Web Business by Ken Burbary

Social Media Listening Still Needs to Grow Up

Social Media participation continues to mature and evolve the ways in which we connect and deepen relationships with one another, and the brands we choose to let in our life and interact with. However, despite all the efforts thus far, our ability to monitor and understand what happens in social media isn’t keeping pace with usage.

eMarketer recently published findings from a InformationWeek Analytics survey of Enterprise professionals about their current Social Media Listening efforts, and the results were disappointing to me.

The most common method of monitoring is to rely on basic notifications, like Google Alerts, as a rudimentary brand monitoring solution. Despite the shortcomings of this method, 44% of respondents aren’t even doing this, the most basic form of social listening.

After this comes outsourcing to a full service vendor or using specialized social media listening tools (like Radian6, SM2, ListenLogic) with internal resources at 16% and 15% respectively. A full 40% of all respondents didn’t know what, if any, approach their company is taking when it comes to social listening. Either the survey respondents aren’t plugged into what’s happening in the company in this area (a possibility), or there is evidence of a problem within the organization (most likely in my experience).

The survey also looked at a company’s process for responding to specific types of online responses by consumers. Unsurprisingly, the number of organizations that have developed specific processes and capabilities to handle online responses like customer complaints on social networks, inappropriate employee comments, comments on official owned-media sites is also very low. Just 14% of companies have defined how to appropriately handle a negative customer comment on their Facebook page(s). Only 12% have done so for Twitter (probably something Kenneth Cole could stand to do given the uproar over their recent tweet).

What does all this mean? Several possibilities:

1. Companies still lack the necessary education and knowledge of how to leverage the wealth of listening solutions to accurately monitor and understand online customer interactions and responses
2. Companies still lack the resources required to properly staff and implement adequate listening capabilities
3. Companies are struggling with “shiny object syndrome”. There is no lack of social listening solutions/providers (full list here at the SMM Wiki). Understanding listening goals/objectives, needs and mapping them to the potential set of listening vendors requires time and effort. It’s much easier to sit through product demonstrations full of social metrics eye candy, and be wowed by their reporting and analytics capabilities rather than do the less glorious but essential planning work.

Fear not though, there is light at the end of the social listening tunnel! Creating a strategic listening plan isn’t impossible, nor difficult if the right steps are taken. Adopt a comprehensive framework to guide your social listening efforts across the company. Several options exist, like the Social Analytics Lifecycle.

The most important point I can emphasize to get social listening to mature within your organization, is to start with specific business processes that listening will support and improve. Almost every organization has sales, marketing, customer support, human resources, etc… Each of these departments can benefit from social listening, if done correctly. Want examples? Check out the 6 Areas of Your Business That Should Be Listening post by Amber Naslund over at the Brass Tack Thinking blog. It will help set you out on the right direction to  get started, but what if you’re already doing “something” and want to optimize or improve it. Then go read Six Steps to Better Social Media Listening by Chuck Hemann at the Analytics is King blog. Finally, THEN go down the tool path if you’re going to take on social listening yourself, or find a full service partner that has the diversity of experience in platforms and top notch analysts that deliver meaningful insights and information (remember data is worthless unless it is transformed into insights through analysis).

What is your organization doing in social listening? What are your most difficult obstacles to overcome?

The Dirty Little Secret of Social Media Monitoring

Social Media Monitoring (sometimes called social media listening or conversation monitoring) is widely recognized as one of the first social media best practices. It is the first step in getting to know and understand the behavior and needs of an online audience. Most companies that are engaged in this activity have an internal team or outsource the effort to their agency.

There is no shortage of tools/platforms available to monitor your key terms. Companies like Radian6, Techrigy, Nielsen and Cymphony are quite busy these days rolling out new partnerships and product features, all aimed at providing more meaningful data and better ways to use it. It’s the no-brainer call right? Fire up a tool and plug in some terms, and voila, instant answers.

However, I’ve begun to notice inconsistencies in the data that different social media monitoring tools produce. The dirty little secret or so it seems, is they aren’t all working with the same data sources. For this post, I want to discuss some differences between Radian6 and Techrigy SM2. This is not meant as a criticism of either tool, because I think they are both fantastic at what they do, but rather an attempt to highlight an issue, generate a public conversation around it so that everyone using Radian6 or SM2 can benefit.

Some background: While doing a recent set of searches for a brand using the EXACT same keywords and phrases, without using source filters, the results look different. Take a moment to view the charts below for R6 and SM2 results.

Now, ignoring the fact that both tools have some differences in categories, focus on the main sources of online conversation. Blogs, forums and micromedia (Twitter).

You’ll see a  dramatically higher number of blog results for Radian6 compared to SM2 (266 to 91). And for forums, vice versa (SM2 has 396 to Radian6 200).

While I expect to find subtle variations in the results between tools, I DO NOT expect to be put into a position to question which tool is “right” and which is “wrong”. Perhaps that isn’t the way to look at it though. Is the real answer an aggregate of both data sets? If so, how does one easily filter out the unique data versus duplicates?

This may raise additional questions that you need to ask yourself before selecting a monitoring solution.

Which subset, or channel, of social media does a particular tool specialize in?

Does this data mean if you know your audience is spending time on forums, SM2 may be better solution? Perhaps. Perhaps not. I suspect there is more to this than it appears on the surface. Hopefully someone else that is also monitoring can shed some light. With any luck, we can get some folks from both companies to chime in (David Alston, Amber Naslund, Jimmy Rey, Connie Bensen – any takers?)

UPDATED: I’ve been contacted by both Radian6 and Techrigy representatives, and am working with them to identify the source of the problems. After we have resolved the issue and feel confident about the source, I will update again.

My New Gig…

I’ve been quiet as of late, but for good reason. Behind closed doors, I have been very busy and I am happy to be able to publicly announce the exciting changes in my life (some of you have already noticed and been asking questions, so here is the scoop).  Several weeks ago I began the next phase of my career, and started a new position heading up the Digital Strategy & Social Media practice for Ernst & Young.

For those that aren’t familiar with the E&Y brand, it is an incredibly successful and diversified company. We provide a wide range of advisory, assurance, tax and specialty services to an impressive list of blue chip clients around the globe. With over 130,000 employees globally, we have an enormous organization, with the ability to bring deep expertise and resources to bear on our engagements.

I’m excited to play a critical role in helping E&Y advisory clients transform their business through the opportunities that digital marketing can provide. I will be spending the majority of my time thinking about the ramifications of social media on traditional marketing & communications. This means participating in the social web (uh oh, more time on Twitter!), analyzing & writing about digital strategy, trends, and best practices. And advising E&Y clients on the impact these issues have on their business.

Enough about me. I’d much rather prefer to talk about others. Looking back, my career has evolved in unexpected and challenging ways. I wouldn’t have been able to navigate those challenges and difficult decisions without the help and guidance from an amazing group of people that I have come to call friends and rely on. Besides my family, I sincerely appreciate and highly respect the tremendous character of people like Adam Cohen, Scott Monty, Amber Naslund, Blagica Bottigleiro, Ron Lippitt, Damon Henry, and so many others (you know who you are). THANK YOU friends! I hope you know I’m always there for you as well.

For those that need it, I can be reached at my new email: kenneth.burbary at ey dot com