ebook - how to harness the power of real-time social media insights

HOW TO HARNESS THE POWER OF REAL-TIME SOCIAL MEDIA INSIGHTS

HOW TO HARNESS THE POWER OF REAL-TIME SOCIAL MEDIA INSIGHTS | Developed and Produced by SMS Management & Technology 2

Introduction 3

Have you developed your social media strategy? 4

The power of real-time social insights 5

The biggest social media challenges 8

Social insights checklist 12

How to gather live insights 13

CONTENTS

3

INTRODUCTION

Social media is part of everyday life for your customers. With 2.3 billion active users worldwide, there is no question that social networks are an established part of the modern media landscape. Amazingly 80% of SME’s in Australia do not have a social media strategy and 33% have a social media presence1, however if you lack a strategy then you will find it difficult to measure your investment.

1 Sensis Social Media Report May 2015

WHAT HAPPENS IN AN INTERNET MINUTE?

2.78MVideo Views

20.8M+Messages

701,389Facebook

logins

69,444Hours

watched

972,222Swipes

2.4MSearchqueries

38,052Hours of music

1.04MVine loops

38,194Posts to

instagram

347,222New Tweets

120+New Linkedin

accounts

$203,596In sales

$51,000App downloads

from Apple

527,760Photos shared

1,389Uber rides

150MEmails sent

60SECONDS

HOW TO HARNESS THE POWER OF REAL-TIME SOCIAL MEDIA INSIGHTS | Developed and Produced by SMS Management & Technology


If the answer is no, you are missing out. With customers engaging on social 24 hours a day, you have access to a valuable source of real-time insights that will inform your understanding of your business and your customers. Social media is a living and breathing entity that changes every second. Your organisation needs to be on top of it if you want to reap real business benefits and engage customers.

HAVE YOU DEVELOPED YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY?

THE POWER OF REAL-TIME SOCIAL INSIGHTSYOUR CUSTOMERS ARE CENTRAL TO YOUR BUSINESS SUCCESS. PROMOTING YOUR BRAND ON SOCIAL MEDIA PUTS YOU IN DIRECT CONTACT WITH YOUR BIGGEST FANS AND CRITICS. YOU NEED TO PLAN WHAT MESSAGES YOU WANT TO PUBLISH AND BE PREPARED FOR THE INEVITABLE FEEDBACK BOTH POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE.


The increase in social media engagement can largely be attributed to the increase in the adoption of smartphones as consumers’ main digital device. Smartphones mean that consumers can engage with social media at any given time throughout the day: while waiting in line for a coffee or on the treadmill at the gym. They’re constantly viewing, liking, commenting, tweeting, and sharing content.

With so many customers engaging with your brand at any given time, it’s important to monitor interactions in real time so you can respond quickly. If someone tweets something damaging to your brand, you want to know about it straight away. Similarly, if an influencer shares glowing praise, live insights will help you leverage their influence, while a quick response will strengthen the relationship.

The brands with the most successful social media strategies are building a community of active followers and engaging in conversations. Whether your customers are spending time on Facebook or LinkedIn, you need to constantly monitor what they’re posting and engaging with. With the right strategy in place, you can generate useful insights about your customers, products and brand that have a real impact on revenue. Here are some of the main benefits of live social media monitoring:


CUSTOMER SUPPORTCustomers are increasingly turning to social networks to air frustrations, make complaints or ask questions. A Lithium Technologies survey found that 78 per cent of people who complain to a brand via Twitter expect a response within an hour. This kind of prompt reply is difficult if you’re not monitoring in real-time. If there’s a rush of customers making similar complaints, live insights can help you identify problems quickly and immediately take action. This can also point to issues with your other customer service channels, which will help you to improve the overall customer experience.

IDENTIFY OPPORTUNITIESBy staying up-to-date with what your customers are talking about, you can identify opportunities to join the conversation. Tracking feedback trends will also identify potential product improvements based on how they’re being used. Monitoring rival brands offers useful competitive insights. Identifying a gap in the conversation or tracking customer perception of their products and services will help you pinpoint strategic opportunities for your business.


IMPROVE STRATEGIES Social media also has a direct impact on revenue. With customers conducting their own research online before making a purchasing decision, social media pages can play a big role in positioning your brand. Sensis found that 41 per cent of consumers inspect a brand’s social media presence before making an online purchase. Gathering insights from the type of content your followers interact with will help improve your company’s social strategy, boosting the customer’s perception of your business.

“With customers engaging on social 24 hours a day, you have access to a valuable source of real-time insights that will inform your understanding of your business and your customers. Your organisation needs to be on top of it if you want to reap real business benefits and engage customers.”

8

THE BIGGEST SOCIAL MEDIA CHALLENGESGATHERING REAL-TIME INSIGHTS FROM SOCIAL MEDIA CAN BE CHALLENGING, ESPECIALLY IF YOU HAVE LIMITED RESOURCES OR LITTLE EXPERIENCE WITH ONLINE COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT. FIGURING OUT HOW TO DEAL WITH THESE CHALLENGES IS THE FIRST STEP WHEN CONSIDERING A MORE ACTIVE SOCIAL MEDIA APPROACH:



MANAGING OVERWHELMING VOLUMEThe sheer volume of content being shared on social networks can be overwhelming. With more than 30 million messages posted on Facebook every minute, how can you zero in on the ones that are most important for your business? Having a clear understanding of what insights you’re looking for will help you skip to the most relevant content. Notifications for particular influencers or keyword alerts will also help you monitor in real-time without scrolling endlessly through feeds.

BEING CONSTANTLY RESPONSIVESocial media is constantly updating, so staying on top of it at all times is almost impossible. At the same time, you need to be across any major events so you can respond quickly. If your company receives an avalanche of complaints over a weekend, but there is nobody monitoring your accounts until Monday morning, customers will be even more frustrated by your slow response. You need clearly defined policies about monitoring social channels outside of business hours.


HAVING CLEAR OWNERSHIP ON POLICIESWithout clear escalation policies or defined roles, your social media accounts can quickly get out of hand. Responding to issues quickly is critical but you also don’t want to make matters worse with a reply that positions your business in a bad light. When joining real-time conversations, it’s important to have clear direction on style and tone, so you don’t have a fragmented approach when different employees are managing your accounts.

PROVIDING SUFFICIENT RESOURCESTo generate insights and engage customers in real-time, you need to have enough resources to monitor, respond to customers and schedule content, otherwise your team will find themselves working on social around the clock. It’s a good idea to have extra staff trained on your strategy so they can respond to comments in the event of an issue, or monitor trends and responses during a particularly busy time like an event or launch.

KEEPING UP WITH VISUAL CONTENTMonitoring trending hashtags or comments is one thing, but social media is increasingly focused on visuals with the rise of Instagram and Pinterest. Tracking visual content is much more time-consuming because you need to watch videos in full and look closely at images to make sure your brand isn’t associated with anything inappropriate.

“To generate insights and engage customers in real-time, you need to have enough resources to monitor, respond to customers and schedule content. Without sufficient resources, your team will find themselves working on social around the clock.”



SOCIAL INSIGHTS CHECKLIST

MARKET RESEARCH Gather information about your target audience

Identify trending topics in your industry

Keep an eye on changes or industry shifts

BRAND MONITORING Identify people talking about your brand

Monitor engagement with your content

Track common topics of interest or issues

CUSTOMER SENTIMENT What is the tone and sentiment of people discussing your brand?

Identify positive and negative themes

Look for people talking to you, as well as about you

COMPETITIVE RESEARCH Monitor the social media activity of competitors

Track what consumers are saying about them

What content are their followers engaging with?

AUDIENCE SEGMENTS Segment your audience by demographics like industry, location or job function

What is the sentiment across these different segments?

Identify the topics that are trending within each group

INFLUENCER CONTENT What content are relevant influencers sharing?

Look for content you can leverage or share

Keep an eye out for influencers mentioning your brand

GEOGRAPHIC TRENDS Track the customer issues experienced in different locations

What content is trending in different regions?

Look out for local events or news that you can leverage

THE FIRST STEP TO GATHERING REAL-TIME INSIGHTS IS TO DECIDE WHAT YOU WANT TO MONITOR. THIS WILL DEPEND ON YOUR OVERALL BUSINESS GOALS, BUT SOCIAL MEDIA CAN PROVIDE YOU WITH ALL KINDS OF INSIGHTS, FROM MARKET TRENDS TO INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE AND COMPETITORS.

HERE’S A CHECKLIST OF SOME OF THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS TO MONITOR, TO HELP GET YOU STARTED.

13

HOW TO GATHER LIVE INSIGHTSTHE TECHNIQUES YOU USE TO MONITOR SOCIAL MEDIA IN REAL-TIME WILL DEPEND ON YOUR BUDGET, RESOURCES AND DESIRED OUTCOMES. THE KEY IS TO FIND METHODS THAT INTEGRATE INTO YOUR DAY-TO-DAY BUSINESS PROCESSES AND CAN BE MANAGED WITHOUT CONSUMING TOO MUCH OF YOUR TIME. HERE ARE SIX SIMPLE SUGGESTIONS TO GET YOU STARTED:



MONITOR HASHTAGSAn easy way to monitor social media is by monitoring relevant hashtags. In particular, users on Twitter and Instagram make use of hashtags to help people to find their content or provide their posts with context. These can vary from serious topics to tongue-in-cheek captions. Monitor those relevant to your business, such as industry topics or an official event hashtag. Looking at all the content shared with a hashtag will help you identify trending attitudes or discover relevant posts.

BRAND MENTIONSSet up alerts so that you’re notified whenever anyone mentions your social media handle, hashtags your brand name or uses the name of your business in a post. This will allow you to see what people are saying about you, even if they’re not speaking directly to you. It’s not always appropriate to join these conversations, but it helps to gauge perception of your brand or pinpoint common customer issues. If someone does tag your brand, real-time alerts mean you can respond straight away.


EMPLOYEE MENTIONSSome members of your company will have a prominent public profile or strong personal brand. Monitor social networks for mentions of these employees so you can share any relevant content that positions them as thought leaders. Employees with strong social media networks can also help you to extend your reach, so follow their activity for opportunities to leverage content. Track mentions of prominent staff, like your CEO, to stay informed of any negative remarks from the public.

Mention and hashtag monitoring tools:

+ To track mentions of your brand, employees or topics of interest across the web, Google Alerts is a free tool which will send you updates for every mention or a regular summary.

+ Social scheduling tool Hootsuite will provide you with a live stream of any posts including a particular keyword or hashtag, such as your brand name.

+ More comprehensive tools such as NUVI and Heartbeat also provide extensive keyword and hashtag analytics in a live, user-friendly dashboard, as well as mobile alerts.


INFLUENCER MONITORINGIdentify relevant influencers for your business – these are likely to be people within your industry with huge social networks, high-profile bloggers or online personalities who receive media attention. Monitoring the content influencers are producing can help to identify industry trends, as well as the content your customers are likely to be interested in. By tracking it in real-time you will quickly discover opportunities to join in or share posts with the hope of reaching a wider audience.

Influencer monitoring tools:

+ Klout provides people or brands with a social influence score between 1-100, based on the engagement, response and discussion they generate across their social platforms.

+ Buzzsumo will allow you to search for key influencers in a topic area or location and filter lists by authority, reach, engagement and more.

+ Followerwonk will help you connect with new influencers in your industry. You can also compare influencers to determine who is most relevant for your specific content.


LOCATION ACTIVITYTrack social content being produced from a certain location. This is particularly useful if you have a physical store or are hosting an event. You can keep an eye on relevant posts from a particular location, even if they don’t use your brand name or hashtag. This will allow you to identify instances of poor customer service, uncover new opportunities and monitor event-related posts.

Location activity tools:

+ NUVI includes a unique tool that allows you to pinpoint social media posts on a map, enabling you to determine where brand mentions or complaints are predominantly situated.

+ This tool will also allow you to define a very specific location, such as an event venue or postcode, so you can monitor and engage with posts from a particular place in real-time.

HOW TO REMOVE BARRIERS TO INNOVATION WITH THE CLOUD | Developed and Produced by SMS Management & Technology 18

REAL-TIME DASHBOARD The best way to actively listen to conversations and monitor insights is by setting up a real-time dashboard. There are many dashboard tools available with comparative functionality, whichever option you select make sure all of your major platforms and metrics are included. With a dashboard updating in real-time, your team can look in one place to measure sentiments, trends, alerts and activity on your own posts. This reduces the resources needed to look at multiple channels and allows you to respond quickly.

Real-time dashboard tools:

+ Dashboard tools such as NUVI and Heartbeat present live social media data in easy to understand visualisations.

+ NUVI provides real-time monitoring of competitor mentions, positive or negative sentiment trends and live updates on your reach and engagement.

+ Heartbeat will display mentions from 189 countries and make sense of posts in 186 languages. You can also tag specific conversations for easy monitoring or analysis.

+ Radian6 extends monitoring beyond social media to listen to blogs, news and more. This means you can leverage content on social in real-time, or respond to issues in the media.

ABOUT SMSA leader in advisory, solutions and managed services, SMS cultivates innovation, digital, mobile and design-led business and technology capability to empower organisations across all industry sectors. With over 1700 staff across Asia Pacific, SMS promotes and delivers next-generation customer-centric outcomes for our clients.

smsmt.com

ebook - how to harness the power of real-time social media insights

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