BrandWatch

The Power of the Listening Hub for the Enterprise

The purpose of this post is to outline a few best-practice actions as related to set-up and the early months of running a Social Media Command Center (SMCC) within a major brand headquarters. Such pilot programs demonstrate the types of insights and recommendations possible through the implementation of a SMCC.

First, let’s start with some definitions:

DEFINITIONS:

Social Media Command Center (SMCC) – A centrally located space where monitors (or signage screens), PCs and desks are configured for research of social data (and other data as prescribed) by in-house employees and 3rd party vendors. The SMCC provides a way to visualize data in various configurations relative to the needs of the corporation. The focus of research at a SMCC is social data.

The phrase “command center” has become common due to the central data research function relative to a brand’s outlets or regional offices. Insights and recommendations relative to past events, current initiatives and/or future opportunities are distributed from the command center.

A SMCC can be used for actions by various silos (upon approval). Such actions can include Marketing Campaign planning & engagement, PR response, HR discovery, Sales prospecting, Customer Service, Call Center integration, Competitive Intelligence, Customer Intelligence, company overview for the C-Suite and much more.

A fully realized SMCC is more than just a research center. The SMCC can be populated by representatives from each silo/department. The representatives can be authorized to take immediate action on critical issues. Policies can be put into place that give these representatives acceptable parameters for action and response.

For example, Customer Service representatives present within the early-stage SMCC can demonstrate an enhanced response time to resolving customer needs. Other names for a SMCC include Social Listening Center, Listening Center, Social Analytics Research Facility, Web Intelligence Center and Data Research Facility.

Social Data – Data specifically derived from the Internet and social networks, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, Pinterest, Slideshare, Instagram, blogs, online forums, websites, and other online communities/networks. The data is public information, meaning it can be accessed by anyone.

VALUE:
The value of a SMCC to a brand or corporation includes:

– provides the possibility to view all mentions of the brand online
– provides the possibility to view all mentions of competitors online
– provides the possibility to discover key influencers as related to the brand, market space and competitors
– provides the possibility to monitor actions by competitors online
– provides customer insights based on conversations online
– provides recommendations for action to be taken in multiple silos at the brand/corporation
– provides recommendations for research projects related to customers, competitors and corporate initiatives

SAMPLE RESEARCH PROJECT SUMMARIES:
The following sample projects demonstrate just a few types of research possible through the use of a SMCC.

Brand Audit – An overview of mentions and sentiment related to the brand. An overview related to brand initiatives using specific search terms. A comprehensive audit of where the brand is being mentioned and by whom. Discovery of key influencers driving opinion about the brand, the maret segment and competitors. A study of competitors’ to the brand and a comparison of mention volume, sentiment and other factors.

Product Launches – As specific new product lines are launched, the SMCC staff can provide key internal decision makers with valuable insights based on mentions.

Marketing Planning Projects – Planning as related to marketing can be enhanced through the use of a SMCC. Specific marketing projects can be created as a result of listening to customer and competitor conversations and noting trending topics. Creatives from the brand & third-party agencies can collaborate in a SMCC while viewing visualizations of mentions and complex query results.

Example: Monitor conversations during brand campaign launches and create on-the-fly sub-marketing campaigns for specific regions/cities based upon mentions. Discover influential voices online (individuals and/or specific sites) that are either detracting or celebrating the brand.

Sales Prospecting Projects – Sales directors can discover prospects for sales teams, along with detailed on these prospects. A SMCC can be used by sales strategists to created finely segmented lists of prospects. The SMCC can also be used to gather and append valuable contact and demographic data to each individual prospect.

Example: Monitor specific regions and deliver B2B prospect lists to enterprise sales staff in those regions. This is based on conversations in those regions by ideal B2B prospects. Deliverable includes a list of B2B prospects in a region with appended contact/social data and intelligence on each prospect (why this is a good prospect for brand business services in that region, along with suggested ways to gain advantage with specific example). The ultimate goal with this project is to demonstrate the efficacy of social data in helping sales leaders close deals for brand Business Services.

Human Resources Discovery – Human Resources can quickly discover ideal candidates for positions within the corporation. Insights on employee sentiment within the brand can be delivered to HR from SMCC analysts. Insights on sentiment of employees at competitors can be delivered to HR also with the SMCC program.

Example: Identify lists of ideal prospects for specific positions at brand and/or brand franchises. Demonstrate how social data can yield ideal prospects for HR purposes. Monitor employee sentiment related to specific initiatives, discover ratings by ex-employees or current staff at sites like Glassdoor.com and LinkedIn.com. Monitor employee sentiment at competitors and discover opportunity for recruitment/head hunting/competitive intelligence. Monitor partners and vendors. Discover core differences between existing partners/vendors and their competitors.

PR Response – Analysts at the SMCC can provide valuable and quick insight into mentions of the brand online. Response times to positive or negative mentions online can be greatly reduced by having one central research hub. In addition, the ability to quickly visualize threats/opportunities, along with ability to append valuable conversation and contact data, will greatly enhance critical PR efficiency. Monitor “watchdog” reports related to specific products at brand.

Example: Monitor specific regions and/or franchisee locations for mentions and sentiment. Develop insights for these regions/franchisees on what customers/local inhabitants are saying about those store locations. Monitor global sentiment relative to competitors – what PR issues are our competitors dealing with. Discover specific threats to the brand. Discover specific social proof (positive trends & mentions) related to the brand.

Customer Service – Customer Service is perhaps the most valuable action within the SMCC. The ability to aggregate/analyze customer sentiment as demonstrated in online conversation and respond quickly to the needs of one’s customers is greatly enhanced in the context of the SMCC. Again, a fully realized SMCC is more than just a research center. The SMCC can be populated by representatives from each silo/department. The representatives can be authorized to take immediate action on critical issues. Policies can be put into place that give these representatives acceptable parameters for action and response. The Customer Service representatives present within the early-stage SMCC can demonstrate an enhanced response time to resolving customer needs.

Example: Monitor specific regions and/or locations for mentions and sentiment. Develop insights for these regions/franchisees on what customers/local inhabitants are saying about those store locations. Monitor mentions related to specific brand products and competitors’ products. Discover venues for providing swifter service, product complaints and other online arenas where brand brand word of mouth is spreading. Recommend specific programs or amendments to existing programs at the brand.

Competitive Intelligence – The SMCC can provide insights related to activities by competitors online, and also to the customers, vendors and employees of these competitors. As a sub-set of this research, we can monitor partners and vendors.

Enterprise level planning and campaign execution

Earlier this morning, I tweeted a series of actions a large enterprise could weave together for superior planning and campaign execution. The following sequence is an expansion of those tweets into a powerful method for market research and execution of digital campaigns/building of social communities online:

1. Achieve superior market intel by pairing newly minted predictive data solution at @Fliptop with the truly massive product index at @Indix

Fliptop is providing predictive lead scoring using internal and external data. Connects with CRM and Marketing Automation to deliver immediate impact to increase revenue. Indix is offering software for product aware apps, product intelligence, price intelligence, competitive intelligence. Indix has produced what they claim is THE ultimate map of all products on the planet. When one pairs scored leads relative to specific products, one has assembled pools of ideal customers. Pairing Fliptop with Indix is a method for assembling pools of ideal customers for products.

2. Continue the project mentioned in last tweet using @Fliptop & @Indix by appending deep social media resources via @FullContactAPI.

Full Contact offers a mechanism for appending social data to emails in the context of a spreadsheet. When an organization takes the “pools of ideal customers” from the previous step and then appends social data to each customer in its CRM, the result is a way into the deep conversations occurring around specific products. An analyst can also extract other meaningful connections through studying what specific pools of customers are talking about and what trends are developing in those pools. More on how to find those trends in the next step.

3. Bring further depth to aforementioned @Fliptop @Indix @FullContactAPI project by processing entities thru @RecordedFuture temporal analytics.

Recorded Future scans hundreds of thousands of quality public web sources, including news publications, high-caliber blogs, social media platforms, financial databases, government websites, and much more. From these open sources, RF identifies text references to entities and events. Then RF detects time periods: when the events are predicted or reported to occur. Each reference links back to the original source. RF can explore the past, present, and predicted future of almost anything in a matter of seconds. RF’s analysis tools facilitate deep investigation to better understand complex relationships, resulting in actionable insights.

When an analyst takes entities from the previous step in this process and performs analysis on these entities, he has the opportunity to find specific times in the future when a product might be better received. In addition, there may be an opportunity through using the specificity of Recorded Future to literally change a future event simply through when a product is launched. RF offers an analyst myriad signals from web intelligence that can inform a smarter strategic positioning for product launch, product recall and customer acquisition. By knowing what is happening with prospects and competitors through the RF panel, a product dev team can more accurately create a unique selling proposition in the marketplace.

Watch this video for more on how Recorded Future uses web intelligence to produce foresight in markets: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a62XTMufWQI

4. After using @RecordedFuture (step 3 in this tweeted process), apply @Brandwatch to extract meaningful mentions from resulting data set

Brandwatch is offering a superior listening & data visualization solution that will bring precise conversation analysis into this process. In addition, one may assemble a scale of influence relative to a product, market segment and/or pool of customers. Finally, Brandwatch has just launched a powerful data visualization format called Vizia that is helpful for C-Suite decision makers to quickly digest complex analysis on a real-time basis. The solution rivals previous set-ups by rivals and will inform the next generation of social media control centers globally. See this sample of Brandwatch Vizia in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvx_yNn_McQ

5. As the penultimate step to ultimate customer intel, deposit nice neat sheet from previous 4 steps into @SpotRight machine for laser insights.

We can further refine insights derived through the Brandwatch methodology by placing data into the Spotright.com process, where truly massive amounts of customer intelligence have already been segmented, tagged and defined. No entity on the planet has assembled such an expansive and deep set of intelligence on individuals as Spotright.com. The principals at Spotright bring a rich diversity of backgrounds and have assembled the ultimate catalog of individuals who buy products. A team choosing to use Spotright at this stage will find verification of previous findings AND, importantly, matches to its internal CRM of customers. Spotright is how to find customers just like your existing regulars.

6. For awareness-bulding actions based upon previously tweeted research sequence, execute campaigns using @JiveSoftware for maximum reach.

To bring an enterprise portfolio of products to market, use Jive Software. Now that the full market research has been completed in the previous 5 steps, it is time to take action. A powerful solution for taking action is Jive, which blends internal facing and external facing capabilities, making team-work across the silos far more efficient. In addition, Jive offers a suite of solutions for building awareness on a massive scale in the social fabric of the Internet. Watch this video for more understanding of how this works on the inside of a large FMCG group: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ISa0VBkyOM

To run this six step process is a means to unlocking powerful potential in online communities for community engagement and sales growth.

Social Media Monitoring 2014 techniques and outlook

Customers who buy into a social media monitoring solution in 2014 want a page of insights backed by a “living” appendix. The “living” appendix is your technical solution where the customer can study the evidence for your insights. This evidence, in today’s real-time world, is a simple interface in the form of a mobile app that delivers abundant examples supporting the insights on your one-page.

Once the customer of social media monitoring feels confident in this insight-evidence system, he/she will ask you for ways to grow a business based upon the insights. One of the best ways to build a business based on insights from social media is a robust CRM (Customer Relationship Management data set). A robust CRM means that you have taken every person talking about a topic online and discovered their real name, current address, current mobile/landline, current email, current social links and examples of their interest (tweets, posts, comments).

When you have this depth of information about a market, and its occupants, then you have everything you need to develop engaging content. To develop engaging content means that you have listened to the conversation, you have studied and analyzed its participants and you have stepped into the conversation with something to say that contributes to the cutting edge of the conversation at hand. When you post into a comment thread, it is always wise to read the entire thread. When you reply to a tweet, it is wise to have studied who you are responding to so that your reply develops rapport and demonstrates a “seeing” of that particular person. When you develop a blog post on an industry, it is smart to research that industry. This is how great content is created and sustained.

A powerful tool for listening to and analyzing online conversations is Brandwatch. Run by Giles Palmer, the solution has myriad ways to segment conversation data, and the company culture at Brandwatch combines technical know-how, maturity and a certain understated confidence that makes every conversation with staff an “a-ha” moment for those just getting into social media monitoring. Start with Brandwatch when you are on the listening journey.

Once you’ve spent time listening, you will have the large (but fun) project of assembling a CRM related to a topic. While Brandwatch is very useful in discovering usernames related to a conversation, you will need a few other tools to “append” further details. I recommend SocialBro as an excellent tool for downloading extensive spreadsheets from Twitter of those in conversation on a topic. You will be able to combine spreadsheets from Brandwatch and SocialBro to create a near comprehensive starting point of every username discussing a topic. (SocialBro is also an excellent resource for timing your communication with a particular person or group).

Note: If you want to add to the thought-leader aspect of your spreadsheets quickly, I suggest a solution like PeerReach, an excellent and growing resource developed by Zlatan Menkovic and crew. You can go even further with PeerReach by studying the Twitter lists created by these thought-leaders. In many industries, especially outside the USA, it is vital to also study leading forums where literally 10s of thousands gather to discuss and interact around a niche industry. In addition, there are private groups in LinkedIn and at membership only sites with actual lists of industry leaders in a niche or region. If you want to add the latest news about an individual leader or organization, I recommend Recorded Future.

Next you will need to append contact data to these usernames. The contact data is often discoverable via personal URLs such as a LinkedIn or personal website. You can use services like Whois search, Spokeo, Intelius, 192.com, Leadership Directories, and many other regional people-finders to append current contact data. I also highly recommend an Executive or Recruiter level account at LinkedIn for appending contact data. If you want to go deeper, there are a host of OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) solutions that are constantly evolving to bring deeper info on individuals and organizations: “OSINT tools” feed from Twitter.

The ideal spreadsheet of a community surrounding a topic includes: First Name, Last Name, Username(s), Current Address, Country, Current mobile, Current landline, Current Email(s), Current social links, Several columns of sample posts that demonstrate interest in a topic (where an individual has posted about a topic), Influence score (such as Kred, Klout or PeerIndex). With such a spreadsheet, you can begin to contact thought leaders directly and engage in a learning process about the online discussion around a topic/service/interest.

As you grow in relationship with thought-leaders, you will find that your own posts, content and actions become more precise and effective…mainly because you will be “on the cutting edge” of the conversation in an industry. You will find that being on this edge gives you an edge and develops a maturity of outlook within you. You will find that others’ respect in you about this topic will grow as you listen, listen, listen to a core group of topic thought-leaders. Your contributions will be informed by these thought-leaders and “passionates” in a niche.

Once your network grows in a given niche, you will begin to see where opportunities exist, where something is lacking, where you can contribute to the need in that community. And, because you posses THE comprehensive CRM (or rolodex) for that niche, you will know exactly who to contact to get things done. The satisfaction in having ALL the information at your fingertips related to your chosen niche is immense! This is one of the great results or outcomes of best-practice social media monitoring: a deep understanding of, and connection to, a global niche community for the purpose of getting something meaningful accomplished.

Looking forward in the social media monitoring industry, we have the need for a solution that combines the listening, analysis and append processes into one dashboard. No-one has produced a satisfactory combo of these yet but the time is coming soon when the comprehensive solution will be finalized. The three “underdog” contenders I like most in terms of the “comprehensive solution” include SpotRight, Truelens and Reunify.

Additionally, there will certainly be a further evolution of the privacy debate in 2014. In an increasingly transparent eco-system, JWT Intelligence predicts a growing “Techno-Paranoia” and a flourishing “Privacy Marketplace” amongst consumers. In addition, JWT predicts the adoption of “Privacy by Design” at major global brands. Read more on these possibilities here. Social media monitoring companies should pro-actively prepare arguments for how listening improves the human condition, creating an opportunity for authentic relationship between brand and individual. An argument for a more open, authentic human community may be found in the principles of Council Circle. There is also, of course, a business model for social media monitoring companies to develop the “Privacy by Design” and “Privacy Marketplace” technologies and programs suggested in the JWT report.

Applying smart marketing tactics to B2B prospect lists

CONTEXT & PROBLEM:
Recently, I sold a list of 500 prospects to a mid-sized trading company based in Europe. The executives at the trading company were puzzled by the individuals I had selected from our internal data set of roughly 65,000 GCC-based business people. Expecting lower income-level individuals, the executives at first reacted with dismay, as though possibility and opportunity would be limited.

My email in response to the executives was simple:

“Yes, in my experience, forming relationships with such individuals is extremely lucrative. I am happy to show you what I mean. Typically, the traders you refer to are temporary quick revenue at a small level, whereas relationship marketing and content marketing aimed at peers results in much higher, long term revenue. Again, I am happy to send you very specific, step-by-step methods for doing this type of marketing.”

CONCEPT RELATED TO THE PROBLEM:
The concept of B2B relationship marketing to peers within one’s own industry remains foreign to numerous executives. The notion of collaboration in B2B settings, even with one’s previous top competitors is very difficult to unpack in more conventional settings. But today, this is where the real value and wealth of networks resides. The Network Archetype is critical to understand here.

HISTORY OF THE NETWORK ARCHETYPE:
Although networking seems like a modern action linked to career growth in the media age, its roots go back to the ancient world. Networkers expand influence by forging alliances and making connections among vastly different groups of people, and can be traced back to the intrigues of the Middle Ages, Greece, Rome, and ancient China. Networking would also have been an integral part of any military alliance as well as all social and clan confederations in prehistory. In its positive aspect, this archetype helps one develop social flexibility and empathy. This flexibility and empathy enables the archetype to find commonality with others who might not at first seem to be potential friends or allies.

SOLUTION FOR THE EXECUTIVES:
The executives referred to above asked me to send the proposed strategies and tactics, along with email/phone scripts and actual examples of how I had effectively run B2B marketing campaigns. Below are the exact steps I sent to the executives:

METHODOLOGY – STEP 1 – THE PRIMARY PROSPECT:
1. We discovered his (the Primary Prospect’s) social links through our social business intelligence tools.
2. We discovered his contact info by exploring the WHOIS database (using his registered URLs).
3. We listened to him and researched the companies he helped start.
4. We studied his resume at LinkedIn.
5. We studied his personal life at Facebook.
6. We studied his specific interests on Twitter.
7. We condensed our findings into a singular goal – a strategy weaving his goals and our goals
into a collaboration.
8. We wrote a personalized, targeted email that can be sent to the prospect.

METHODOLOGY – STEP 2 – THE PRIMARY PROSPECT’S NETWORK:
1. We downloaded every one of his followers using Simply Measured Pro or SocialBro Pro level account.
2. We sorted these followers in Excel by “Listed”, by “Klout Score” or “Kred Score“, and by “Time Zone”.
3. We Filtered these followers’ bios with specific keywords to narrow the scope.
4. We discovered more of these followers’ social links via Klout and FlipTop.
5. We discovered common keywords amongst these followers and researched other influencers surrounding
those keywords within Brandwatch. In this way, we built series of segmented leads lists based upon interest.
6. We then spent significant time listening to the current and ongoing conversations PLUS we studied the conversations in the past. We also made intelligent guesses about conversations from the Future via Recorded Future.
7. We created tweets to “test” the different lists via non-branded Twitter accounts, to see what types of content gains momentum and “purchase”.
8. We created every form of content at the Content Grid 2 to “test” the different lists via numerous communication channels, to see what types of content gains momentum and “purchase”.

SPECIFIC CAMPAIGN IDEAS BASED UPON THIS METHODOLOGY (crafted for the CURRENCY TRADING industry):

1. LINKEDIN COMPANY PAGE – MAKE IT A COMMUNITY (PRO CONNECTIONS): We would like to build out THE COMPANY LinkedIn company page. The idea is to target your updates, services and products on LinkedIn to specific market segments (decide on this from looking at the included spreadsheet of “Types”). We want to craft a message and a presence specific to agreed-upon audiences (“Types). If someone comes to your Company Page from the financial, legal, medical or marketing industry, we can customize the message to speak directly to him or her. We would need to set up a specific type of LinkedIn account to do this. Not only that, but we can create “click-through” banners at your LinkedIn page to entice the chosen target markets over to your website, sales page, commerce site or other social media sites. The goals is to make the COMPANY LinkedIn company page THE most interesting page about forex in LinkedIn. Bulk it out. Follow prospects in LinkedIn. Post regularly in LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a growing and HOT network. Be in the industry groups in LinkedIn and in the conversations in those groups. Start new groups around specific topics and invite prospects with large networks into those groups.

2. BECOME THE WIKIPEDIA OF FOREX & TRADING (EDUCATIONAL APPROACH): Let’s make you guys THE Wikipedia of the forex and trading Industry. When people feel a website is a true “go-to source” for information and answers, they’ll keep coming back—again and again and again. Think: BabyPips, TradingFloor, DailyFX. Become a true teacher (Wikipedia) within the forex industry. The golden rule of marketing is this: They ask, you answer. In other words, if a consumer has ever asked a question about forex, you should be answering it on the COMPANY website. And considering most industries have literally thousands of potential consumer questions, content should always be growing, evolving and added to. MahiFX is doing this very well on Quora, for example.

3. IN-THE-FLESH (PROSPECTING IN PERSON): Identify people in THE COMPANY to become “champions” around specific topics. Then assign them the task to spend 12 months simply meeting up with industry influencers in person. Some of the strongest online connections and relationships have developed because such “champions” took the time to connect in person. Either by organizing a “meetup” or “Tweetup” with a group, going to a conference (such as the recent http://ifxexpo.com/ ) where they knew the people they wanted to meet would be or even just connecting one-on-one through Skype. We highly recommend taking some of these online connections offline to make a deeper connection. As an example, the SVP of a leading social media monitoring solution personally emailed me when he was in NYC and asked to meet up, simply to shake hands and show what his company was doing. I started using his solution regularly after that. Be the first forex entity to actually meet its customers and prospects in person regularly and make the social marketing department a leader in this “in-the-flesh” personal revolution.

4. LIKE & FOLLOW YOUR CUSTOMERS AND PROSPECTS (SOCIAL MARKETING APPROACH): Instead of asking our consumers to like COMPANY on Facebook or to follow us on Twitter/LinkedIn, why don’t we start liking/following them? Most brands use Facebook as an extension of their traditional and mass-marketing initiatives. But what about following/liking and getting to know your customers/prospects personally. The social media department is the “human” side of the business and not just a reactive PR silo. Go out and forge relationship by following/liking/subscribing to your prospects. Then start answering their questions and participating in their discussions.

5. SPEND ON HOUR A DAY SIMPLY LISTENING (ON-GOING BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE WORK): Spend one hour every day simply listening to your customers/prospects AND these prospects will empower your business with knowledge about what your markets really want. Use BrandWatch to do this — it is THE best social media-monitoring tool. Also look into SocialBro, an up and coming Twitter service for discovering specific communities and individuals. This is crucial for your business to grow and achieve high customer satisfaction. Customers like businesses that listen and respond to them. Sun Chips, for example, returned to their old packaging after customers complained widely on the Internet that the new biodegradable packaging was too noisy. Be THE forex entity that is tapped into the latest trends in conversation AND THEN lead those conversations.

Insights into problems and opportunities in your competitive marketplace: a process

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Your entity owns an existing community of customers and stakeholders. OR, your entity wants to build such a community. In addition, a core aspect of your business model appears to be up-selling these stakeholders to a variety of solutions your organization also owns. The challenge before you is to refine this model where it currently functions and then expand the model across the world. The following document outlines the exact process to be performed by The Socializers for you in achieving this goal.

RESULTS:
The most immediate action we can take for your organization: Audit and Analysis phases. The result of these phases will be:

1. Insights into problems and opportunities in your competitive marketplace AND in your current customer base.
2. Activation of further community building efforts, up-sell strategies and “how to make this thing run more efficiently” would emerge from these insights.

EXAMPLES:

As an example, let us say that your goal is to up-sell 100% of the stakeholders in your communities into one of your alternative offerings. Our work would show you where this is not happening, why it is not happening and how to make it happen. In addition, we can work with you to realize this 100%.

As a second example, let us say your goal is to discover alternative opportunities for up-selling your current stakeholders and want an audit of their public conversations as part of a planning process. We would deliver to you a system for staying on top of “the conversation” in your communities. The insights from these conversations would point towards add’l up-sell opportunities.

A PROCESS FOR COMPETITIVE RESEARCH, CUSTOMER RESEARCH AND CONTENT DEVELOPMENT:
An ideal sequence for discovering a community of influencers around a specific market niche and developing a related editorial calendar & media plan is as follows:

1. Gather the latest industry trade publications for your niche(s) and read these cover to cover. Discover these trade publications by interviewing a leader in the industry and through research.

2. Note down vendors, service providers, advertisers, authors, journalists, and products currently targeting your niche(s).

3. Look within these publications for a Top 100 list of companies, individuals and products/services (specifically targeting your niche(s), again).

4. Create a spreadsheet of these trade publications and Top 100 lists.

5. Discover the Twitter accounts of these Top 100 and other thought-leaders discovered in the trade publications. An easy way to do this is to type the name of the influencer + Twitter into Google. Or search in the Twitter search field. You can also go the websites of these entities and see if there is a Twitter link at the website.

6. Use a solution that delivers a spreadsheet of all followers of a specific Twitter user, such as Simply Measured or Social Bro. We will download the followers of every influencer we have identified in this initial research phase.

7. Use the Sort function in Excel to sort the list of followers by Klout or Kred.

8. Create a 2nd copy and sort by Listed.

9. Use the Filter function in Excel to further narrow these sheets by specific industry-related keywords within the Description (Bio) column.

10. Use the Filter function in Excel to narrow by Location.

11. Combine the filtered results from whatever setting is important to your research question from each sheet into one “Master” Excel workbook.

12. Rank the entities in this workbook by Klout/Kred AND by Listed to indicate global awareness and influence scoring.

13. Ideally, we will narrow this massive Master list to 1000 core influencers. Now, we will download the Simply Measured Klout Audience Analysis for every single one of these influencers (thought-leaders). Go through the exact same Sorting and Filtering process and combine into a second Master list (this will be much larger). Now we will have two concentric rings of influence we are able to connect to through content-marketing, direct-marketing or other selling strategies.

14. Take this work further by creating a data-set called “The Core List” in which we reveal core information for each of the 1000 core influencers: their bio from LinkedIn, all of their social links (find these through their Klout profile and further research, their top 100 influential followers within that specific market niche and their contact info (phone, email, address).

15. Now we are ready to study this core list and know who is leading the conversation in our market niche. Take the time we need to listen to each influencer and jot down observations on what they are saying and working on. Use a leading social monitoring tool, such as Brandwatch, Radian6 or Sysomos to augment your listening. Also, use SpotRight and Reunify technology to glean deep insight AND flesh out the very large prospect lists we develop.

16. Create a list of 10-20 questions for the top 1000 influencers in “The Core List” and send this to them via email. This is our focus group/survey for the market niche and will give you invaluable insight. (Ideally, we are looking for the key products, hooks and trends in what is guiding the stakeholders’ buying habits. We want to hook every single one of these stakeholders who HAVE NOT bought from us yet).

17. Create a two-page executive summary for leadership on our observations. Add, as an appendix, all of the data organized by location, relevant social links discovered via listening, and metrics/statistics for the industry. This report, if concisely written and properly documented using best-practice research techniques, will be THE most comprehensive ever done on social influencers guiding the buying choices of your niche(s). NOTE: numerous studies show that 70% of the buyer’s decision process is done through online and peer-to-peer research currently. We are studying what these stakeholders are looking at and where they are congregating…who is influencing them.

18. Upon discussing this report with leadership, create an Editorial Calendar with channel-specific ideas related to the industry. This Editorial Calendar ought to include specific marketing actions, online & offline channels for marketing and industry-specific publications in which to publish material.

19. In addition, create a Media Plan for targeting regions, online channels and audience sizes. This plan will inform our media spend.

20. Create ALL of the recommended content pieces (these content pieces are delivered into the social streams of our influencers and by direct contact on a daily and even hourly basis, so as to saturate our market with smart, insightful content “hooks”. We want to rule the content space. NOTE: many of these pieces will come through our brand ambassadors and influential allies).

21. Metrics on performance will be secured through online metric measurement tools.

22. Our success in the process above will inform how we utilize more sophisticated social graph technologies that we have access to. These technologies hover over complete national databases rich with data on our customer. We want to only use these tools AFTER performing the steps above so that our costs are kept down and so that efficiency is forefront.