Archive for the ‘General’ Category

New job titles for social media & online listening

As social media develops and companies start to use it better (listening, responding, engaging), new positions are emerging. Of course traditional PR and Marcom roles are adapting without changing their titles and there is plenty of mention in journals on how social media will change traditional roles (see: McKinsey’s evolving role of CMO) There is also new nomenclature. More will develop as social media weedles into CRM, Business Intelligence and Knowledge Management, but that’s for another day. It is interesting that the more “junior” roles are mentioned more, which I believe speaks volumes for how organisations treat social media, but senior roles are on the increase.

Online Community Manager: (773,000 “Google” mentions) This is a very popular role in the US. There are hundreds of companies using this title. They are normally mid-level employees trained in properly reaching out to customers and stakeholders in social media sources. Sometimes its a job for the intern, but increasingly its a real skill with customer care sensibilities and PR’s knowledge of community and connectivity. They can refer customers to available resources such as customer care information or brochures or can escalate a real customer complaint. They will have to report the amount of interactions they have with customers and will use monitoring software Radian6, Attentio and other tools when there is very significant amount of conversations and other free tools like Tweetdeck when there is smaller amounts of buzz.

Social Media Analyst: (321,000 “Google” mentions) I believe in Europe Attentio was first to hire for this kind of role. Basically these are people with market research skill set, but their data source is insight from social media sources. They have to have an open mind while employing certain parts of the rigour of traditional market research. They write reports for clients on how online “buzz” is impacting their brands and what they can/should do about it. They use other brands as comparison and talk in language such as “buzz”, “influence”, “community reach” etc. They have knowledge of listening tools such as Attentio, they know how to get information from those tools and also normally have excellent skills with Boolean queries to remove ambiguous or erroneous information (AND/OR/NOT/~/ operators).

Chief Social Media Officer: (140,000 “Google” mentions) This title is not often used but some companies feel social media is so important they need a strategic response with a senior person either reporting to CEO or CMO. They will have to liaise closely with market research teams, PR and advertising department. I assume some companies will use the terms Chief Listening officer and Chief Social Media officer interchangeably. In Belgium Philippe Borremans is CSMO for Van Marcke.

Chief Listening Officer: (70,000 “Google” mentions) This is for companies with very significant marketing budgets, where it makes sense to have someone in charge of listening to customers in social media and defining strategies for what to do. They will also be involved in building teams that can collect the information and plans for how this information flows through the organisation. In future they will run the “Social Media Command Centre” and be in charge of community managers who in turn manage the outreach to customers in forums, twitter, blogs etc. I understand that companies like Kodak are already using the term.

Some of these titles will disappear and new will emerge. This depends on how organisations evolve to be more real-time and how important social media becomes, watch this space…

How companies use social media information (part 2) – The social media command centre

THE COMMAND CENTRE:

My god, its sexy. Gatorade (part of the Pepsi empire) have a beautiful social media command centre. It’s in Chicago and has a bunch of screens (6 main screens) and room for 5 analysts or community managers. Now I love this stuff. It’s a visual metaphor of social media monitoring and easier to sell internally. “Look Brad, you can see how the brand is performing and respond immediately and there are loads of screens”. Now with all sales, the size of investment is what counts, i.e. will this generate a return commensurate with our spend? Well lets see?

WHAT DOES IT COST:

Hardware will cost 3k – 20k, depends on what you already have and how large and fancy the screens are.

Software: The Gatorade example used the support of IBM and agency Struck/Axiom as well as Undercurrent. Monitoring software is from Radian 6 and possibly VML/Seer. They will also be using free tools like Tweetdeck. These software cost from 100 dollars per month but here they may be paying more like 50k per year +++ as they will have many users and support fees.

Team: Team costs depend on where you get the people from. If they are solely for purpose of social media outreach, the ubiquitous “community manager” then this will be a 30k-50k cost per person. Assume two full heads as a minimum to be allocated to this but a number of part time resources coming from existing communications teams.

I estimate total cost per year will be from 100k-300k depending on what configuration of software/hardware and people you use. Clearly driving this requirement will be size of brand and how seriously the company takes social media.

THE APPLICATION:

Carla Hassan (sr. marketing manager, Gatorade) says the aim is to “take the largest sports brand in the world and turn it into largest participatory brand in the world.” (source: Mashable). She also explains how they are more responsive to social media information and a rap from David Banner was lengthened and re-distributed because they saw major social media action after a campaign “Gatorade has evolved”. So that is a definite optimising advertising story, which has value. I expect over time they will sell reports internally to PR and marketing teams, on campaign impact and support for communications plans.

INFORMATION AND PROCESS:

Bonin Bough who heads the global social media effort for PepsiCo says ““We believe what we’re building here is an example of a sandbox of tools and processes we can use across the organization,” – this for me is the acid test. Now every monitoring project I have been involved in generates at least some value for customers. Sometimes that value has been as simple as “we don’t have much buzz” but other times richer insights have emerged including supporting a car company with their “image greening” but always what’s next has niggled with me.

What do companies do with the information on an ongoing basis? The command centre is a good start as you have a central information point, as it should be high visibility other departments in the company will buy services or share costs (eventually) but they will need training and “flow” support. Each of these departments will have different requirements and different levels of urgency. PR teams can have long crisis free months, but then get hit head-on and have hours to respond. The brand owners can be hit by these crises but often they hold onto an asset that takes months and years to develop, so speed of monitoring is less important than quality of information. The training needs to take this into account.

MY POINT:

All major brands should invest in central management of their “social media brand”. It will make them more responsive and better at listening.

• Initially see if this is a small endeavour in conjunction with product marketing, PR or customer care
• They should know that a central system will still need remote access and people on the road or at home, need to be able to be part of the work flow
• If you have mega brand with 1000s of daily conversations, start with the command centre “metaphor” and make it real i.e. a real physical location
• Involve Business Intelligence and Knowledge management people at the beginning of the planning – they understand information flow and standardising that
• When return on investment is being discussed please take into account that it will be hard initially to quantify the positive impact on the brand (although if well implemented it will certainly exist). However by focussing on lead generation, advertising optimisation and market research the budget will become clear. Some companies will decide to do certain reports in-house therefore saving money on external providers.
• Try and share costs across departments and advertise heavily internally. This won’t be possible in all companies so I expect all centralised social media information projects will need a strong leader/advocate

Finally if you need the monitoring software and in particular European information flows from social media (blogs, forums, social networks), talk to Attentio. We’ll even help you set up your very own command centre :)

How companies use social media information (Part 1)

As social media grows, so do the business models around it. We have seen this with the fast emerging ad market in Facebook, the growth of Demand Media (“content mills” that create cheap but relevant information and publish through social media) and of course the markets for using social media as a source for insight into customers. The markets for insight will make companies more responsive and as Attentio is in this business I’ll talk now about this part now.

This market for insight has split into three main areas:

1. Social Media Research: This is where companies use internal people or pay agencies plus technology to get a sense of the following:

-          What new trends are emerging?

-          How do different demographics discuss products or brands?

-          Are there issues that could be spotted early by listening to communities talk in social media?

Predictably large market research companies are starting to sell these kinds of services. They often say that this doesn’t replace traditional MR but in practice it is taking a chuck of some market research methodologies (questionnaires, focus groups etc.). Market Research companies will see this medium as a cheaper way to collect data and ideally a way to deliver information more quickly.

II. Brand Monitoring: This is where companies simply monitor the buzz around their brands. It has distinct parallels to press monitoring and analysis. It is more quantitive than social media research. Companies use this to get a sense of the following:

-          How do we compare to our competitors for raw buzz or sentiment

• This is a measure of brand health

-          How is this buzz evolving over time

-          Do we create more buzz during and after a campaign (e.g. Super Bowl)

• Are campaigns working, are people getting our message

These services are normally fulfilled by new companies with social media backgrounds although some of the PR measurement companies have acquired technology, some in-house developments too.

III. Social CRM: Companies build systems to understand the existing relationship with their clients. CRM systems interact with sales data, contact information, demographics and this comes from traditional point of sales information and the data from clients such as email contact, phone numbers etc. However with so many discussions about what people buy and use now done in social media, it is important to integrate the traditional CRM with social media i.e. Social CRM.

This has been launched with much fanfare by companies such as Oracle but the reality of it will be brutally obvious in 2011 and onwards i.e. how can companies really understand their customers unless they interact with them where they are online?

As these systems mature companies will use this to get a sense of the following:

-          Knowing what customers to reach out to around product launch or crisis

• Free samples, privileged information

-          Tracking how customer preferences shift on a more regular basis

-          Getting a better understanding of why customers move to other services and what communities are most relevant in making this happen

Social CRM is almost certainly a big deal, indeed Gartner predict that by 2020 10% of all CRM spend will be the social part. Given CRM is a $60Billion industry, the numbers are big. There will be a lot of fun and games as companies decide on how the information around these systems goes across the organisation and what decisions should be made with these systems. In my opinion in will be the first time the CIO cares about social media and maybe the first real connection to proper Business Intelligence integration.

Conclusion:

How companies are using information from social media is changing and maturing. This is a natural outcome as social media has grown dramatically in the last 5 years. I see a relatively simple analogy where companies used to act as fortified cities occasionally sending people out to get information on the market. Now those walls are broken and companies have to get used to the fact that information is flowing everywhere about their products and they need systems to understand this and interact differently (i.e. all the time).

The metaphors that are emerging include the social media command centre and Social CRM as described above. I look forward to how this evolves and what technologies emerge to make this work better for companies, to make the more responsive, more “listening” and above else able to understand their customer…

Exploring the depths of consumer minds: Asian vs Western markets

So many consumers go shopping everyday. What do they buy? Why do they buy? If brands could choose any super power, it would most likely be the ability to read people’s minds.

On its European website, Muji, a Japanese retail company which sells a wide variety of household and consumer goods, states that it aims to “develop new simple products at reasonable prices by making the best use of materials while considering environmental issues”. Which ultimately results in “low-priced, high-quality products”.

However, hopping into some Chinese pedestrian conversations online about Muji, the general sentiment is that Muji products are quite highly priced, especially when compared to its more hip competitor brand Uniqlo:

“Muji’s cotton goods are of good quality too, but prices are quite steep. People with low income like me might as well go to Uniqlo.”

“Muji was praised very highly by my teacher. The second time I visited a Muji store, there was still only one word in my mind – ‘expensive’.”

As Muji is present also in Western markets, the question raised now is whether the Western buyers have the same perception of Muji products as the Asian ones?

Consumers of the same brand expect different things in different regions

Rather than saying that brand perceptions are different in Asia than the Western markets, it is more accurate to say that consumers in different regions expect different things from brands.

For example, across both Asian and Western markets, consumers perceive Uniqlo as a go-to brand for “fast fashion”, which has “cheap”, “affordable” products.

Muji is uniformly associated by both markets with “quality” and “design”. However there are some slight differences in the degree to which consumers find their products “reasonably priced”. In Asian markets, most notably in Taiwan and China, Muji is mostly associated with keywords such as “expensive” or “costly”.

On the other hand, consumers in Europe are not as concerned about the price of the products, but more about the design. In other words, we could say that they are willing to pay a certain premium price for good design. In the UK in particular, consumers tend to have particular interest in the individuality given by the choice of one brand or another.

Measuring the distance between what brands want to communicate and what really happens out there

There is some distance between what these Asian brands want to communicate and which are the consumer perceptions in reality. In Muji’s case, most consumers do see it as a “quality” brand, however it is not widely seen as “affordable design”. This happens especially in Asian markets such as Taiwan and China, where the price is a dominant factor when choosing among brands.

We could say that the “simple lifestyle” brand philosophy that Muji is trying to push is overlooked by the average Asian customer.

The interesting things is that those who produce positive hype about Muji usually have great empathy with the brand philosophy and are willing to show support by buying Muji products.

On the other hand, Uniqlo has done a great job at getting its brand message of “affordable, fast fashion” across both Asian and Western markets. This may be due to their aggressive and often creative online advertising campaigns, such as the Lucky Line campaign, where consumers join a virtual queue on Twitter in a bid to win Uniqlo vouchers.

Western and Asian consumer choices of social media channels to discuss about such brands

In Asian markets, blogs are by far the most dominant source of buzz generated surrounding brands. People seem to prefer more intimate channels of expression:

On the other hand, there is a balance of buzz coming from European blogs and news, especially in the UK. Additionally, consumers in Europe are open to sharing their brand experiences/anecdotes on forums:

Interestingly, a sizeable proportion of buzz in the US originates from forums:

Tips for Asian brands?

Since brands are ultimately trying to meet the demands of customers, it makes perfect sense to pay attentio to what those demands really are. This study shows that a brand looking for wide acceptance in an Asian market should have a good price/design balance, whereas one that hopes to break into the European market must pay more attention to product design and developing a cohesive brand philosophy.

Attentio Asia

The 8th wonder of the world – The hanging parliaments of Westminster

Could a political party, or more specifically, one man and his charismatic words3, hand the Lib Dems, a party that has never been in power before, the keys to Number 10? It could be so and it could be thanks to Twitter and Facebook. Nick Clegg has also thrived due to his ability to win over crowds in the first ever live televised debates in UK election history.

As can be seen from the graph above, Mr Clegg is leading the way in online buzz on Twitter with regards to the TV debates and with two very noticeable peaks around the time of the debates themselves. With the last one having taken place last night, it will be very interesting to see how this will play out.

If nothing else, Mr Clegg is causing an unsettling stir (at least for David Cameron and Gordon Brown) since he may actually cause a hung Parliament. This does, unfortunately, not involve the hanging of MP’s (in my opinion the only way to truly change politics in the UK) but would mean Gordon Brown staying in office a little longer because no party has won a clear majority. History shows that a hung Parliament can cause uncertainty in the upper echelons of Government which then trickles down to the masses and can lead to ‘unsettling’ times.

Also, what can be observed from the pie charts below is that Mr Clegg is clearly the winner when it comes to the buzz around TV debates across social media sites Facebook and Twitter.

In addition to the increase in Twitter and Facebook chatter, Mr Clegg also has the TV debates working in his favour since it has launched an almost unknown political figure into the stratosphere of political life. As can be seen from the Attentio BrandMaps picture, he is being talked about much more with regards to TV debates and hung Parliaments than the unimportant things like the economy, and spending cuts.

Oddly enough, very few people are talking about tax which probably serves all three leaders politically since it is widely speculated that a tax increase is on the way whoever is in charge.

In the next blog post, I will be talking about the parties in relation to social media and whether or not they are using it to their advantage.

What’s your favourite brand?

We have recently started a little exercise: we’re asking our friends and collaborators to tell us what their favourite brands are and then we will measure the social media buzz around those brands and two of their competitors.

If you’re following us on Twitter or if you’re our fan on Facebook, drop us a comment or reply and let us know what your favourite brand is.

We’ll then post the results on our website and let you know.

SgParents has chosen Fujitsu:

And Gilles Dufrane chose his favourite brand Porsche:

Eurostar chaos as seen in social media

I confess I have been a fan of Eurostar for 5-6 years. No longer the traipse through Brussels airport and pathetic short flight to London that somehow takes 5 hours from door to door. Eurostar changed all that for me, Leisure Select is lovely and sometimes when the price is right Attentio would pay for me to take that ticket. Two bottles of wine later and normally an interesting chat with fellow passengers and I’d be back in Brussels with a smile on my face.

But they have struggled lately with a number of issues, some acts of God, some maintenance problems but now the worst of all, a disastrous PR fiasco, with hundreds trapped under the tunnel for hours, thousands more delayed, trains cancelled and a stressed CEO getting on TV and via Wearesocial his first taste of social media.

I feel for the Eurostar team, but I also see that they act like a defacto monopoly sometimes. Their loyalty scheme is an after thought (it isn’t really a loyalty scheme) and their prices are rarely “competitive”. Still the criticism they face now is largely unfair, the snow was terrible and the simple nature of a “under tunnel” service, is they maybe stuck in a tunnel. OK they seem to be back in control.

Social media is important for them, but as I wrote to an agency contact recently, most of their work is not about social media. First they need to fix the trains and network. The CEO’s job of communication will have to be on TV and via their web site. The social piece is useful but frankly much of the twitter buzz is from social media types who are not yet full representative of the Eurostar customer base (this will change).

Social media does however provide a useful listening opportunity and as the video below demonstrates the chat is quite representative of their brand today. Many of the conversations are about “chaos”. How this changes and what next month’s hot topics are, will be clearly visible by watching the tweets, listening to blogs and responding to certain types of conversations. But lets watch this space and see how their online reputation evolves and if they do start to listen?

Recent social media chats and a prediction

Just looking at recent twitter conversations it seems companies in Belgium are becoming aware of the medium.

I tweeted I was unhappy with the sandwiches at Exki (they can be bad) but did specify I like other things they do. (They tend to focus on healthier foods and in a market saturated by mayonnaise rich sandwiches that can be a plus.) Their General Manager, Laurent Kahn reached out and asked me what the problem was and I explained my miserable meal. Two things here, firstly he uses Twitter to share stuff and secondly he doesn’t mind taking a public conversation. As it turns out most of the buzz around them is positive or neutral so he doesn’t have to be too worried. Of course the question is, what will he do with my feedback and should he add social feedback with some traditional research? Maybe they’d sell more sandwiches. We’ll see.

While I was announcing some new financing for Attentio (great news by the way!) I shared a negative experience on using PR Web. PR Web asked me what the problem was and when I explained, they showed sympathy, even if the response was a little “most customers like the new version”. Still at least they talked with me. The funny part is that Market Wire also said hello and asked could they help. They couldn’t help this time, but I now know that they are relevant for future releases and communications, that is very good as I had seen them as more for releases around stock listed companies (don’t ask me why…).

So, good that companies talk to people. Great that Belgian firms see the value at a senior level. Wonderful that companies see the potential for new business leads. But this is just the tip of a fast growing iceberg, now twitter is still niche (super niche) and the real time web is still properly years away, but its coming and all companies will need to know how to communicate to their stakeholders, manage this and ensure learnings are properly spread across departments.

My prediction is that over the next three years the CIO and IT Director will now be a main decision maker in future when it comes to listening platforms as they will integrate with many departments and be apart of Business Intelligence, Knowledge Management and CRM not just glorified press clippings or only a marketing dashboard for writing reports. Fancy a bet?

Online is hurting Traditional Research in a new way

Traditional research has obviously taken a whack since the inception of the Internet. The billions of euros that goes to online research came from somewhere, but not a problem, the major agencies have shifted larger portions of their business online or bought companies that had done it first.

What is happening now is something different, what occurred before was Internet as the medium of transport i.e. online panels, internet based questionnaire, web based focus groups, now it is Internet as the source. This is where companies like Attentio make their bread and butter. The cost is through extracting the information and while this is significant, when we do it, we have it and then once categorised and “cleaned” we can really reuse and enable insights for clients repeatedly. We get those insights from truly conversational sources such as the blogs, forums, networks where the discussions are free flowing, unstructured and unedited.

While reading Research Live (a leading research website) I saw an article demonstrating the impact. The piece was entitled Pressure from online alternatives could stunt research recovery and Morgan Stanley’s Edward Hill Wood says “in recent years ‘traditional’ MR agencies have been undercut by start-ups using purely online data collection methodologies and new approaches such as social media analysis”

Those 7 words “new approaches such as social media analysis” talk to thousands of jobs that will change, millions of euros of lost sales to research companies, methodologies that won’t exist in 5 years, but also companies who will get information quicker while you and me get listened to more. A metaphor for the impact of this is record producers. Online distribution was first a new channel to ship CDs but when online downloads emerged the impact was catastrophic. Services like iTunes, Last FM and Spotify have and will do very well but they are new approaches and most record companies simply have not dealt well with the new world. I believe as with the music analogy the Research Industry will lose revenue although a large portion will go to listening and community based approaches, but will the larger players be flexible enough to do something about that? We’ll see.