Friday 26 November 2010

Social Media Monitoring: Automate your information gathering


With the number of discussions, reviews, posts, tweets exponentially increasing, the daily launch of the same query and the information collection manually is time consuming and painstaking.
So researchers & analysts need to find a way to mine the internet for nuggets of gold, that is to say that piece of information that will bring significance to their investigation and create valuable and actionable intelligence.
Social Media Monitoring solutions enpower you to look into the vast amount of data that is accessible on the Web. Millions of posts, messages, tweets, discussions get published every day. The question is: How to keep track of our subjects of interest (products, brands, campaigns, Leadership Image, Digital Identity ect.) in this information overabundance era?
The answer is simple but the implementation of this answer is challenging: You need to automate the process of collection, indexation, analysis and delivery (I will talk in another post about engagement & alerts, stay tuned).
 However, you will do this only for a limited part of the web: Focusing on social media outlets that are relevant to you business or your specific interests.

Needless to say that the challenge is no longer getting information from the Web and other sources (API for instance), it has become sifting through the data. That's why a solution with sophisticated algorithms and Advanced Boolean Operators is paramount in order to get rid of the noise (noise refers to irrelevant information).

A Social Media Monitoring solution helps to bring order in this data chaos, the web is composed of unstructured content so we persistently need to Extract the data, Tranform the messages, posts, comments, tweets in a standard format for the processing and then Load the content into the database.

Powerful tools for Extracting, Transforming and Loading (ETL) data from source systems into a data warehouse are available today. They support the data extraction from internal applications in an efficient way. There is a growing need to integrate external data, such as product reviews, into these systems. The World Wide Web, the largest database on earth (Some would say that I'm wrong - largest network then) holds a huge amount of relevant information.

Advanced data extraction and information integration techniques are required to process Web data automatically. Increasing demand for such data leads to the question: How this information can be extracted, transformed to a semantically useful structure, and integrated with a "Web-ETL" process into a Business Intelligence system.

Social Media Monitoring: Automate your information gathering


With the number of discussions, reviews, posts, tweets exponentially increasing, the daily launch of the same query and the information collection manually is time consuming and painstaking.
So researchers & analysts need to find a way to mine the internet for nuggets of gold, that is to say that piece of information that will bring significance to their investigation and create valuable and actionable intelligence.
Social Media Monitoring solutions enpower you to look into the vast amount of data that is accessible on the Web. Millions of posts, messages, tweets, discussions get published every day. The question is: How to keep track of our subjects of interest (products, brands, campaigns, Leadership Image, Digital Identity ect.) in this information overabundance era?
The answer is simple but the implementation of this answer is challenging: You need to automate the process of collection, indexation, analysis and delivery (I will talk in another post about engagement & alerts, stay tuned).
 However, you will do this only for a limited part of the web: Focusing on social media outlets that are relevant to you business or your specific interests.

Needless to say that the challenge is no longer getting information from the Web and other sources (API for instance), it has become sifting through the data. That's why a solution with sophisticated algorithms and Advanced Boolean Operators is paramount in order to get rid of the noise (noise refers to irrelevant information).

A Social Media Monitoring solution helps to bring order in this data chaos, the web is composed of unstructured content so we persistently need to Extract the data, Tranform the messages, posts, comments, tweets in a standard format for the processing and then Load the content into the database.

Powerful tools for Extracting, Transforming and Loading (ETL) data from source systems into a data warehouse are available today. They support the data extraction from internal applications in an efficient way. There is a growing need to integrate external data, such as product reviews, into these systems. The World Wide Web, the largest database on earth (Some would say that I'm wrong - largest network then) holds a huge amount of relevant information.

Advanced data extraction and information integration techniques are required to process Web data automatically. Increasing demand for such data leads to the question: How this information can be extracted, transformed to a semantically useful structure, and integrated with a "Web-ETL" process into a Business Intelligence system.

Monday 22 November 2010

TSA Scans and Pat Downs - Not Good for Survivors of Sexual Abuse

I can't believe no one has thought of this. As I watch people, disolving into tears about their pat-down experiences, I realize that some have been victims of sexual abuse. Have TSA screeners received any training in how to handle these melt-downs? Do they even realize that their probing hands can trigger flashbacks and PTSD. This is serious folks! More on triggers in victims of sexual abuse

Thursday 18 November 2010

Gifts for Social Workers

For years, I have put special designs on shirts, mugs and more via Cafe Press. Have a look at the Social Work World Gift Shop and see what you might find.
 
There are designs for social work specialties such as hospital social work, school social work and geriatric social work.
 
You'll also find gifts for the social work student, recent grad or (like me) the retiring social worker!
 
Enjoy

Monday 15 November 2010

Social Media: Is it a off-the-shelf solution or a mindset?




What we can add to the above is that Social Media is a mindset, it’s actually a culture that permits to go through a passive way of interacting with the environment to a more proactive behaviour that makes people involved in this discipline actors of their environment.
If the head office is keen to spread this discipline within the organisation and use the right channel to promote that a more formal and disciplined approach of processing the external information is vital in remaining competitive on a daily basis.
Companies, government bodies, associations are becoming far more sophisticated at scrutinising their targets and therefore gather more information and spend more time on processing this information.
A lot of professionals have tented to think that the end result of listening and measuring social media buzz is just a monthly news bulletin or a newsletter. This is actually the starting point, or the "knowledge base" of information.
In this regard, Social Media discipline needs to be seen as an associate that helps the entity make better business decisions by providing actionable intelligence to the right people at the right time. On one hand, people within the organisation are seen as an entry point. On the other hand, Social Media as a system that feeds each entry point with the necessary information but prior to that the Buzz measuring system needs to know who needs information. An other issue is : which kind of push deliverables will be used to send the information? (Alert report, product Buzz, campaign Buzz, Leadership Image buzz...). It’s an interactive process by which each party needs to define the parameters of the information distribution.

“Social media is like a snowball rolling down the hill. It’s picking up speed. Five years from now, it’s going to be the standard.” – Jeff Antaya, chief marketing officer of Plante Moran

Social Media: Is it a off-the-shelf solution or a mindset?




What we can add to the above is that Social Media is a mindset, it’s actually a culture that permits to go through a passive way of interacting with the environment to a more proactive behaviour that makes people involved in this discipline actors of their environment.
If the head office is keen to spread this discipline within the organisation and use the right channel to promote that a more formal and disciplined approach of processing the external information is vital in remaining competitive on a daily basis.
Companies, government bodies, associations are becoming far more sophisticated at scrutinising their targets and therefore gather more information and spend more time on processing this information.
A lot of professionals have tented to think that the end result of listening and measuring social media buzz is just a monthly news bulletin or a newsletter. This is actually the starting point, or the "knowledge base" of information.
In this regard, Social Media discipline needs to be seen as an associate that helps the entity make better business decisions by providing actionable intelligence to the right people at the right time. On one hand, people within the organisation are seen as an entry point. On the other hand, Social Media as a system that feeds each entry point with the necessary information but prior to that the Buzz measuring system needs to know who needs information. An other issue is : which kind of push deliverables will be used to send the information? (Alert report, product Buzz, campaign Buzz, Leadership Image buzz...). It’s an interactive process by which each party needs to define the parameters of the information distribution.

“Social media is like a snowball rolling down the hill. It’s picking up speed. Five years from now, it’s going to be the standard.” – Jeff Antaya, chief marketing officer of Plante Moran

Saturday 13 November 2010

Why do you have to get Social?

  • To stay ahead of your competition
  • To monitor your brand health
  • To know who and where are your influencers
  • To track each moves of your detractors and mitigate risks
  • To engage with evangelists and detractors
  • To track yours products/services or campaigns in the social media outlets
  • To increase your visibility
Here are obviously just a few reasons to get on the social media wave. There is a radical shift in the purchase funnel because the customer is back in the driver's seat and express himself. Brands can no longer afford to overlook those comments, replies, references, referrals, tweets, retweets, opinions and perceptions about their products. Needless to say that posts and comments on social media outlets carry more weigh than articles in traditional media. 
We all agree that there are hurdles on the way when it comes to get relevant social media content to feed our analysis. Several platforms claim that they can put at your fingertips information that is paramount for your business activity. I don't think that an off-the-shelf product can understand my challenges and priorities. Only a well-seasoned team of analysts coupled with the right technology can help you stay in touch with online conversations about your brands.

As you all know time is an expensive currency that needs to be optimized. You need to focus your efforts on engagement that is to say responding to meaningful and insightful messages.

I always provide my clients with some key takeaways, here are a few:
  • use one single interface to monitor all your subjects of interest. 
  • Spend your time where you create value namely on the analysis - produce recommendations, generate insights.
  • Don't stack information. All is about relevancy (clean data without redundancy).
“Businesses used to have a small suggestion box near the door that mostly housed dust bunnies and an occasional piece of gum. Rarely would someone get back to you. But people can now make a post from an iPhone or a BlackBerry while they’re sitting in your restaurant.” – Charles Nelson, President of Sprinkles Cupcakes president

Thursday 11 November 2010

Keeping an eye on your Social Media Environment

Understanding your customers is no longer a luxury in the business world, it is essential. Information is the lifeblood of an organization and even more, it’s the backbone of a strategy.
Regardless of size, entities must be able to assess their Social Media environment in order to predict strategies and shape success. Social Media intelligence is much more than knowing what people are doing or saying about your brands, products or campaigns, it is the translation of that knowledge into practical application.

Social media is free, easy, unaided even unbiased (literally Wild) but how can we really track the buzz around our subjects of interest?

Well, you can but be cautious don't just go out there without the necessary social media survival kit.

Obviously when it comes to social media we all have different needs, requirements... budgets and unfortunately the one-size-fits-all solution doesn't always work and common sense needs to be used.

Social Media Intelligence is about :

  1. Direction: Why do you need to collect data? Customer Care, Consumer behaviour, product perception, Leadership Image, threats/opportunities detection, early warning. Basically what are the main reasons to keep an eye on the radar.
  2. Collection: As mentioned earlier the organization is on I.V for fresh data and  consequently the right keywords are paramount - Keyword generation phase: you need to take into consideration how people interact online, the expression used, mispellings, all declensions...
  3. Analysis: It's a funnel-shaped process where a pool of relevant data has been captured and archived. The next step is to make sense of this information using mappings, trend analysis and other kind of reports to easily visualize large volumes of data to turn the raw data into actionable intelligence.
  4. Digest: Here is what I like to call the "one step back".  You have valuable information but how can you go the extra mile and make sure that your client or yourself will capitalize on the value of online buzz and swiftly comprehend the big picture?
  5. Dissemination: the right piece of information sent at the right time to the right person within your entity. It's one of the biggest challenge faced today by Social Media experts.
  6. Interaction: Here is where we need to be cautious, engagement is critical but make sure that you are using the right people to interact with your audience.

The Social Media Intelligence Cycle is basically Listening-Measurement-Engagement. I was willing to share my perspective of this SMI cycle.

Don't use information like a drunk man uses a lamppost, more for support rather than illumination.

Keeping an eye on your Social Media Environment

Understanding your customers is no longer a luxury in the business world, it is essential. Information is the lifeblood of an organization and even more, it’s the backbone of a strategy.
Regardless of size, entities must be able to assess their Social Media environment in order to predict strategies and shape success. Social Media intelligence is much more than knowing what people are doing or saying about your brands, products or campaigns, it is the translation of that knowledge into practical application.

Social media is free, easy, unaided even unbiased (literally Wild) but how can we really track the buzz around our subjects of interest?

Well, you can but be cautious don't just go out there without the necessary social media survival kit.

Obviously when it comes to social media we all have different needs, requirements... budgets and unfortunately the one-size-fits-all solution doesn't always work and common sense needs to be used.

Social Media Intelligence is about :

  1. Direction: Why do you need to collect data? Customer Care, Consumer behaviour, product perception, Leadership Image, threats/opportunities detection, early warning. Basically what are the main reasons to keep an eye on the radar.
  2. Collection: As mentioned earlier the organization is on I.V for fresh data and  consequently the right keywords are paramount - Keyword generation phase: you need to take into consideration how people interact online, the expression used, mispellings, all declensions...
  3. Analysis: It's a funnel-shaped process where a pool of relevant data has been captured and archived. The next step is to make sense of this information using mappings, trend analysis and other kind of reports to easily visualize large volumes of data to turn the raw data into actionable intelligence.
  4. Digest: Here is what I like to call the "one step back".  You have valuable information but how can you go the extra mile and make sure that your client or yourself will capitalize on the value of online buzz and swiftly comprehend the big picture?
  5. Dissemination: the right piece of information sent at the right time to the right person within your entity. It's one of the biggest challenge faced today by Social Media experts.
  6. Interaction: Here is where we need to be cautious, engagement is critical but make sure that you are using the right people to interact with your audience.

The Social Media Intelligence Cycle is basically Listening-Measurement-Engagement. I was willing to share my perspective of this SMI cycle.

Don't use information like a drunk man uses a lamppost, more for support rather than illumination.