The Four C s Of Social Media For The C-Suite

The Four C s Of Social Media For The C-Suite How Social Intelligence Is Helping Provide Clarity For The C-Suite Around The Critical Factors Of Confidence, Customers, Connections & Cash

Finding Intelligence In The Social Explosion Social media is becoming the executive equivalent to catching customer actions across the social web and lightning in a bottle. It has quickly gone from the ultimate focus aim to boil it down to actionable insight, he group and brand popularity contest to a very serious digital said. Marketers trying to do this alone will spend marketing platform. As it does, it has bubbled up from a quirky, countless hours digging through spam-filled unpredictable experiment to a measurable customer lab. search results. Social Intelligence is the concept of turning social media data into actionable marketing and business strategy. - As defined by Forrester Research As this phenomenon moves to an even more intense level, it needs the attention of savvy and digitally sophisticated C-level executives. When it gets that attention, executives will need to have confidence in their social media campaign plan, metrics around customer engagement, and connections to automated technology to consistently analyze and measure their efforts. Traditional measurement methodology makes the social media data explosion useless for the C-suite. However, new technology is helping smart companies understand what s happening on social media. This new discipline is called social intelligence. According to Forrester Research, it is the concept of turning social media data into actionable marketing and business strategy. On a more tactical level, social intelligence is providing a process and strategy for companies to evaluate and generate actionable insight about their own brands and services, as well as their competitors. Forrester analyst Zach Hofer-Shall urged marketers to take advantage of social media monitoring tools and listening platforms: These solutions help speed up the process of tracking That report from Forrester Research validated the concept of social intelligence. Originally called Defining Social Intelligence, Hofer-Shall is working on an update. As he begins his research he wrote toward the end of March 2012, It s been two years since our first public use of social intelligence, yet I still see many companies monitoring social media, some listening to customer conversations, and few beginning to find intelligence in the data they collect. As a result, I m currently working on a report addressing a social data maturity model. His original research called out the following specific advantages to automating social intelligence measurement: 1. Optimizing marketing and product planning 2. Understanding purchase triggers 3. Assessing the competition 2

Turning Big Data Into The Right Data Social data maturity cannot wait for analyst pushes or anything less than an automated intelligent approach. You ve undoubtedly seen the staggering social numbers. More than 300 million tweets per day. 800 million Facebook users. Map it to consumer behavior and the numbers are even more impressive. A December 2011 report from comscore says social networking now accounts for 19% of all time spent online, a major difference from a mere 6% back in March of 2007. This continual spike in consumer social behavior, as well as the amount of data generated by almost every purchase and non-transactional element of daily activity, has created the concept and reality of big data. Exactly what is big data? IT analyst site Wikibon says: Big data is data that is too large to process using traditional methods. It originated with web search companies (that) had the problem of querying very large distributed aggregations of looselystructured data. That s what social media has become. It is simply too big and growing too quickly to process by traditional methods. A report from global research house Connotate shows that more than half of companies surveyed have used big data to better understand either competitors or their own brand (60% and 52%, respectively). Companies also looked at big data for marketing-related strategy, such as product and pricing information (40%), or revenue-generating data services (39%). This syncs up exactly with the way that social media and its data can help today s CMO. Social data is a challenge. Social intelligence is the best way to meet that challenge. Social networking now accounts for 19% of all time spent online, a major difference from a mere 6% back in March of 2007. - comscore December 2011 3

The C-Suite Connection Although the potential of social media and big data is becoming clear to C-suite executives, there is still apprehension around managing it. A recent IBM survey of 1,700 global CMOs found that more than 50% of respondents think they are underprepared to manage the data explosion (59%) and social media (57%). This data shows a huge gap between the opportunity and the ability to execute on social data and customer behavior. C-level executives do not have to be daunted by social media. Almost 50 million messages can be measured in real-time, similar to the analytics available from retail and Internet traffic behavior. This real-time nature of gathering and disseminating social intelligence bridges the gap. It is one of the leading-edge technologies that can develop the confidence in this new data opportunity and use it as a key element for executive decision-making. A recent IBM survey of 1,700 global CMOs found that more than 50% of respondents think they are underprepared to manage the data explosion (59%) and social media (57%). CASE IN POINT: Large Automobile Manufacturer Taps Social Sentiment For Purchase Intent A large automobile manufacturer illustrated the potential for social intelligence surrounding customers. It used rudimentary tools to see how often people mentioned their brand in social media conversations, and to detect the sentiment of these conversations. But the data lacked true intelligence. Leveraging social media analytics technology, the company was able to drill down into that sentiment. Why did people feel positively about their brand? Why did they have negative feelings? The automobile manufacturer tried to convey this idea through its communication and marketing, but it found more varied ways that customers were expressing it. If somebody says, I feel like a 15-year-old driving in my car, or Taking my wife out on a date in this car makes me feel young again, that s the idea the company wants to promote. Traditional measurement won t produce these results. The report also shows how the brand can capture something critical, like intention to purchase. When you look at the range of insights here, you can see why an understanding that people feel positively about your product isn t enough. It s much deeper than that. 4

The Four C s In order to manage, analyze and measure social media and recent case studies show that this can be done today s C-level executive needs to focus on four areas: 1. Confidence: Because social media cannot be measured with traditional methods or tools, new processes and technologies must be embraced in order to provide the C-suite with the confidence that the marketing programs and product rollouts they are banking on are resonating with customers. Without confidence, experimentation and the chance for inefficiency are greater. With a comprehensive understanding of consumer opinions, brand sentiment and competitive set information, confidence in social media measurement can be reliably developed. 2. Customers: Customer intelligence has graduated to social intelligence. Smart C-level executives need to move away from the chaos of social media data and toward gleaning customer intelligence in real time. 3. Connections: Measurement connects to results. The right technology can connect to better brand awareness, higher sales and stronger customer relationships. The right measurement tools can track specific topics, graph daily mentions, produce averages, conduct sentiment analysis and other types of data mining. It should also create automatic alerts for unusual or increased activity. It should connect a company s total effort with consumer perception and behavior. 4. Cash. Revenue. Capital: Call it what you want, but at the C-level, decisions are based on revenue. 5

The Confidence Quotient C-level executives, as we ve seen in the IBM report, lack confidence in managing big data and social media. Which begs the issue, how do they become confident? Two key answers come up time and time again: 1. Develop brand monitoring 2. Develop insightful decision making For example, Microsoft recently measured usage and consumer perception to refine the brand positioning for its Bing search platform. Despite the expertise inherent in its product and company, Bing was unable to quickly sort through and make sense of the information it had collected. It couldn t identify customer affinity, customer problems or overall sentiment about the brand. After analyzing one month of online conversations, Microsoft Bing had insights regarding where online conversations take place, drivers and behaviors for key segments, and who influences the online conversation. Once conversations were analyzed on both blogs and forums, Microsoft was able to identify the top 20 forums for each of the two key audience segments. The analysis yielded a surprising result. The target segments viewed the online channel as a preferred way to share their thoughts and experiences rather than to find answers to their questions. For instance, feedback dominated the conversations of those interested in creative projects, such as cooking, painting or making videos. On the other hand, those with health concerns seemed most interested in sharing personal stories. Overall, the social intelligence gathering generated valuable customer insights about the brand and helped executives make new decisions for repositioning it. Click to Download the full Microsoft Bing Customer Success Story With a goal of targeting specific interest groups, Bing needed a clear understanding of each group s needs and habits. While the company actively harnesses social-media channels in its marketing efforts, it needed a way to better manage the flow of online conversation. 6

Drilling Down For Deeper Confidence Two key elements defined the Bing experience and will also be critical for C-level executives as they proceed in social media: Brand monitoring and analysis: The way in which C-level executives measure their product and service performance has changed with social media. Brand lift studies are good at past performance, but don t predict very well. Whether or not consumers like or follow your brand is also becoming more suspect as a metric. When the CMO Council asked Facebook users in Q4 2011 about their expectations after liking a brand on Facebook, the top expectation (67%) was to be eligible for exclusive offers. The smart C-level executive will look at new methods of monitoring the mass or big data generated socially. New technologies are able to rapidly monitor hundreds of millions of news and social media posts. That s a new method and a new scale. Both are necessary to proceed with confidence. Decision-making: C-level executives make million dollar decisions every day and are accountable for them. Social intelligence can help predict the success of these decisions by measuring consumer attitude and potential brand affinity. But you can t do it through current analytics. The executive that has $20 million riding on a major product launch needs an up-to-the minute, fact-based pulse of the target consumer. It s available. It s a confidence essential. Social interactions shift and create sentiment in real-time. Data is generated at an astonishing rate in real-time. Twitter currently generates 300 million messages a day. Facebook numbers in excess of 800 million users, at least half of which log on each and every day and often multiple times per day. Those same users interact with over 900 million pieces of content: pages, groups, events and more. Every day, over 250 million photos are uploaded. Traditional measurement methods will not capture the big data element of social media. The executive that has $20 million riding on a major product launch needs an up-to-the minute, factbased pulse of the target consumer. It s available. It s a confidence essential. 7

Putting Customer Intelligence To Work Before social media, customer intelligence was the term used for the limited amount of information generated by purchase behavior and surveys. Now it s part of big data. An intelligent approach to big data is stepping up your ability to collect and act on the right data. Enter social intelligence. Social intelligence, the information that can lead to insight on the C-suite, is a relatively new concept. But it is essential to learn. A Pitney Bowes-sponsored survey from November 2011 showed only 15% of those responding said social media would encourage their loyalty to a company. However, it concluded: These findings will give decision-makers pause for thought, the report stated. Businesses can be forgiven for getting swept away by the hype of surrounding social media and wanting to invest in such activity as soon as possible.... But results show that those businesses tempted to lead with such techniques will quickly find themselves out of step with customer thinking. Connections To Conversions The ability to generate and measure social intelligence connects to results. Traditional analytics, including semantic search and keyword monitoring, will not connect efficiently to social data. It will not manage big data. New social measurement technology will translate the sarcasm or irrelevant semantics that can pollute social media results. It can provide a scalable, repeatable approach as social media spins into a new orbit of growth. Early success stories and use cases have shown that gathering and implementing social intelligence will happen in three phases: Phase One: Audit and assess. Traditional buzz marketing measurement tools will not achieve the depth of sentiment needed to make intelligent branding decisions. A realistic assessment of what a brand has for social data, and what it doesn t have, must precede any measurement initiative. Analyzing statistical patterns used to express opinions delivers insight beyond a simple positive or negative. Real time market research delivers this immediately. The timing of current social media measurement should also drive new measurement. The speed of analytics and the depth of consumer insights are the most relevant metrics in social intelligence measurement. Businesses can be forgiven for getting swept away by the hype of surrounding social media and wanting to invest in such activity as soon as possible.... But results show that those businesses tempted to lead with such techniques will quickly find themselves out of step with customer thinking. - Pitney Bowes 2011 Survey 8

Phase Two: Identify sources and outputs. After assessing the current state of social media intelligence, brands will need to assess technology platforms. Going beyond the ability to automate social intelligence, the elements that need to be considered in this phase are features, functionality and benefits. Features from the first generation of buzz measurement tools should be improved upon in favor of newer platforms with more robust analysis capabilities. Examples: The volume of social media mentions is generally not as impactful as the meaning of the conversation. Keyword counting should be replaced by statistical analysis. Language limitations should be considered when global analysis is desired. Phase Three: Act on insights. All the analysis and intelligence available is useless without a change in business practices. Just as Bing reached out to more conversations, brands need to put learnings into action. It should inform marketing campaign strategy and messaging. It could change entire media approaches. It could change an approach to customer segmentation. But the ever-changing social media world should generate enough insight about the most influential individuals regarding your brand, category or topic to rapidly create a smarter company that s more aligned with its customer. Click to Download the Webinar How to Move from Social Monitoring to Social Intelligence Accuracy of the social media analysis should be high enough to support strategic business decision-making. A truly futuristic, intelligent platform dashboard should graph daily mentions, produce averages, conduct sentiment analysis and measure progress against campaign goals. It should also identify what s driving negative sentiment to keep track of issue resolution or escalation. Uncover key challenges marketers face in today s rapidly evolving social media marketplace, including: Business challenges that can stem from first-generation social media monitoring practices Weaknesses of only measuring in reactive whathappened? mode Differences between basic brand monitoring and true Social Intelligence practices 9

Converting Intelligence Into Cash A recent study found that when consumers were exposed to social media in addition to other online ad formats or marketing channels, such as search, email and display, the average revenue per order was more than double the order size compared to the average of all digital channels. How will a company act smarter as a result of social intelligence? By executing a social intelligence program, companies will understand the following things about their customers, marketing and positioning. It will monitor and manage reputation, crisis management and consumer sentiment. It will add more data to pre- and postcampaign tracking efforts. It will understand the effect or lack thereof from brand positioning. When consumers were exposed to social media in addition to other online ad formats or marketing channels, such as search, email and display, the average revenue per order was more than double the order size compared to the average of all digital channels. It will more effectively track and make changes for product and service satisfaction. It will make fact-based and consumer-sentiment-based decisions around pricing. It will generate more data around best practices for new product introductions. It will quickly produce deep insight into market trends. It will provide better competitive intelligence. 10

Cashing In On Million Dollar Decisions For C-level executives, social media takes the conversation with the customer and turns it into a near real-time focus group. Marketers have always spent money to support that conversation, but all too often it has been a monologue. In fact, that s where TV advertising started: by talking to and not with the customer. Social intelligence informs important business questions and reveals actionable answers about your brand, consumers, messaging and competition. The ROI for such insight is so valuable that it is actually hard to calculate. Bottom line: Social media can inform multi-million dollar decisions. The right social media measurement model informs those million dollar decisions. It will analyze social media conversations to answer important business questions and reveal actionable insights about your brand, your consumers and your competition. The current state-of-the-art in social media analysis tools give brands the ability to learn from both the context and the tone of those conversations. The right social media measurement model will analyze social media conversations to answer important business questions and reveal actionable insights about your brand, your consumers and your competition. Click to View an Overview Video from Crimson Hexagon Achieving Social Intelligence: Best-in-Class Social Media Analysis with the Crimson Hexagon ForSight Platform 11

Conclusion: Clarity For The C-Suite Confidence, customers, connections and cash. Without those four elements, C-level executives don t have a business. With them, they have the essentials for managing big data and the biggest drive behind it: social media. And it s not slowing down for any executive to catch up with it. As YouTube cofounder Chad Hurley recently predicted: Social media will be the main engine of discovery, giving us the ability to find the signal within the noise. As people s networks and interactions expand, massive data sets will generate predictive models that will know what you want before you look for it. Those brands that are applying social intelligence models to gauge consumer opinions, purchase Social media will be the main engine of discovery, giving us the ability to find the signal within the noise. As people s networks and interactions expand, massive data sets will generate predictive models that will know what you want before you look for it. sentiment and competitive analysis are able to confidently support their million dollar decisions around - Chad Hurley, Co-founder, YouTube marketing campaigns, product rollouts and pricing models. Without the ability to monitor and act on social intelligence, companies are operating at a competitive disadvantage. Trying to analyze real-time interactions and conversations with traditional analytics only provides part of the story but fails to sort out what can be a chaotic and complex sea of data. The reality is, deeper social intelligence can translate to better strategic decision making, predictable revenue streams and stronger customer relationships, as well as better alignment. By tracking specific topics, brand mentions, and conducting sentiment analysis and other types of deep data mining, leading edge brands will have more informed C-suites, as well as better alignment across all stakeholders. 12

Output Examples About Company Overview Crimson Hexagon, founded in 2007, offers a best-in-class social media intelligence solution. Crimson Hexagon s proprietary algorithm, developed at Harvard University, combines human judgment with computer scalability to analyze unsolicited consumer opinions expressed through social media. Crimson Hexagon joined Twitter, Google, Foursquare, Microsoft, Zynga, Netflix, Tumblr, Stockwits and Conaco Productions as being named one of Fast Company s 10 Most Innovative Web Companies. Content Coverage Historical content dating back to May 2008 Collecting ~450 million conversations per day; more than 140 billion conversations stored to date Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Blogs, Forums, Comments and News Analytical Capabilities Primary drivers of opinion and key topics of conversation over time Share of voice, trends and net sentiment for comparison and benchmarking Most influential and most prolific authors; Tweets by state and country Exploration features: Word Cloud, Word Cluster, Topic Wheel and Verbatim Post List Key Differentiators Recognizes nuance in conversation (e.g. passion, nostalgia, sarcasm) Language-agnostic (including character-based languages like Japanese) Margin of error +/- 3%, supported by validation studies License to full Twitter Firehose since July 2010 13