducated answer to me. There are a lot of other factors there that we'll explore some other time, but for the purposes of this post know that measurement (well beyond social) is being butchered. Yesterday, Todd Defren wrote a great post about PR measurement failures. The trouble as he points out there is that we have widespread acceptance of formulas and concepts that really don't mean a heck of a lot. The scenario as he painted it was: “Say the client spends $100,000 on PR, in one year. For the sake of argument, let’s say PR is the biggest (or only) marketing vehicle. In that one year time period, the client gets 1M website impressions. Could you not divide 1M impressions by $100K and claim PR is driving leads to the website at a rate of 10–cents per impression?” Wow. Interesting, eh? You can check out the comments for all of the rebuttals (including my own). Here is the hard and fast truth... While we have generally accepted best practices for measurement none of them are without fault. My suggestion to Todd in that post was to come up with an index model that takes into account several different metrics. I'd consider that best practice, but I'll admit there's no direct ROI tie there. While there could easily be a connection made to brand reputation, the metrics are soft(er). Don't get me wrong, we should be searching for the harder metrics/calculations/formulas, etc... However, I'd much rather move the debate toward coming up with a generally accepted framework rather than the Bataan Death March approach we take toward ROI. It wont be perfect, but at least it would be generally accepted. Monitoring, unfortunately, happens to be in the same boat. Upfront, I think it's important we clear up one small misconception: monitoring is NOT measurement. Monitoring helps to inform measurement, but the two terms do not mean the same thing. Now that this is out of the way, when you're going through the process of picking a monitoring provider you need to know that no tool offers 100% capture. No tool is going to offer you 100% technological stability. There will be bugs, and there will be conversations that the systems do not capture. What should you look for?

The tool has the ability to adapt - By adapting I mean if you find a source that the tool is not capturing can you send them that source and they can modify the "net" to begin capturing it. If the answer is no, then it is time to look for a different solution.
The vendor is adding sites on their own - Obviously, the onus shouldn't be on you to identify new sources for them. They should be taking it upon themselves to advancing the "net" to capture as many sites as possible.
Consistency - No matter how diligent you/they at updating their platform, there will be sites that are missed. Just accept it. The worst case scenario, though, is for a certain set of sites to be missed this week and then next week a whole different list is missed. If we're going to have a gap, we should know that the gap is going to be consistent so that we can potentially identify other tools that could help.

With respect to Lexus, the pursuit of perfection in measurement and monitoring is silly. We should be pursuing what makes the most sense for our clients and our organizations. If the metrics fit the goals of the campaign and is generally accepted by those constituencies, then use that methodology. End of story. What has worked for you in the past? By the way, thanks to Kasey Skala for inspiring this post.

2011: The Year of Data (I Hope)

16 Dec 2010
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2011 predictions David Armano HBR Harvard Business Review Social Media Analytics social media listening social media measurement social media monitoring

Ah yes....tis the season for predictions (errr guesses, albeit educated ones) about what will be happening in the wonderful world of social media in 2011. These are posts that I generally discount. Why? Not because the people delivering them aren't smart. No, it is because we don't hold people's feet to the fire for predictions that go array (sometimes the person making the prediction does) and this space is evolving so quickly I'm not sure how anyone accurately predicts where it is going. Sometimes you get lucky and nail the big trend, but more often than not we're wrong with predictions. By the way, this isn't to slam all of the prediction posts out there. I actually found David Armano's post on HBR to be very insightful. Shouldn't be a big surprise. He's a smart guy. Not to totally shift gears (it will make sense in a second), but I've always been fascinated by the tension displayed between analytics and the "big idea." Trust me, I display no ill will toward the creative people who come up with these ideas. They are wicked smart, and I'm fortunate to work with many of them. That being said, there's always this built in bias toward coming up with the fancy creative. Or the very original tactics. Why? Is it just because it is flashy? That's the only thing I can assume at this point. Unfortunately for the folks wrapped up in the flash, communications works best when analytics and the creative big idea are playing in harmony. With that in mind, go ahead and check out this post outlining some very interesting findings from a recent survey from Harvard Business Review Analytics Services. I'll wait............(cue Jeopardy theme song)...............Ok, are you back? Nothing in there really was that shocking, right? Quite frankly, the social entry point should be debated and considered thoughtfully. We've seen too many Twitter and Facebook accounts go up in flames because of a half-assed approach to the space. No, these two points caught my eye first:

31 percent of the companies said they didn’t measure the effectiveness of their social media efforts.
Only 23 percent said they were using social media analytic tools.

Are you serious? That first bullet may not seem like a big number, but 31 percent of companies using social DID NOT measure their results? Wow. Yeah, pretty amazing to see why there is so much skepticism about the space. Anyway, more on that in a second. The second point is even more staggering. Given the number of tools (both free and paid) available to brands, I just cannot believe how underutilized data continues to be. Again, I think this comes back to the point about an over-reliance on the creative/flashy tactics/ideas. We need to escape that, and pronto. With that in mind, I wanted to outline some of the things I see coming to the wonderful world of social media analytics in 2011... Yes, chances are good I'll be wrong on a lot of these and I'm OK admitting that. However, the results above prompted me to consider whether or not there are some serious systemic issues in this space that need addressing. Hopefully this post starts to bring those things more top of mind for folks. The predictions please...........

Brands and agencies alike will embrace a balanced scorecard approach to measuring social media. With apologies to Drs. Robert Kaplan and David Norton, we need to start thinking about these scorecards as less of a measurement tool for the tactics we've already implemented, and more of a tracking mechanism for behavioral change. Yes the ultimate behavioral change would be sales, however I'd settle for us embracing things like increases in the number of searches about our brand, increase in our current share of conversation, sharing of our content, etc... Unfortunately, though, we're most often tracking "likes" and "followers." It's no wonder 31% of brands didn't measure progress.
Social media monitoring consolidation continues. As my colleague Marshall Sponder pointed out the other day, the monitoring field is littered with providers selling a commodity when most brands aren't really sure how to properly implement the solution they are being given. My hope, and prediction, is that the consolidation of monitoring providers by listening providers continues into 2011. The more we get brands thinking about listening as a market research extension, the better off we will all be. Unfortunately for the pure monitoring providers, they don't fit that bill.
There will continue to be conflict between social media analytics and creative. I'd like to think that we'll get to a place where creative and analytics are working in harmony, but I know that's a pipe dream. However, please know that the brands and agencies (shameless plug: our firm has embraced analytics like very few I know) embracing this synergy WILL have a competitive advantage.
Data convergence will be real - I wrote a post last month for Spin Sucks talking about how the interplay between social, Web, search and offline analytics was critical to understand for brands when developing a digital strategy. I feel pretty strongly that in 2011 this concept will become more clear for brands and agencies alike.

I'm sure I could come up with more, but if I go 0-4 that sounds better than going 0-10 :-) Where do you see this space going in 2011?

Five Ways to Make Your Listening Reports Better

12 Dec 2010
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Listening radian6 social media listening social media monitoring

Well, this has certainly been quite a week hasn't it? Everything from tough family news, to reading about (and then apparently creating) drama in the social media world. Well I hate to disappoint you, but this post will hopefully bring back some sense of normalcy to this blog. That said, the interwebs have proven us all wrong before! Anyway, I was having a discussion with a few colleagues at WCG about how I conceptualize listening reports for clients. Occasionally I have the opportunity to dig into an actual report for clients these days, but more of my focus now is on teaching and guiding. It's honestly a blast watching people who aren't necessarily of an analytics mindset dig into the data and find the big insight. That's what makes this job fun. So, after the session was over I had a thought: Couldn't the rest of the people working in this space use some of these ideas? Nothing I'm sharing here could be considered trade secrets. They are just a lot of common sense things I've learned while building reports for clients. Here are a few ideas for you as you embark down the listening path:

At this point, almost everybody is using one of the listening or monitoring solutions on the market. If you aren't, wake up! Seriously, it can be pieced together using Google but you're just making your life a lot harder than it needs to be. Anyway, for all of the love I give to Radian6 I actually find their use to be somewhat limited. That's not a slam, by the way. The best use of the platform is in a data capture capacity. Yes, the dashboard that's presented to you is nice and easy to digest for the executive audience. However, I find it much easier to put together a presentation (or report) when all of my data is together in a singular spreadsheet.
That dovetails nicely into the second point: Tell a story with your listening reports. This is no different then if you are giving a presentation at a conference. Each subsequent slide should be building off of the one previously presented until you've told a coherent story, or made a strong argument. Far too often we get stuck developing reports that are overly "templatized." If you've downloaded the data into one spreadsheet and you're realizing that it's telling you something different then what your template would allow, then go ahead and change it up.
Do some basic online research. This is less of a problem for the brand folks out there. In theory, you know your "product" very well and don't need to spend time as much time reading online. However, for the agency folks who tend to spend only a certain amount of time on a brand reading online conversations before you start listening is critical. Spend some time doing a Google Blog and Group search. What are people talking about there? Spend some time reading about the topic area. What are some of the conversation themes you are noticing? Similarly, play around with the topic area/brand name in Google Adwords. What kind of search volume are you seeing? Are like search terms relevant to the scan you've done of online conversations? Who is likely to be doing a lot of the talking? Men or women? These are just some basic questions, but you'd be surprised how much they'll help you as you start building your deck/report.
Start building the deck backwards. I know that sounds silly, but hear me out for a second. The quickest way toward boring your audience with listening reports is by creating the deck from slide 1 to slide 10-15 (by the way, that's all that should be there unless there's something totally wild going on with conversations). I'd much rather you spend time analyzing your data, coming up with a set of key insights/recommendations and then building the deck from the back. It's not necessarily something that's intuitive for us, but try it sometime. You'll see just how valuable the final report will be. If you need to outline the entire deck to be able to do this, then so be it. Do what you need to do.
Finally, and most importantly, form a hypothesis. No, this isn't high school science class all over again. You aren't going to be asked to regurgitate scientific method for a final exam. However, now that you've done your online research (pre- building your listening profile) you will no doubt have an opinion of the types of conversations you are going to see. Are you going to see a lot of forum conversation? Are a handful of sites coming up and over-and-over? Is one demographic doing a lot of the talking? Is there no conversation volume about your brand at all? Based on your preliminary research, you'll know what to expect when you dig into your actual Radian6 (or other providers) profile. With that hypothesis in mind (and maybe an outline if you need it), you'll be able to create a deck that not only tells a coherent story, but is also laced with actionable insights.

These are just some of the things that have helped me. When you've done listening reports for your brand/client, what's worked for you? **By the way, thanks to my colleague Alexis Bizares for pushing me as hard as she does to have these kinds of conversations with other people we work with. It helps crystallize my own thoughts that I then get to share elsewhere. Thanks, Abiz!**

Social Media Monitoring is Not a Replacement for Focus Groups

1 Dec 2010
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Ad Age Listening The BeanCast focus groups social media monitoring

Last night I had a freak break in the schedule and decided to catch up on podcasts. One of my favorite podcasts is The BeanCast. Always great guests, and Bob does a fantastic job hosting the show. Anyway, a couple of weeks ago he had Wendi Cooper, Gini Dietrich, Steve Hall and John Wall on the show discussing, among other things, the case for live focus groups. The impetus for that discussion came from a Pete Blackshaw article in Ad Age urging marketers to not discount the value of focus groups. I actually agree with Pete, and the folks who participated in Bob's podcast, in that social media monitoring should not replace focus groups. I'm not sure who's advocating that approach, but if they are your agency you should consider finding some new help. Are there problems with focus groups? Yes. They aren't efficient, they are easy to manipulate and are overly structured. Yes, we have access to loads of data via the social Web through listening efforts that we would never have access to through focus group activities. However, as Pete noted, monitoring social is never a replacement for actually talking to people about your product. There are a lot of insights you can glean from monitoring human behavior in the flesh that you could never glean from reading the two dimensional written word. I've rambled on enough about the importance of coming up with a four pronged research strategy so I won't bore you with another one of those posts. The reality is we should be thinking about research from a Web, search, social and consumer insights (which would include focus groups) perspective. Bringing those four categories together leads to the best insights. Trust me, it's true. In actuality social media monitoring and focus groups share similar challenges. Those include.....

Scaling issues - One of the bigger criticisms of focus groups is that they aren't efficient. We're spending our time talking to a small group of people instead of blanketing the universe with a survey that can glean insights from thousands. That's overly simplistic, but I think you get the idea. Guess what? The same issues of scale could be said for social media monitoring. Some brands have successfully scaled it across a large enterprise, but most haven't. Most are still dependent on outside resources to help them manage conversation flow, derive insights and make recommendations. Not every brand has the internal resources to handle monitoring thousands of conversations on a weekly/monthly basis.
Interviewer bias vs. monitoring bias - The other big criticism of focus groups is that the responses derived from the group are often biased by the interviewer. Whenever you introduce a human into any kind of research you'll be running the risk of bias. It's part of the price of doing (research) business. That includes monitoring as well. There's likely to be different approaches for interpreting listening data, just like there is for focus group or survey data.
Difficulty in understanding intent - I was trying to come up with a more interesting way of saying that, but intent is a difficult thing to determine offline or on. When I'm monitoring social media conversations for clients I generally have no idea whether they actually feel that way, or are just trying to stir up trouble. Same thing with focus group persona's. Some people try to be difficult for the sake of being difficult, while others are there trying to provide genuine feedback for the brand. Our assumption must be (until we have data to support an alternate POV) that the content is genuine otherwise the research process breaks down.

No research solution is 100% perfect, which is why I'd never advocate to a client that they use focus groups over social media monitoring. Or even social media monitoring over focus groups. It's when you've come up with a coherent research agenda that everybody wins. Your thoughts?

An Update on the 5W’s of Social Media Listening

15 Jul 2010
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Don Bartholomew Jason Falls Listening Social Media Explorer social media analytics social media listening social media monitoring

Last August I was struggling for a way to talk about the value of social media listening. I knew it was important from a general market research perspective, but many companies hadn’t jumped on the “listening” bandwagon as yet. Social monitoring, in my view, was being labeled with the traditional media monitoring stigma. By that I mean, reactive, not timely and generally low value/priority for senior executives. To try and explain the value, I came up with the 5W’s of social media listening. In that post for Social Media Explorer (check it out or the rest of this post isn’t likely to make much sense), I outlined the who, what, when, where and why of social listening, but then also how you turn that data into actionable insights. Actionable insights are what really resonate with senior level executives. But, like anything else, ideas and concepts evolve. The who, what, when, where and why still apply to social media listening, but the horizons are broadening beyond just social media. We’re slowly getting there, but the real next generation for social media listening incorporates findings from search and Web analytics. To that end, I’ve taken a crack at “amending” the 5Ws to include those ideas.

Who – This is still the most fundamental of all the “W’s,” but it’s the one so often erroneously defined. We don’t just want to know who is talking about your brand (are they doctors, moms, over 60 year old dads), but we want to know how influential they are within their micro community. To the point of our post on influence, we need to be able to identify the strength of the site they are participating on, as well as their individual influence. We don’t just want to know what their demographic characteristics are, but who they are specifically. Is it Jane519 in a forum? Is it @Joe519 on Twitter? What can we learn about Joe or Jane? What are their habits on the web? These all help better define the “who.”
What – This “W” stays relatively consistent from the post last year, but the only addition would be not only finding what the individual is saying, but also what they are sharing. Quite often we post to Twitter, or Delicious, or Facebook without making a comment. But that doesn’t mean we don’t care about the content they’ve shared. Sharing, and commenting carry equal weight in this equation.
Where - Specifically, where are the conversations happening about you and your products? This also stays consistent from last year, but again with an addition. We want to know where people are talking, where people are sharing content, but also where people land when they are searching. It may sound intuitive to you (echo chamber FTW), but social media conversation volume leads to increases in search volume leads to increases in views for pages other than brand.com. When that occurs, it’s an important insight to deliver to your brand manager/boss. Similarly, if they land on your brand page, where are they going? Are they going where you want them to go?
When – When are they talking about you? Are the conversations taking place in a vacuum (often not the case)? Are they event-driven? For example, in the case of many public companies (particularly, B2B) you often see spikes in conversation around specific corporate events, like earnings announcements. Are the conversations cyclical? This stays consistent from last year.
Why – As my friend Don Bartholomew pointed out to me when I originally started talking about this concept, the why cannot be entirely answered through listening. Primary research is required. The good news is that we’ve come a long way in social community surveying over the last year. This is something that’s not entirely common, yet, but will be as the push for more definitive ROI grows.

The key, as I noted then, is how we turn the data we glean from these “W’s” into actionable insights. Once you do, you’re golden with your superiors. What would you add to this list? Are we capturing everything? Looking forward to hearing from you.

What's Next for Social Analytics

13 Jul 2010
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ken burbary social analytics lifecycle social media analytics social media listening social media monitoring

What’s Next for Social Media Analytics? At WCG, we’re fond of talking about “next practices.” Best practices is a buzzword that’s been sufficiently killed by communicators for years. Yes, best practices are important, but with the speed in which social media moves, it’s almost impossible to label anything a best practice. Why would you want to anyway? Are you really going to model your social media program on what some other brand has done? Do they have the same customers as you? Are they trying to achieve the same goals that you are? The answer to both of those questions is probably “no.” So where do you get started? We’ve advanced well beyond the stage where you need to hear us tell you how important listening is for your brand. It helps inform content, it helps alter content and it helps us measure the overall performance of your program. Most brands are starting to grasp that concept. What’s not being fully leveraged yet are the volumes of data and information available to a brand leader through the social Web. When we’re listening to online conversations, we’re typically doing so to inform our marketing and PR efforts. That’s great, but there’s much more to the equation than marketing and PR. Last October, Ken Burbary and I developed the Social Analytics Lifecycle for brands looking to really take data available on the social Web to the next level. Our thought was that data on the Web, while being leveraged for marketing and PR could also be leveraged in the areas of product development, strategic planning, customer care and sales. Fundamentally, the lifecycle works by gathering data, filtering out signal from noise, segmenting the data by corporate department, developing insights that form business strategies, which ultimately lead to execution. And, as is the case with any “lifecycle,” the process then continually repeats based on changing goals. There’s obviously more to this story that we’ll get into in future posts (like the convergence of Web, social and search analytics), but so far, we’re not seeing many (if any at all) brands using social data in this way. Are you? Where do you see the evolution of data going?

Reactions to Yesterday's Salesforce.com/Radian6 Announcement

Trashing Social Media? Shut Up and be Grateful!

Searching for the "Perfect" Monitoring or Measurement Solution? Stop Looking!

2011: The Year of Data (I Hope)

Five Ways to Make Your Listening Reports Better

Social Media Monitoring is Not a Replacement for Focus Groups

An Update on the 5W’s of Social Media Listening

What's Next for Social Analytics

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