Social media and Web Intelligence

Impact
In a nutshell
The three factors of shorter, almost real-time intelligence, the
vast scale and the lack of direct intervention on people in the
information collection process are the cornerstones of the
shift that has impacted the way businesses do business.

Earlier
This growth in social media has enhanced and in some cases, changed
approaches and methodologies of assessing business intelligence
In the past Research was
Intrusive since people were prompted to take part in the data
collection process, as opposed to willingly contributing to
discussions
Time Consuming since the data collection process used to vary
from weeks to months
Restrictive in terms of scale, since the data had to be restricted
to a sample set

Now

No more constraints on Time, Scale or Acquisition during data

gathering while conducting research:
Social media and the real-time web intelligence, affords for the
acquisition of unprompted and more honest and real mentions
The scale of research is no longer restricted to a sample set that
is defined by the limits of human capacity to gather and collate
information
Time is no longer a constraint since conversations in the socialweb happen continuously and data can be gathered in real-time

Behavioral Research

Intelligence mined from social media and the real-time web,

now provide a window to understand and analyze complex
human emotions, moods and habits.

For instance, online conversations are monitored to analyze the

time of the day when people are happy and likely to buy a
product OR the time of the day when people are likely to be putoff or distressed and likely to buy something else

Reputation Management
Social media is like word-of-mouth on steroids
Bad word-of-mouth online can be the demise of even extremely
promising companies
For instance, a car company had a surprisingly large number of
cancellations which spiraled the company into fixing everything in
their sales. Later, it was unraveled that there were a bunch of
bloggers who had blogged about their disappointing after-sales
service.
If the company was online and was monitoring negative
comments, they could have addressed these issues before they
became viral and caused such colossal damages

Importance of online product reviews

58% of social media users say they write product reviews

to protect other consumers from bad experiences, and
almost one in four say they broadcast their negative
experiences to punish companies.

60% of social media users say that consumer ratings and

consumer reviews are their preferred sources for
information about products and services.

Purchase Intent
Social media has infiltrated the purchasing funnel
Consumers now make informed decisions, from what to have
for lunch to where to go on a vacation
Social media chatter, a great measure of Purchase intent with
consumers constantly posting about their purchase aspirations
online.
A great example of a company that used social media to
measure purchase intent was a popular credit card company
that took to social media to specifically track conversations that
mirrored peoples intention to travel, which was later linked to
their marketing efforts.

Campaign Planning

Marketers plan campaigns based on the nature of chatter of

their brands/companies
They identify where to run their marketing campaigns by
analyzing the break-up of chatter across various geographies
The effectiveness of campaigns is gauged by listening for
conversations on social media channels pertaining to any specific
ads, which might be resonating in users minds
Campaign planning can be tweaked based on the results of
listening and monitoring online conversations

ROI
Social media Chatter is a potent measure of a companys ROI
of their marketing efforts
ROI goes one step beyond the total volume of buzz in the social
media
For instance, a popular skin care brand launched a powerful
online marketing campaign. At first glance, it seemed like the
campaign was successful since it had resulted in substantial
discussions about the product in social media platforms. A
deeper analysis showed that most of the buzz in these
platforms were not pertaining to the product and were infact
irrelevant.
Although, the marketing campaign seemed successful at first
glance, since it did not result in buzz relevant to the brand, the
return on investment is actually nil.

Social media impacts every stage of the

intelligence cycle
Plan

Communicate

Analyze

Collect

Process

Information is moving from proprietary

sources to social platforms
Plan

Communicate

Align

decision support
with social media
intelligence

Collect

Understand

how social
media compliments your
other intelligence
activities

Choose

Analyze

Process

your social media

platform(s) based on your
requirements and market

Examine your decision support needs for

their social media potential
Who are your
stakeholders?

What business
decisions do
they need to
make?

What
knowledge do
they need?

What
intelligence
can we
provide?

How will we develop

that intelligence?

What analysis
will we
perform?

What
information do
we need?

Who holds that

information?

Where?

How will you

collect it?

How will you

process and
analyze it?

Are they likely to

share that information
via social media?

Social platforms have distinct value

propositions for competitive intelligence
Facebook

LinkedIn

Twitter

Official marketing presence for competitors

Business-to-consumer organizations are more likely to actively use Facebook as a

marketing platform

Useful to track competitor recruiting activities, particularly those focused on

university graduates and young professionals

The professional social network ideal for recruiting, job hunting and networking

Individual and company profiles

Discussions in industry-specific groups

Useful for developing profiles of prospective primary sources

Official marketing presence by companies and brands

Use in marketing, PR, customer support and recruiting

Often favored by academics, pundits and journalists

Commentary from individual employees and customer

Useful for broad collection and building an expert network

Collection becomes about farming,

not hunting and gathering
Plan
Allows

Communicate

Collect

us to cast a
wide net

Elements

of primary and
secondary collection

Near

Analyze

Process

real-time stream

Experiment with free and inexpensive social

media monitoring methods and tools
Price
High

Monitoring
and listening
Limited

Robust

Low
Source: Oram, Nicholas. Social Media/Web Collection Tools. Mercyhurst University.

Look beyond traditional authority to build a

network of curators who scan and interpret
Think about
your engagement plan

1. Plan to spend 3-6 months building a social media presence and engaging with
your targets.
2. Understand who your targets are, and how can you reach them directly and
indirectly.
3. Budget your time accordingly: 30-60 minutes a day while you get up to speed.

Create your
own
professional
profile

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Find experts
on Twitter

1. Use a search engine to search for known experts on Twitter.

2. Look for other relevant lists that other Twitter users have added your targets to.
3. See who else is on these lists.

Build rapport
with your
experts

1. Start by retweeting content you find noteworthy to your followers.

2. Comment on tweets from others with public @ messages. Be supportive.
3. Direct items you know will be of interest to specific people. As people see your
value they will follow and message you, too.

Choose a unique handle; make it as short as you can.

Have a professional photo or appropriate tasteful image.
Write a short but clear description of your area of expertise.
Include a link to a blog or LinkedIn profile.
Clarify your corporate affiliation and that opinions are your own.

You will need to apply new criteria to process

information from social media
Plan
Expanding

Communicate

Collect

beyond
traditional authorities
requires new verification
and validation.

You

Analyze

Process

will need to focus on

the specific social media
data that will inform your
analysis.

Credibility of information is intimately tied to

the reliability of the source

Can you verify the identity of the source?

Do they have a complete and professional-looking social media profile?

Are they present with a consistent presence across social media platforms?

What is their history or longevity on a given social media platform?

Whom do they follow, message and retweet and who follows messages and
retweets them?

Do they maintain authoritative lists and do they appear on authoritative lists

with other known experts?

Effective social media intelligence requires

considering a range of information

Quantitative
metrics

Content
Sentiment

Volume
Aggregate
data

Social requires new analytical techniques,

bringing new information to existing methods
Plan
Volumes

Communicate

Collect

of social
content requires
semantic analytical
capabilities.

Social

Analyze

Process

platforms drive
new types of content to
existing analytical
methods.

Social moves us from snapshot analytical

methods to analysis of information streams
Objective

Traditional tool kit

Social intelligence tool kit

Industry
dynamics

Porters five forces

Value chain analysis

Competitive
landscape

War games
Benchmarking
SWOT

Future trends

STEEP/PESTLE
Scenario planning
Competitor trend exposure

Customer
insights

Win loss
Focus group

Interaction among industry players

Response to market changes
Track product and service uptake

Weak signal analysis

Crowd sourcing

Sentiment and buzz analysis

Influencer intelligence

Based on Harrysson, Martin; Metayer, Estelle and Sarrazin, Hugo. How social intelligence can guide decisions. McKinsey Quarterly, November
2012. Accessed 2 June 2014.

Social media inside the enterprise changes

how we communicate
Enterprise

social
enables two-way
discussions, in close to
real-time, across
flattened hierarchies.

Plan

Communicate

Collect

The

platforms make it
easier to target specific
insight.

As

Analyze

Process

such, internal social

platforms can displace
legacy intelligence
portals while external
platforms enable private
curated news briefs.

Social competitive research

Content Analysis

Graph Search

Blog Posts

Key Influencers

Other sources like Kickstarter

Finally