social monitoring and network analysis

Scenarios for using information from social monitoring tools

Growth means change and change involves risk, stepping from the known to unknown.

In all fields of business, there are varying levels of sophistication. The small business owner juggles bookkeeping, rent, vendors and customers and, if he is lucky, has time left over to take his original business plan one step further via Marketing and Sales activities. The medium and enterprise level businesses have a responsibility to analyze their markets through best-practice business intelligence and innovate. Growth means change and change involves risk, stepping from the known to unknown. The open seas that enterprise-level businesses chart require captains and admirals who can judge when and how to take such risk.

New technologies aid such leaders in their future plans. The most important members of the team in this respect are the SCOUTS. In the world of social media marketing, the scouts are social intelligence providers. It is the responsibility of these scouts to discover the VERY BEST sources of intelligence in a specific vertical or world region. It is important to note that social media monitoring tools come in all shapes and sizes with varying angles on what is and is not important.

The least sophisticated customer of social intelligence signs up for one or two free or low-priced tools and develops guidance straight from data posted within these tools. Trusting the charts, sentiment ratings and influence scoring, he heads out into the social fabric of the Internet and connects with his customer through a specific social graph. Within two weeks, due to this intelligence, his Facebook company page has gathered upwards of 1500 followers due to a targeted ad campaign and he has sold 500 units of his product. One or two major influencers (a national Magazine or a large regional newspaper) picks up on the product, reviews it and he makes even more sales. Within two months of listening to his customer, he has set up a booth at no less than two major trade shows and is now being wooed to a B2B relationship by a large retail chain. Twelve months later, he has sold his product concept, designs and plans to a global brand for seven million dollars and takes some time off on the coast of Italy to reflect.

The medium and enterprise-level customer goes much further in their requirement. This customer of social monitoring intelligence wants his provider to develop insights and recommendations from the masses of data that come through a WOMMA-ethics-level tool…that is, a tool that has total, or near, access to firehoses from “walled-gardens” like Facebook or the giant Amazonian rivers of Twitter. He then wants that provider to write up a brand booklet complete with a few neat charts and a storyline of how the brand may utilize the current climate for maximum growth.

To go further, the Business Unit Manager of the marketing agency working with this enterprise-level customer wants the intelligence provider to produce a few infographics, even featuring Montage style real-time feeds for the Brand Manager to witness the immense flow of data that has been analyzed. But not too many feeds, maybe two or three.

Along with this infographic, the Business Unit Manager from the agency provides the Brand Manager with a comprehensive business plan that charts the growth of the brand over the coming year, its relative competitive weaknesses and advantages (SWOT style or another scenario planner) and a few preliminary creative mock-ups of the customer-facing solution. For internal business solutions, the Business Unit Manager recommends a few choice third-party vendors to come alongside the team for sCRM, a possible re-vamping of how collaboration takes place in the organization and re-vitalized, efficient HR.

The happy Brand Manager gets to go to her Marketing Manager and GM and show off a plan for her brand(s) that will elevate business by a nice percentage, decrease overall internal costs, address any outstanding PR and Customer-Service related issues and foster a glowing relationship with the community in her region through a customer-centric ad/marketing campaign. And, due to the entire solution being driven through social business, she has decreased the ad spend by 60%, saving money in the process. Time for a Google-style raise, boss?

For an important new study on Customer Intelligence Trends 2011, see the following Forrester Report: ‎”At the same time, the demand for insight — not just data — in real time creates a challenge but also a huge opportunity to extend the value of Customer Intelligence throughout the enterprise. Leading CI professionals who evolve and adapt to these trends will quickly find themselves at the nexus of the business.” ~from Customer Intelligence Trends To Watch In 2011 (http://bit.ly/customer_intelligence_trends_2011)

The Shaman's Spellbook

“Myths and symbols are the language of the soul. A myth helps us to take a situation to heart and know what we must do: if it is to see the truth and act upon it, then the image of Psyche with her sword provides a magic perspective. A symbolic object can then be a talisman that helps us to do what we need to do. Like passing a literal torch, these are rituals that empower us by infusing an act with a deeper meaning. To think and act this way is magical, metaphoric thinking that can call forth the qualities we need from within ourselves and may also tap into sources of help that lie beyond us.” ~Jean Shinoda-Bolen.

When social media operatives discover a shaman’s name and gain the list of phrases he/she uses to enchant a tribe, the full membership and complexion of that tribe appears like holiday lights in a dark forest, guiding products/services down the CORRECT chimneys. Discover a tribe’s key influencer and study his/her way of phrasing things and you’ll have all you need to discover what draws the tribe inexorably. Chiefs always turned to shamans for the spells to influence the tribe.

In Greek myth, Eros was called an Eleutherios, or liberator. By some tellings, he is the son of Ares (strategy, intelligence, and warfare) and Aphrodite (love and attraction, the most influential of deities). Eros IS an important god for Social Media Operatives, along with Hermes. Social business IS erotic by nature, weaving corporate silos together and blending previously disparate departments like Marketing and Customer Service. To be clear on the sequence, it is Aphrodite (Influence) who seduces Ares (Strategy), producing Eros, “The Eleutherios”, who entrances Psyche EVERY single time.

To translate: True Influencers that gather masses of crowds are a combination of a Celebrity and a Celebrity-Maker, a King and a King-maker. The Celebrity may have a face and body that excites PLUS an idea of how to move that body and crack that winning smile. She elevates when in touch with a strategist who knows the words and the audiences best suited to her devices. This is why Aphrpodite the Influencer and Ares the Strategist create Eros, the Liberator. He is their device by which to attract Psyche, the mythic persona whose story matches the aching passage of all humanity from unconsciousness to consciousness. OR, to speak in marketing terminology, to introduce awareness of an excellent product/service into the mind of the buyer MOST prone to purchase.

A social intelligence document containing all the right keywords, largest audiences and key influencers for a specific product or service IS a shaman’s spellbook…a playbook, a war strategy, and the method to create Kings and Queens. Those who can analyze the social fabric of the Internet and deliver such documents are the kingmakers, the tribe-winners, and gain the ear of kings and queens. Aggressive pursuit has its place BUT to know a tribe’s perfect summoning spell, indeed, to know the right notes on the flute…well, we all know the rest of that story.

HOW WE DO IT:

a. KEYWORD ANALYSIS: We use best-practice leading keyword research tools to drill down on the search volume and Share of Voice of those keywords.

b. ALGORITHMIC AND HUMAN RESEARCH: We enter all keywords into best-practice, WOMMA-ethics-approved tools and run machine-driven research, and then do subsequent human analysis on those results in the social fabric of the Internet, web communities and blogs.

d. DATA COLLATION AND VISUALIZATION: We collate this information and create Excel spreadsheets following best-practice methods. These spreadsheets are then uploaded into several visualization tools to clarify/see the results.

e. CONVERSATION SNIPPET ANALYSIS BY HAND: We assign teams to hand-analyze conversation snippets and provide spreadsheets where conversations around topics of interest are tallied up and ONLY relevant comments are kept/segmented.

f. REPORT AND INFO-GRAPHIC CREATION: We distill all of this information into a report with digestible, punchy insights and best-practice info-graphics based upon the needs of the campaign.

g. TEACHING AND COACHING: We conduct a talent search for your ideal community manager and then teach and coach that individual in best-practice execution of social and internet marketing strategy.

Useful questions related to assembling social intelligence reports

a. WHO are the influencers around our topic? Who do we recommend as brand ambassadors and community managers from our findings? WHY do we recommend these individuals?
b. WHERE is our tribe, our customer in the social properties, blogs and major web communities?
c. WHAT VOLUME of conversation is there around our target keywords? Where are those large volumes of conversation taking place?
d. What is the SEASONALITY of conversation around our topics of interest?
e. What TIME OF DAY do people discuss our topics of interest?
f. Which LINKS and SPECIFIC CONTENT are people sending to one another related to our topics of interest?
g. In which CONTEXT are the ‘keywords’ of interest used?
h. Which CLUSTERS OF CONVERSATIONS tend to gather the most interest, volume of attention and influence?
i. Which clusters of conversation are most important to our MARKETING campaign’s needs? REPUTATION of a brand? PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT?
j. Which TOOLS proved most effective in our social media property research? Were there differences in our findings from the different tools? What account can we make for these differences?
k. Which METHODS OF VISUALIZATION are most effective in getting the message across to our client?
l. What INSIGHTS are MOST helpful to our client?
m. What can we find on ALL of the above about our competitors?

What is real-time social business intelligence?

What is real-time social business intelligence?

Real-time social business intelligence provides, amongst other things, (a) the right vantage point(s) to observe the “river of news” from; (b) a scuba-suit to dive INTO the river and scour its depths; (c) an informed assessment/report of volume, content AND context over time; and (d) targeted frequent alerts on specific findings for the sake of staff who have other things to do.

A superior social intelligence report includes, amongst other options, the following sections:

1. FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS (Should be accompanied by data-rich infographics that distill findings into a digestible format). Here is a PERFECT example of what the a final product would be: http://jess3.com/go-green-go-public/ Includes the classic 5 W’s of Journalism plus a few more, as outlined here:

• WHO? Who was, is and will be involved? We are able to see a vast amount of material in the social properties based on our current CRM databases.

• WHAT? What happened in the past, present and future? Yes, the future! With tools like Recorded Future, we can refine our knowledge of what is coming up around any vertical or entity.

• WHERE? Where did it take place in the past, Where is it taking place now and where will it take place in the future?

• WHEN? When did it take place in the past, when is taking place NOW, and when will it take place in the future? We can map this very precisely now.

• WHY? Why did it happen? Why is it happening NOW and Why COULD it happen in the future? This has A LOT to do with accurate contextual and sentiment analysis. Temporal Analytics play a part in future analysis. We also get to prove our campaign idea(s) BASED upon both quantitative AND qualitative measures here.

• HOW? How did it happen in the past, how is happening now, and how will it happen in the future?

• Is it WORTHWHILE intelligence? There’s a LOT of junk out there. Filtering out the wheat from the chaff is an essential aspect of our work. Does the content fit in the context we expected or would like to know about.

• What’s the WOW! factor? How much buzz is this keyword or that entity gaining.

• Develop ACTIONABLE items from the intelligence. Single, punchy commands about what, where, when, why and to whom one MUST message.

• GET SOCIAL! Foster AND WEAVE community with the intelligence.

• ON-GOING: Outline a plan for responsible and consistent follow-up and on-going intelligence gathering that dynamically moves WITH the brand, product/service.

2. IDENTIFY YOUR SOURCES AND METHODOLOGYfor the report as a best practice.

3. PROVIDE RANKED KEYWORD DATA SETS Be sure to include data from Google and Alexa here, as well as other important historical and current data from social property insight/analytic panels.

4. IDENTIFY INFLUENCERS WITH REACH + AMBASSADOR ARCHETYPES (These are suggestions of candidates that represent ideal Community Managers or Brand Ambassadors for a brand/product/service).

5. SHOW SEASONALITY OF PRODUCT/SERVICE (When is the BEST time of year for the various messagings about your product/service?).

6. SHOW TIME OF DAY PRODUCT IS DISCUSSED IN GENERAL IN THE SOCIAL PROPERTIES (When is the BEST time of day for the various messagings about your product/service?)

7. ASSEMBLE REAL TIME BUZZ PANELS (Your view into the “river of news”) One format would be like THIS: http://bit.ly/real_time_buzz

8. CREATE A COMPARISON of size of clusters/categories of conversations around specific product/service features.

Your social network is a symphony just waiting to happen!

The music of teamwork is what the world needs now. Your social network is a symphony just waiting to happen! One tweet, one FB status, one posted video, one posted presentation is all it takes to activate the song d’jour, the solution of a lifetime, or the love you seek! Good social networking and business acknowledges the power of the connections you have to get what you need and want done! Power in the new realm of business has to do with leveraging the crowd and your relationships FOR THE BEST AND HIGHEST OF ALL!

1. CREATE your offering. Get encouragement here: http://www.behance.com/. Also, you can re-purpose your
current content as the type of content used in social networks in the form of tweets, FB status updates, blog posts, videos, recorded information, presentations, etc.

2. LISTEN to the network in order to find where others resonate with that offering. Use keywords from your content and social monitoring tools for your listening project.

3. RESERVE your social properties at KnowEm.

4. CONSTRUCT the microsite using blog software (WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Posterous, Moveable Type, and the social footprint in reserved social properties.

5. BRAND and POPULATE your social footrprint with graphics/images/text. ACTIVATE desired functionality (shopping, forums, blogs, chat, social plugins, widgets).

6. SOCIALIZE the microsite and social footprint through campaigns, friending projects and scheduled updates.

7. GET INTIMATE your network and tribe through meaningful conversation, dialogue and contribution. Every individual in your network is a galaxy unto themselves and represents a rainbow of opportunity.

8. SHIP YOUR OFFERING! If you have a product/service that you want the world to know about, then let them KNOW! Tell them about it, tell them that you told them, tell them what you told them and then tell them again! Seth Godin’s little pamphlet ShipIt is EXCELLENT as a 30 minute path to realizing movement in any project!