Overview of

Social Web Analytics

July 2008

Importance of the Social Web

The social web will become the primary center of activity for

whatever you do when you shop, plan, learn, or communicate. It

may not take over your entire life (one hopes), but it will be the first

place you turn for news, information, entertainment, diversion.

Larry Weber, Chairman, W2 Group and Racepoint Group

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Presentation Summary

• Summary of the new eBook on Social Web Analytics

• Created by: Philip Sheldrake, Director

Racepoint Group in London

In this presentation:Overview of Social Web Analytics

In our next issue:Developing Your Measurement Strategy

Download the complete ebook at:

www.SocialWebAnalytics.com

Introduction to Social Web Analytics

If you could go back to the mid-90s and offer a marketer a

little box that could sit on her desk and let her listen in on

thousands of customer conversations and participate in

those discussions regardless of geography or time zone, it

would appear so far-fetched that she’d probably call security.

This eBook is about that reality.

The Need for Measuring the Social Web

• The social web is all about building and

expanding relationships

• Since this all takes place online, it can be

measured so you can listen, learn and

respond to the conversations

• Every company will have their own needs for

adopting social media measurement

Primary Drivers

1. Listen and Participate

2. Brand Perception

3. Measurement & Evaluation

4. Market Research

1. Listen and Participate

• The emergence of social web has made communications with influencers

a two-way dialogue

• Opens the door for you to gain the insight on the forces in your market

• Social Web Analysis technologies filter the millions of web conversation to

identify the ones that are relevant and meaningful

• These tools enable you to:

1. Easily monitor what millions are saying about you and your market

2. Participate in the conversations wherever they occur

3. Shape those conversations by facilitating conversation in your own community

Creating a Personalized “MyChannel”

• Social web technologies have enabled

the evolution of “MyChannel”

• A customized media experience where

individuals consume the media they

want, when they want it

• Compiled from:

– Your RSS newsfeeds

– Subscriptions to friends’ news

– Automated sharing of recommendations

The Implications of MyChannel:

• Increased fragmentation of your target audience

• Less precise timing of delivery

• Less certainty of how each recipient is receiving the information

• Increased opportunity to provide niche information

• Greater opportunity for innovation in inviting and securing interaction

• A need for new mechanisms for gauging campaign success

2. Brand Perception

• Your stakeholders define what your brand means and what it stands for– Based on personal experiences and influence of other trusted individuals

• To influence perception, remember that everything you do is marketing

• Your values must permeate everything you do so individuals are more likely

to reach your desired conclusion

• Social web analytics help you track– Who is discussing your brand

– What topics are being discussed

– How you and your marketing is being perceived

– How it compares to your competitors

3. Measurement & Evaluation of PR

• Analysis of social media discussions provides some valuable insight in

the effectiveness of a PR campaign

• Since Google indexes most of the web it can provide some insight, but

there are shortcomings– Search engines don’t provide an analysis of sentiment

– A high rank doesn’t mean that the conversation is positive

• Social Web Analytics tools can tell you:– How many times your brand is being discussed

– How are people are responding to your messages

– What they like, and what they dislike

– Who the biggest influencers are, and who are they influencing

4. Market Research

• Social media analysis can help companies harness the needs of a marketplace to help guide product development efforts

• Provides a continuous engagement loop to complement traditional methods– Analyze conversations or seed with topics relevant to the future of your business

– Test their reactions, harvest qualitative and quantitative feedback

Traditional Market Research Continuous Engagement Loop

Benefits of Social Media Market Research

• Benefits of continuous engagement loop research with social media

compared to traditional research methods

Market Research

Traditional Methods

Market Research

With Social Media

Ad hoc or regular interval Continuous

One-way (requires incentive for participation) Two-way (mutually rewarding)

Unemotional Emotional

Independent of loyalty Inculcates brand loyalty

Tight focus Wide focus

Sequential parameters Multi-parametric

Designed to achieve statistical confidence Designed to detect weak signals

Comparing the Tools

Free Tools Free Tools Widely Available on the Web Widely Available on the Web

Paid Tools Paid Tools Provided by Social Web Analytics VendorsProvided by Social Web Analytics Vendors

Understanding the Free Tools

• There’s a variety of free tools that let you manually analyze social media discussions

• These tools are based on keyword searches so you will receive every mention of your brand

– Including passing mentions, irrelevant references and duplicates

• Provides a gauge on the volume and location of relevant discussions

• Types of free tools include:

– Web Search Engines

– Blog Search Engines

– Social Bookmarking

– Micro-Blogging Search Engines

Search Engines

• Search engines are one of the most common ways your audience will find content about you

• Since Google accounts for 70% of all web searches, most of your attention should be focused on what Google indexes for your brand

Google provides an email alert service to notify you when a new item is added to their "News,” "Web," “Blogs,” "Groups" and “Video” indexes

Enables you to know exactly when you are mentioned, without having to continually run manual searches

Google Trends

• Google Trends shows how often a keyword is searched by users over time, compared to other keywords

– Results can be summarized by region, city and language

Specific news items are associated

with the spikes in query volume

Blog Search Engines

• Blog search engine operate like generic web search site, but the content is specific to blogs and social media

• Technorati was one of the first blog search services, and remains one of the most popular

• Technorati results can be sorted by “authority”– Authority represents the number of blogs linking to that website

Other blog search sites include:

Social Bookmarking

• Instead of using an algorithm to rank sites, social bookmarking sites rank sites by how many other people bookmark and categorize the site

• Del.icio.us was one of the first and most popular social bookmarking sites

Other social bookmarking sites include:

Social News

• Like social bookmarking, social news sites rely on the community to identify and rank content

• Digg was one of the first and most popular social bookmarking sites

– All news items are submitted by the community – Community votes on news items they feel are most important– The more votes received, the more prominent it is on the site

Other social news sites include:

Microblogging Search

• Twitter is a rapidly emerging microblogging platform

– Consisting of short 140 character messages

• Messages are sent frequently representing one’s “lifestream”

• The Twitter search engine Summize was recently acquired by the company

– Search option includes basic level sentiment

Comparing the Tools

Free Tools Free Tools Widely Available on the Web Widely Available on the Web

Paid Tools Paid Tools Provided by Social Web Analytics VendorsProvided by Social Web Analytics Vendors

Understanding the Paid Tools

• There are many vendors offering more sophisticated tools that can– Filter and automate the analysis of millions of web conversations

– Track the impact of individual influencers

– Provide a deeper level of analysis about the most relevant posts

• These tools collect data from all types of social media so you don’t miss a relevant conversation

• Many process the content with sophisticated Natural Language Processing technologies to extract the meaning from the text

• Results are displayed in a dashboard so you can monitor the discussion in real-time and manipulate the data to prepare custom reports

Types of Paid Tools

• Costs range from a couple hundred dollars a month to $10,000 a month or more depending on the complexity of the analysis

• There are generally 3 types of tools available:

Monitoring

• View content in real-time

• Usually based on keyword queries

• Metrics include volume of posts, impressions, top sites, top influencers

Tactical Analysis

• View content in real-time

• Applies a greater level of analysis on the tone of the discussions

• Providers richer reporting on the metrics representing influence

Strategic Insights

• Deeper analysis of conversation topic, tone and speaker analysis

• Can be based on a more sophisticated Natural Language Processing

• Often include analyst prepared reports on a monthly or quarterly basis

Vendor Overview

• The ebook offers an introduction and functional overview of many of the top vendors in the space

• Download at: www.SocialWebAnalytics.com

Vendors include:

When to Use Free Tools and Paid Tools

Use Free Tools When… Use Paid Tools When…

• There is a limited volume of discussions around your brand

• You are able to manually analyze the content and quality of the posts

• You are new to social web analytics and you want to learn about

• There are too many discussions around your brand to manage them all manually

• You need more analysis about the quality of the posts you are receiving

• You need a variety of charts to illustrate the volume, topic and tone of the discussions

• You need a sophisticated methodology to identify influencers and the impact they are having in your marketplace

• You are actively involved in social media and need to demonstrate how it is impacting your business

In Our Next Issue

Developing Your Measurement StrategyA game plan for creating and implementing a social web

analytics plan for your business

Contact us today to discuss how you can benefit from the analysis of social web

781-895-7714info@digitalinfluencegroup.com