WHAT IS SOCIAL BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE: The basic concept behind the term “social intelligence” is to derive customer, competitive and market intelligence via data scanned in social networks, such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
THE NET RESULT OF A SOCIAL BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE PROJECT (WHAT YOU GET FROM A S.I. PROJECT): The value of a social intelligence project is manifold, including the following benefits:
• discovery of warm leads related to psychographics and demographics from a customer’s current database.
• discovery of current trends and developments in a market sector that could lead to product/service innovation.
• discovery of a competitor’s activities that may aid one’s sales efforts.
• discovery of what your customers talk about, leading to product/service innovation and changes in marketing/sales strategy/tactics.
• discovery of new regions where your product/service is being discussed and your competitors are making money.
• discovery of upcoming events where you could generate awareness and sales.
• discovery of new pools of customers in digital networks. You may not have been aware of these pools of customers and their interests.
• discovery of conversations that social marketers and community managers can enter and utilize for higher brand awareness and sales.
• discovery of vendors and employees via professional networks like LinkedIn or the European Women’s Professional Network.
HOW TO PERFORM SOCIAL BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE:
WHO: Gathering social intelligence is best performed by someone trained in research. Although a great amount of data may be aggregated automatically during a social intelligence project, it takes a human being to segment and make sense of this data and create insights related to the data.
HOW: There are many tools used to gather social data. Some of the best are expensive and require additional training to master. One of the best ways for a novice to begin is to use Twitter and LinkedIn. After setting up accounts in both social properties, use the free tool Listorious to research lists of influencers surrounding specific keywords in Twitter. Be sure to sign up for an Executive Account in LinkedIn so you can use all of the features in the Advanced Search tool.
WHICH TOOLS: More advanced social intelligence tools include Radian6, Sysomos, BrandWatch, PeopleBrowsr, Crimson Hexagon, Recorded Future and Trackur. A comprehensive list of these and other social intelligence tools may be found here.