If there’s all this great information in big data, why do we have such a hard time getting to the part with the deep business insights? One issue is related to getting a better handle on influence.  But it’s also about structuring and tagging data in a way that allows you to see connections not only between people, but also concepts, companies and innovation.  For a long time, companies have been conducting business intelligence on their internal data, but now a few start-ups are tackling the task of conducting external business intelligence using publicly available data (social media, PR reports, investment disclosures, etc.).

Quid and Recorded Future are two such companies, and they are raising money and building teams to tackle this very real problem of pulling insight out of all this digital data floating around in cyberspace.  Large corporations, especially those in the technology sector, are using their services to analyze competitor moves, trends in the sector, opportunities for growth and acquisition targets, while traders at financial firms are using these services to analyze events, media-flow, and market behavior to adjust their trading strategies.

It’s always easier to see these things with concrete examples, and there is a great example using Smart TVs on Recorded Future’s website to provide a glimpse into the possibilities.  Imagine you are a corporate strategist at Samsung trying to map out the Smart TV landscape.  You know that people are talking about Smart TVs, and you could probably use a social media or traditional PR listening tool to figure out which forums and which blogs are discussing the topic.  But then what?  What about all of the financial documents, analyst reports and predictions that exist across other channels.  And how do you figure out how it all maps out in terms of sources, relationships and timing?

These tools essentially take as much publicly available content as possible and apply complex natural language processing to identify specific references to ideas, people and events.   These references are then structured and organized by things like time, topics and concepts.  By visualizing this data onto a dashboard that can be played with and manipulated, a corporate strategist at Samsung can now quickly see which companies are currently investing in SmartTVs and where the largest sums of investment are going to.  If he or she wants to find out how soon Samsung needs to begin thinking about R&D or a possible acquisition target, that can be done as well.

As the volume of data and the speed of innovation increases, these types of services will become a necessary tool for any strategic minded professional who wants to get validated insight into the future.

While Quid is currently not available for trial, Recorded Future offers those who are curious, a 15 day trial of the service.  Even if this is not exactly your thing, it’s worth seeing where we are headed.  Pretty cool stuff.

For the last couple posts, I have focused a lot of energy into trying to illustrate the power of influence on engagement strategies.  With so many voices contributing content, how can we focus on the conversations which are going to impact our brands to the greatest degree?  By knowing who is influential, we can ensure that we are paying the most attention to the people who can influence their own audiences.  This is often about figuring out a better engagement strategy on social media, so that company messaging reaches the largest audiences.  You can also understand what people think about your current products and campaigns, and it’s much better to focus on influencer conversations than wade through a billion conversations.

Companies like Klout and PeerIndex are giving companies the opportunity to see scores of influence for every individual, and they are starting to drill down onto the topics that these individuals influence.  Professional networks like LinkedIn allow brands to find and engage people based on what they do for work, and that’s a great way to tap into interest graphs, especially when it comes to people and topics where big purchases are being made.  And then you have a whole ecosystem of companies like Radian6, eCairn and Traackr who help to filter conversations based on influencer mapping using partner or home-grown methods.

But what’s the next step?  How do we help social media conversations achieve the promise of looking into the future?  I would make the case that influence is the answer.  It is one the primary keys to getting better interest graphs.  And interest graphs will then be the key to making sense of the insights hidden in big data.  So then instead of using influence just to figure out who should be engaged, rewarded and marketed to, we can also begin to use influence to find out where we need to go.

This is more strategic than simply finding out that Taco Bell’s Black Jack taco was a bad idea, because “I hate eating black colored food”.  Once we can accurately measure influence and match it to interest, we can use big data to figure out where thought leaders across the globe think the tablet market is going.  What do influencers in fashion think will be next year’s trends?  Which innovations are CIOs excited about over the next five years, and how can that affect the long term strategy of a Google or Salesforce?

I think these are the really big strategies that we can hope to understand from big data as influence and interest graphs are better understood.  What do you think?

Yesterday, after the Oscars, the general news media from CNN to the New York Times began speculating on the way that micro-media like Twitter could change the way that national broadcasts are produced. Richard Robbins, the director of social innovation at AT&T, was quoted from a tweet as saying, “In future, live show producers should have contingency plans to make on-the-fly changes when social media chatter shows trainwrecks.”

It’s a great pie in the sky idea, but let’s face the facts. Most businesses do not move at this speed, and probably should not move at this speed anyway. It may even be a little short sighted to make strategic decisions for a television show (… or a product or service) on the fly. Just In Time (JIT) businesses like Zara and Toyota are quick to meet consumer demands, but they are not that fast. Reportedly, Zara takes about 2 weeks, compared to the traditional 6 months, to develop a new product and get it into stores. But it may be unrealistic to think that businesses can provide valuable product at the speed of thought.

One of the problems with over-hyping social media is that many companies are ignoring some of the most valuable parts of this form of communication as a result of these unrealistic ideas. It may be a safe bet to assume that next year’s Oscar telecast will not include a contigency plan for negative feedback from social media, but we are finding that this often leads companies to ignore aspects of this data that could help them.

After a major event, campaign or product launch listen to the conversations leading up to the launch and right afterwards. We would advise the Academy to figure out what messages the overall conversation conveyed. Not just single posts, but the WHOLE conversation. Segment those trends and volume reports across different time periods and for different aspects of the event (presentation, red carpet, nominees, etc.). From these segments, the Academy can begin to understand what works and what does not.

For the next event, campaign or product launch, use learnings from the previous analysis to start out on the right foot. Social media is about experimentation, and the second experiment should be better than the last. Analyse the whole conversation again three months, two months and one month before the next launch, and continue to change the way you market and to whom.

Navigating social media marketing can be difficult and unknown territory. If individuals are talking about your organization on these channels, they are providing something valuable. But social media is not a one-size-fits-all type of medium. Match the speed of your business with the level of data you collect. Not only will the task become more manageable, but strategies will be more coherent within the context of your business.

For most of our clients, social media is a no-brainer. Let’s face it. Even the mom-and-pop deli below the office has a Twitter and Facebook page. But what is scary is that companies with millions/billions in revenue, multiple locations and many more employees are often not taking their strategy much further than Mr. Kim who makes kimchi tacos on Battery Street.

In Mr. Kim’s case, he gets feedback from his customers everyday. He’s not marketing on billboards or sending out flyers. He is communicating with his customers, and they are telling him what they like and what they don’t. They tell him by generating revenue at his deli, and they also tell him verbally that they wish he would make a kalbi burrito with two eggs instead of one. It’s a two way method of communication (sounds like social media, doesn’t it?).

It’s been said more than one, but social media is only a communication tool. Since the customers of large enterprises cannot necessarily show up in the “deli” to hear their customers, social media is becoming the next best thing. Of course, people will still send complaints and feedback through email, phone, and maybe even… mail. It is not only about marketing, but it is also about understanding what the customer wants out of your products and services. And there is a lot more data flowing through the pipes now. Not just through your own Facebook, Twitter, and other user generated channels, but ALL social channels. We’re talking about more than 9 billion pieces of content created everyday. And it’s growing.

What we find is most often missing within companies is the organizational structure to pass along messages to the right business units which can actually act on questions, feedback or complaints. Mr. Kim knows that he only needs to go home and tell his wife that they need to buy more eggs for burritos, but are your community managers telling your product guys that there are tweaks that would be great on the next redesign? Do you know that people are asking why the new cinnamon twists taste strange? Are you getting messages from prospective buyers to your sales team?

Regardless of the volume that your organization is seeing outside of owned channels, this is the time to put together the workflow necessary to pass messages along to the right people in your company. Audit the types of conversations that are occurring today, and begin to categorize how these conversations should be addressed as they occur in real time. Insightful ideas are floating around in the ether, and if your organization doesn’t listen to them, someone else will.

A fundamental part of the strategies that we implement for clients include a listening analysis or audit that takes a baseline of all the social media conversations that are taking place across over half a billion sources of user generated content. While many of our clients agree that Facebook and Twitter are not the de-facto social media outlets, there is a tendency to consider these two channels as the ones that drive social media strategy.

From a consumer engagement perspective, this is probably not a bad idea. We typically see about 10% of all conversations for social media monitoring come through Facebook and Twitter. Outside of some outliers, the conversations tend to focus on two things: complaints and broadcasting.

A complaint typically sounds like the following: “Been waiting on the phone with Company X for over 40 minutes. Arggghh!!!”. No question that this can help customer service improve and understand perceptions in their consumer base. In addition, a community manager could also reach out to this individual to ask if they can help out. Based on experience, individuals who are just complaining typically are not looking for help, and just venting steam. But it is unquestionably a good reflection on the company to respond to individuals on Twitter and Facebook in real time. As an aside, the usual suspects for monitoring tools are not always the best way to engage on Twitter and Facebook.

A broadcast is typically a retweet or statement of something that your company has done well or poorly: “Company X is helping to make the world a better place by supplying products to poor countries in Africa – http://bit.ly/234″. People who message about your brand probably send similar micro-messages about other companies. Again, these are great individuals to look to as influencers or evangelists, and we recommend following and reaching out to them to help with future messages. But besides knowing what resonates with customers, it is unlikely that any innovative new ideas are going to come through micro-media.

User engagement is a part of governance, and micro-media messages like those on Facebook and Twitter should fall into such a governance strategy. On the other hand, overall strategy on how to utilize social media for insights should be aligned with the conversations that are coming from the other 90% of conversations. These are the blogs, forums and message boards that talk in more detail about your company, your competitors and your industry. They may not necessarily be the place for direct engagement, but they can tell you a lot more about strategic direction than a complaint or a broadcast message.

Listen to the entire conversation about a certain topic area, and see if there’s anything that your company can do to improve the way things are done. This is not a day-to-day process, but rather a dedicated effort to analyze and set the path for business strategy that is driven through social media technologies. The insights that you will gain from these channels have a tendency to be lot more valuable than anything that 140 characters can offer.

One of the reasons that I like reading white papers by the Altimeter Group is that the papers typically have a concise and implentable method to the madness.  For most of the clients that I work with, we are seeing an often chaotic approach to diving into Social Media.  Jeremiah Owyang and John Lovett recently published a paper titled: Social Marketing Analytics – A New Framework for Measuring Results in Social Media.  I’ve included the paper from Slideshare below this post.

The thesis of the paper really is that “organizations that develop social media measurement strategies which align key success metrics with business objectives will evolve more quickly.”  Maybe this is something that is obvious, but it’s easier to say than to actually put into practice.  Sometimes a bit of structure can go along way, and the paper urges organizations first to think of their foray into Social Media as a learning experience that will build for the future.  I’ve said it before, but companies need to think about what their business objectives and requirements are before selecting a vendor or product.  Social Media is a tool.  Don’t start swinging that hammer until you know what it’s going to help you achieve.

Take the time to really map out what parts of your individual business unit (or entire corporate strategy) can benefit from two-way conversations.  For starters, the paper addresses four large business objectives: Foster Dialogue, Promote Advocacy, Facilitate Support and Spur Innovation.  From my perspective, these are successive objectives that can be addressed more fully as your organization takes action on each of the ones prior.

Most of our clients use monitoring tools to Foster Dialogue and Promote Advocacy, so it’s something that’s easier for me to talk about.  If you’re just starting out with Social Media, I would concentrate on really creating solid metrics around these two objectives first.  However, map out how you can use Social Media for the other two as well.  Having a plan and a clear sense of direction can help your organization ensure that your efforts are aligned with the proper growth of Social Media as it relates to your business.

Within Foster Dialogue, the paper points to three measurable KPIs: Share of Voice, Audience Engagement and Conversation Reach.  Conversation Reach is a bit harder to define, but probably the most important with respect to demonstrating ROI.  While they have created a general framework, it is imperative that you define relevant conversations first.  Which of your competitors do you want to track, and what aspects of the conversations around those competitors can actually affect your own business?  Based on experience, the hazy noise cloud of a thousand conversations can often lead to analysis paralysis.  Be concrete in what you are looking for today, and what you want to look for in the future.

Within Promote Advocacy, the paper points to three other KPIs: Active Advocates, Influential Advocates and Advocate Impact.  Again the last KPI (Advocate Impact) drives the most ROI, but right now this an extremely difficult piece to track.  Getting influencers highly tied into your sales and marketing efforts is the goal, but for most of our clients, that’s a long way away.  For the time being, I would stay focused on understanding where advocates both for your own organization as well as those of competitors are coming from.  Listen to their conversations, and try to discover where opportunities lie for high impact individuals to help drive campaign and product messages without injecting too much of a sales pitch into your own interactions with them.

Overall, the paper is relatively brief, and I would suggest taking a look for yourself.  The more metrics you can put in place from the beginning, the easier it will be to demonstrate the value of your future efforts.

Sure, we all want to be “Outside the Box”, but how far from the box do we normally venture when we try to put this into practice?  The “box” is a pretty safe place, and that’s really why we like to stay within its confines.  Even when we venture outside of the box, we typically like to stay close to the box because of the risk of being too far out there, etc.

With social media, we can test the grounds outside of the box and really push innovation.  Conversations are happening all over different social media channels, and more often than not, around your specific brand as well.  Current and future customers are asking for product enhancements, changes and improvements.  They have ideas that maybe you have not thought of, and yet they are telling you and your competitors what they are.  It’s amazing that so much great information is being discussed, while most of it is not being used or even heard.

I would suggest that brands begin listening to social media especially for new product and campaign launches.  Hear what your customers are saying and make changes if you can.  If not, feed that information back to marketing, research and product development for future launches.  The better you can know your customer, the more you can deliver innovative and exciting products back to them.  And in the end, that is simply good business sense.

Within the social media monitoring space, there is a lot of talk of using social media to innovate products and determine how trending data is pointing to new places that your customer wants products to go.  But how realistic is it that a company can use this information appropriately?

Generally, I would say that most companies who do not generate massive amounts of social media on a day to day to basis are going to find social media as a source of product innovation pretty difficult.  The real winners are companies like Subway or Taco Bell where there is enough flowing through Twitter streams, etc. to be able to quickly understand what consumers think about specific promotions and product releases.  Entertainment companies who produce content may also have a high level of engagement, but production take a long time, and many of the companies who we have talked to don’t really see how they can react quick enough to make a change.

That being said, there is definitely an opportunity here for all companies with regards to product innovation.  Just as it is great to bring in executive talent from outside the company to get renewed perspective, there is a huge benefit to bringing in the intuition of consumers who do not work at the company.  As opposed to a market research study, the unstructured and often out-of-the-box thinking that comes out of a trend cloud can help researchers and product innovators within the organization think differently about how to to tweak ideas.

Are we still in the infancy of using this data for product innovation?  Of course.  But is there a lot of information out there that can be already be used to think differently? Absolutely.