monitoring & measuring social media - a practical guide

Monitoring & Measuring Social Media

Eric Melin @SceneStealrEric@Spiral16

11/16/2012 2

Spiral16 provides a robust software platform with customized services for Internet tracking, analysis, and reporting.

Spiral16 gives companies the key insights they need from the web and social media to make smarter decisions and gain a competitive edge.

Spiral16 Overview

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Social Data Drives Business

“Marketing success depends on insight into, and intelligence

regarding, one’s target audience.”

“Companies today simply cannot survive without metrics,

objectives, analytics data and actionable information.”

1. Analytics for the CMO: How Best-in-Class Marketers Use Customer Insights to Drive More Revenue, Aberdeen Group

2. Social Media Metrics: How To Measure and Optimize Your Marketing Investment ,Jim Sterne

http://www.aberdeen.com/aberdeen-library/7065/RA-marketing-business-analytics.aspx

http://www.amazon.com/Social-Media-Metrics-Marketing-Investment/dp/0470583789

Social Data = Essential Insight

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Sales and Marketing Alignment:

Collaboration + Cooperation = Peak Performance

“Without a strong analytics capability to glean insights from both prior marketing activities and current customers, it is very difficult to execute these tactics effectively or efficiently.”

Analytics for the CMO: How Best-in-Class Marketers Use Customer Insights to Drive More Revenue, Aberdeen Group



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CMOs Use Social Data to Identify Trends

CMOs believe social data can indicate:

83% - Trends or patterns that may impact business.

81% - Consumer demographics/psychographics

80% - Consumer sentiment on products

78% - Influence of individuals or groups on purchase decisions

73% - Consumer sentiment on brand(s) or company

- Chief customer advocate: How social data elevates CMOs, bazaarvoice & The CMO Club

http://www.bazaarvoice.com/cmo-club

Social Impacts Awareness & Loyalty

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- Chief customer advocate: How social data elevates CMOs, bazaarvoice & The CMO Club

CMOs believe that social efforts impact:

http://www.bazaarvoice.com/cmo-club

Where Do You Start?

Know What To Listen For

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Questions that can be answered:

Social and web research yields actionable business intelligence that will drive business forward.

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There is no way to calculate social media ROI

with a one-size-fits-all equation.

Image from glynndevins.com -- and modified

Establish a Customized Process

The Only Way to Measure Performance and Results

It is critical for creating a data-driven view of marketing results.

“This should be complemented with frequent reports to stakeholder within the organization, to build a clear picture of how marketing contributes to the health and success of the organization.”

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- Aberdeen Group 2012 StudyWeb Analytics: Marketing Beyond Online Customer Data

Data Drives Decisions

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Tie Social Listening to Business Goals

You’ve identified your business goals already. Increase Total Sales Reduce Customer Service Expenses Acquire New Customers Reduced Cost Per Transaction Increase Qualified Leads Encourage Repeat Purchases/ Build Customer Loyalty

Higher Value Per Sale Increase Customer

Satisfaction Increase Reach Introduce New Products/

Service Enhancements Attract New Employees

How can social research help you achieve them?

Practical Applications

Brand ManagementCompetitive IntelligenceIndustry/Market ResearchLead GenerationCustomer ServiceCrisis ManagementCampaign MonitoringProduct/Service Monitoring

There are not always KPIs for each application, but the practical insight you get from the research will drive return.

Your Objectives Drive Listening

Monitor brand names, nicknames, executives

Who is your target audience? Where are they talking online? Has your brand gone social?

What language are they using? Are they using your marketing language or creating their own? How can you adapt your language to give them a sense of ownership?

What is the sentiment surrounding yourbrand?

What are the hot issues/topics surrounding your brand?

Brand Management

KPIs & Measurement Opportunities

Measure the reach of your brand messaging. How many people have you reached?Fans/followers can only get you so far, because not every fan/follower will see every post.Clicks and subscribers show who is reading your content.

Measure the engagement.Likes and ratings show who approves/endorses your content.Retweets and shares show who is spreading your content.Comments and replies show who is engaging with your content.

Brand Management

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KPIs & Measurement Opportunities

Brand Management

Identify voices, posts, and sites that are influential about your brand.Look for patterns in volume and sentiment spikes.

Evaluate this new insight and alter your marketing plans appropriately.How does this new information fit with your goals?

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Oprah’s strategy of producing a lot of easily-shared Lifeclass Tour multimedia content and making sure that influential authors are supplied with backstage credentials paid off. Her brand owns the conversation.

Twitter - positive chatter & check-ins. YouTube - fan videos and brand-shared

News sources and blog results from “behind-the-scenes” event bloggers and an Oprah sub-property on the SiriusRadio website make up the balance of the list.

Brand Management

Online buzz about Oprah's Metro Toronto Convention Centre appearance was stronger than it was for NYC or St. Louis.

More people were excited about guests Deepak Chopra, Iyanla Vanzant, and Tony Robbins than they were about Bishop T.D. Jakes.

Brand Management

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Monitor brand/competitor’s branded keywords

How can you adapt to take advantage of something that caused a positive spike for your competitor?

Compare Trending Over TimeFind volume and sentiment spikes over time. Compare your spikes with competitor(s). Are they the same/different? Why?

Competitive Intelligence

KPI: Share of Voice

Your brand mentions vs. competitorsHow does this percentage change over time?What is driving these numbers?

Look at the data for your competitors.

What strategies are working for them? Are other brands engaging/driving more conversation?

How can you build brand awareness to compete more effectively?


Conversation Analysis

Identify context/causes of volume and sentiment spikes.Look at the word cloud during the date range of the spike to see what the hot topics/trends were that caused it. See what themes develop around your competitors. Filter results by the date range of the spike. Then correlate dates with language.How your competitors positioning themselves? What language are they using? What markets are they targeting? Evaluate the language, trends coming from your competitors’ advertising and marketing. Is there room for improvement in yours?


Cerner ran competitive intelligence on one of its competitors.

The prevailing marketing image of competitor as young and hip was affecting:• Favorable media coverage in mainstream and health IT

press• High spots in KLAS Healthcare IT Software rankings

Cerner’s online volume was mostly from job postings and financial reports• Sentiment was positive, but very “corporate”• Customers were not talking about Cerner• Industry pundits puzzled why competitor is “cool” and

Cerner is not


By identifying trends and sites where people talked about competitor, they learned:

Competitor selling image with cool technology, mode of dress• Doctors utilize competitor’s software with iPads• Company representatives don’t wear suits and ties

Competitor using social media to gain buy-in for their software

Online forums and chat rooms mentioning both Cerner and competitor• Passionate, opinionated feedback• Sharing problems, recommendations


Recommendations:

• Develop video as a hip, savvy communication tool• Commit to a better content marketing strategy, ramp up

social efforts• Drop formal company attitude, change company dress• Keep monitoring forums and health-related issues• Develop a Cerner online community for customers

• Increase customer loyalty, gain customer insight, control message


Monitor industry-specific keywords, issues

For this type of research, you don’t monitor your brand. Search for keywords that relate to your market/industry and see how often your brand terminology comes up.

This research is market-specific and will also see point out how your brand stacks up in the midst of industry trends.

Find top influencers in your industry/topic and what they care about. Craft an engagement strategy around this.

See trends/topics within your industry. Learn what people in your industry are talking about and how they are talking about it. Create campaign initiatives that speak specifically to that.

Industry/Market Research

Study found posts, comments, and pages discussing single-serve coffee pods and brewers with a focus on:

1. Cost2. Convenience3. Taste and flavor4. Coffee variety5. Environmental impact

Positive subjects surrounding single-cupcoffee included price, convenience, lack of waste.

The overwhelming negative subject was the lack of variety compared to traditional or quantity-cup brewers.


More Insight:

There is no authoritative domain or site for the topic of single-serve coffee, but rather a collection of small sites that are mostly talking to themselves.


Recommendations:Go where the customer is online.Target conversations/ads to conversations trends.

Rather than trying to get conversations started by forcing prospects to adopt your marketing language, go to where conversations reside and adopt their language.

Paid or earned content should be positioned on established lifestyle/living sites where the target demographic already resides such as Huffington Post, Lifehacker, etc.


Monitor Terms Your Target Customer Would Use

Build a profile for your customers.Monitor “buy” terms, common questions, pain points, buzz words within your product category.

Find out what prospects are saying about your product/service and how it fits into the industry. Learn what issues are important to prospects.

Find forums, blogs where people are talking. Identify those who are researching your industry.

Lead Generation

Spiral16 identified five key terms that prospects who need our platform/services often use when describing their businesses online.

By isolating the category to corporate websites, we isolate the strategic marketing language companies are using.

Goal: Identify possible strategic partners to grow business.

Lead Generation

The research also shows:• Blogs that engage in conversation about social media

issues• Trending topics/buzz to capitalize on in our own content

marketing• Questions/problems people have with

monitoring/measuring social media for business• Prospects who are shopping around, asking about social

research solutions

As a result:• Qualified leads up 56% in one year• Requests for software demos doubled in one year

Lead Generation

Find/Engage With Customers, Offer Assistance

Develop an Engagement ProcessConsider transparency, guidelines and regulations, and brand personality.Be positive, take conversation offline if needed.Follow up with customers, make sure issues are resolved

Measure efficiency/success by tracking:Sentiment of customersResponse time by channel, teamResolution time through social vs. other channelsCustomer retention rate through social vs. other channelsPurchase rate through social vs. other channels

Use monitoring to identify positive outcomes, customer satisfaction.

Customer Service

2012 MLB All-Star Game held in Kansas City

The primary goal of the Social Media Command Center was to create meaningful conversations with both visitors to the area for the event as well as current residents, and act as a “virtual help desk” or concierge.• In all, the team filtered 70,000

posts.

• Of those, they read and tagged well over 30,000 social postings, cataloging and featuring the best of them on VisitKC’s social hub.

• By the end of the festivities, 2,100 individuals got hands-on help from a Command Center volunteer.

Customer Service

Kansas City Social Media Command Center

Trend analysis showed that significant positive buzz was created for Kansas City, Kauffman Stadium, local businesses and museums, BBQ, All-Star FanFest, and the Social Media Command Center itself.Helpful links, informative blogs, & fan photos were shared across the web for 6 days.

Twitter, where most of the engagement was focused, was a lovefest.

Despite a potentially negative incident at the game itself, even news sites had a positive sentiment score of 73%.

Customer Service

Monitor Names, Products, Services, Execs, etc.

Identify sites/domains and also influencers who can help you spread your response in the case of a crisis.

Learn how they speak and engage so you can craft your message accordingly.

When it’s time to respond, you’ll need these people at your fingertips.

Crisis Management

Have a Plan in Place

Engage Strategically Based on Data

Look for sentiment/volume changes. Where is this happening?

Look at language, hot topics and use this to craft response language, including press release and company statements.

Actively respond using the perspectives you’ve gained from monitoring. • Provide solutions, recommendations, or simply apologize

and offer amends. • Be gracious, not defensive.

Measure sentiment and topics to see where and when crisis turns around. Use sentiment and volume charts to prove crisis is receding.

During Crisis

Crisis Management

Learn From Your Data

Measure sentiment and topics to see where and when crisis turned around. Use sentiment and volume charts to prove crisis is receding.

Find the correlation between company announcements/responses and the sentiment of the crisis.

Pinpoint where the message worked best, and where it coulduse improvement.

Revise your crisis management plan accordingly.

Post-Crisis

Crisis Management




For these two applications, apply the same concepts from Brand Management and Competitive Intelligence and use language-specific keywords for your campaign, product, or service.

Sometimes it’s obvious when goals are reached.

The most important thing is to: • Set goals

• Record your results• Learn from the data

• Improve

Measuring Success Isn’t Always Hard

Better Data. Better Decisions.www.spiral16.com

Thanks to the Helzberg Entrepreneurial Mentoring Program!

Eric Melin @SceneStealrEric@Spiral16

monitoring & measuring social media - a practical guide

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