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Posts Tagged ‘social media’

Conversations Have Always Been Leading Indicators Of What Is About to Come

Posted in Digital Marketing, social media, tagged predictive analytics, SDL, SDL Social Intelligence, social data, social media on May 6, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

Long before modern technology, conversations were monitored to gain insights on popular trends. The conversations around various French university pubs and cafes in the 1780′s forewarned the pending revolutionary changes about to take place. During the industrial revolution, privileged men in country clubs shared information about up-and-coming companies for stock tips. Anyone can be an accurate prognosticator of future trends by listening to the right conversations.

Unfortunately, access to these conversations has always been limited to a privileged few throughout most of history. That was until the recent advent of social media. Now, billions of conversations are accessible through technology. The problem no longer is about getting access to conversations, but finding the relevant ones amid the enormous clutter of noise. The late 18th century French university pubs were obvious places to hear the ideas of a revolt. Within the social data set how can you find the “country club” conversations if you are a hedge fund manager looking for sentiments on different stocks?

Social media is a universe of unstructured data that can be overwhelming. Understanding the general sentiment of conversations or changing daily volumes are only superficial information compared to what social media has to offer. Moving forward, the industry will introduce better ways to structure the social media data set for deeper insights. We will better understand the right “places” within social media to uncover leading indicators on any particular topic. That is why the social media data set offers such promise of predictive capabilities.

Currently, the social intelligence/analytics industry is still immature with only a few new compelling concepts reaching the market. Our social intelligence group at SDL has just launched a framework by which you can measure the customers’ commitment to a particular company’s product(s), brand(s) and content. By measuring the social conversations within this framework, we can provide data-driven insights that help marketers be more effective.

No doubt others will follow and come up with their own frameworks and algorithms. Meanwhile we will continue to try to lead the market with improvements and innovations of our own.

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My Customer Journey with the iPhone

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged customer journey, iphone, Samsung Galaxy Note II, social data, social media on December 11, 2012 | 2 Comments »

My first iPhone was the iPhone II. It was pretty much love at first swipe on the then novel interface that was so intuitive. My experience was brilliant. Here was a device that seemed to understand how any human would want to interface with a small device.

Without question, I was highly committed to the product. As I downloaded one app after another, my commitment grew even further. Apple really did create something that I didn’t know that I couldn’t live without. I no longer had to wait in the rain for buses as my OneBusAway app tracked their whereabouts near real time. Urban Spoon made finding restaurants fun. Pretty soon, I was banking on the iPhone, tracking flights and posting the photos of the best moments of my life.

Through this new blissful relationship with the iPhone, I overlooked some irritations with the company like the “iTunes jail”. I had avoided any of the Apple iPod devices because of my dislike of iTunes. For a company that understands customer experience so well, I never understood how could they miss so badly with iTunes. In short while I was committed to the iPhone, I wasn’t very committed to the Apple brand. My commitment was about the superior features of the product. It wasn’t that I had built an affinity with the brand.

When Android started making some serious noise, I started paying attention. However, the inferior hardware products on Android kept me through several iPhone upgrades. Yet, my lack of commitment to the Apple brand made me an at risk customer. I wonder if Apple knew about people like us – in my profile group? Did the company know that there was a segment of their customers at risk for retention?

Finally, just a couple of weeks ago, I switched to the Samsung Galaxy Note II. I wanted the bigger screen to replace my tablet. I liked the creativity tools with the S Pen. I was annoyed about the Apple coming out with their own map on the new iPhone. That was symbolic of why I never really committed to the brand.

I won’t lie, there are times, I miss the iPhone as I learn the new Android interface. But I’m still happy with my decision.

This was my story about my customer journey with the iPhone and Apple. I represent one segment among many. However, would Apple have communicated with me differently if they had known my changing sentiments along this journey? Regardless, I know social data can provide that type of insight.

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Five Segments in Social Listening to Help Plan Your Move

Posted in business, Digital Marketing, entrepreneur, tagged Alterian, Altimeter, Dachis Group, social analytics, social listening, social media on December 8, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

I’m a big believer in the Social Media Listening space. I started a company in July, 2009 to provide reports and insights using social data and it has since changed its name three times through a merger and two acquisitions. Yet, the opportunities are just beginning. If you are an entrepreneur or an investor interested in the Social Listening Space, start by segmenting the opportunities into five overlapping but distinctive segments: Social Monitoring, Integrated Campaigns, Social Analytics, Social Consulting and Social CRM.

Social Monitoring is how it all began. It started mostly with those within the PR function tracking brand mentions that eventually evolved into customer engagement strategies and technological extensions. Currently, there are more than 400 Social Listening and Monitoring tools in the market that range from free (hopeless business plan) to enterprise pricing models. These tools will need to integrate with one or more of the other segments or become much more vertically focused to remain relevant in the future.
As always, brands will spend a lot of money on campaigns/ads. Social is fast being accepted as not only a legitimate but an effective platform for ad spends. Marketers must now think about an integrated campaign that includes social as part of the strategy. With all the “purchase intents” being tweeted and focused “segments” that are available on social platforms (Facebook, Linkedin), there will be a lot more opportunities moving ahead.
Social Analytics will disrupt some very large existing markets, such as market research and business intelligence. The more complex and useful application of the social data set to derive insights will change these worlds as we know it. The reason that insights have always been so expensive is because access to relevant data was so limited and difficult. Now, social platforms provide access to an authentic and abundant data set at very low cost in near real-time. Think about that. The biggest application of social data won’t really be for the current “social” buyers (PR). It will be for those who are focused on answering critical business questions. It just so happens that the social data set will provide the best and most cost-effective insights, if applied correctly. At Alterian Social , we provide predictive analytics.
Social Consulting will be one of the fastest growing segments for years to come. With the incredible speed and impact of Social to all brands, they will look outside the traditional agencies for specialized help. Thus, there will be great growth of companies like Dachis Group, Altimeter, among many others that are about to take advantage of this growing service demand. For entrepreneurs, this may be the safest startup idea given the relatively low start-up costs and easy path to positive cashflow of service companies. Whatever brands spend on technology platforms in Social Listening, they will eventually spend twice as much on services if not more.
Social CRM should be the biggest bet and the most exciting. Salesforce.com’s acquisition of Radian6 (at a high premium) was with the vision of Social CRM. The problem is that Social CRM means different things to different people. The trust is, however, the idea of a 360 degree view of customers including their social activities may just be too ambitious. The path to Social CRM will start with baby steps and the market will settle for something much less the ideal promise. Take your chances at your own risk here.

As an entrepeneur, follow your passion and your tolerance for risk. As an investor, I would recommend picking 3-5, or 5-7 startups within one of these segments rather than investing across the segments. That should offer the best chance at success in this crazy, disruptive force called Social Listening.

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PART III: When 1+1 Can Equal Something Greater Than 2

Posted in business, Digital Marketing, entrepreneur, social media, tagged Alterian, Intrepid, John Song, lift9, Liz High, market research, Misia Tramp, social media on September 11, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

PART III: When 1 + 1 Can Equal Something Greater Than 2

We met at Wild Ginger for the first time in December, 2009. Misia Tramp and I talked about leveraging the available social media data for market research projects. She obviously knew her subject matter as she had been providing market research services through her company, Intrepid, for more than 11 years.

Misia had charisma that was further enhanced by her proper British accent. I was intrigued about the rigor of market research methods that could be used with social media data to gain truly useful insights. We left that lunch with just a promise to reconnect, but my mind was already racing ahead about the possibilities.

Lift9 had expertise around social media data and analytics. We had an improving team of cost-effective analysts at our research center in Ho Chi Minh. Intrepid had agro rhythms, methods and rigor from market research projects that could potentially be applied to social data. They had a bigger revenue base, but struggled with margins that would be improved with Lift9’s cost structure and focus on accessible digital information.

My first proposal was to merge Lift9 with only the US entity of Intrepid. In the end, however, we decided to merge both the UK and US operations of Intrepid with Lift9. Misia’s business partner, Liz High, had been running Intrepid UK.

We put together an operations agreement in late January, 2010 to test whether we could merge the two companies’ products. Meanwhile, we concurrently kicked off the due diligence of the deal.

The signs were encouraging from the start. Misia was able to get more attention from her client base by incorporating social elements into her pitch. In many cases we were able to deliver faster, better and more cost-effective outputs right away.

The biggest challenges were at the speed we needed to improve our cash flow, which had been a deteriorating issue for Intrepid, and how to effectively merge the two different cultures into working cohesively together. We allowed some turnover of people in the beginning, and focused on driving sales and improving margins and cash flow.

On May 3, 2010, we finalized the merger with Lift9 taking controlling interest, but keeping the Intrepid brand. From there, the financial performance began to improve so dramatically, I started to think about raising capital to acquire additional boutique market research companies that had solid client bases. We now had tangible proof that combining social elements with traditional market research methods provided compelling insights that resulted in better sales traction and improved financial results.

The management team approved plans to raise money for acquisitions, which included up to 11 potential transactions within a three-year period.

Right about then, I received a call from an Alterian senior executive about a possible service partnering deal using its social media monitoring tool, SM2. When he asked to come visit us, I had an inkling our world was about to change yet again.

My advice to entrepreneurs is to keep improving your companies’ stories through different possibilities. Don’t get too stuck in just what you are trying to do with your current resources. Understand what’s happening in the market around you and find ways to improve your story within that context.

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PART II: Continuous, Honest Self-Evaluation of the Business

Posted in business, entrepreneur, management, tagged Intrepid, John Song, Lft9, social media on September 7, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

PART II: Continuous, Honest Self-Evaluation of the Business

Everyone loved the idea conceptually, but securing client contracts was a whole another matter.

We started selling our social media solution in late October, 2009. This had given us time to set up and train our researchers in Vietnam. When presented with our sample Lift9 reports on social media, people in the industry seemed genuinely impressed. We secured a few quick contracts, making us extremely optimistic about our future.

The market was young and immature, and a lot of bad social media reports were being delivered by agencies, setting the bar low.

Our research center was getting better with each report. These researchers in Vietnam were smart and were able to apply new learning to each and every new report.

Then, we hit a slight wall. We had a stretch where the sales cycle seemed to take longer. We discovered the following problems:

We secured the “low-lying” fruit opportunities within our personal networks, which explains the initial success
We had trouble competing against agencies that were burying their social media monitoring cost into their retainers, thus making cost-savings a difficult benefit to sell
A lot of organizations didn’t appropriately budget for social media intelligence, so internal groups had a hard time securing money for such support
The insights in our reports were interesting to start, but we even had a difficult time articulating the value of such reports on an on-going month-to-month basis

The last point (#4), in particular, bothered us. My background was in Business Intelligence before Web Analytics. I knew that data could give invaluable insights if one KNEW which business questions to ask. We had been too focused on our cost-effective and speed-to-report competitive advantages. We needed more compelling insights than just the monthly change in the volume of a brand’s mentions on social media.

If we had better applications for social data, the potential truly would be tremendous. Lift9 was already getting a lot of attention just because we were in the hot space of social media. We now were looking for something more disruptive to the market than the general social media monitoring efforts. What would it be?

It was around this time in December that I was introduced to Misia Tramp, President of Intrepid US.

We had gotten to near break-even business relatively quickly because of our low-cost model. It would have been easy to just focus on getting to a good cash flow business, but we wanted to build something bigger than that. Such perspective forced us be extremely honest with ourselves and realistic about our situation. It kept us motivated to find that “disruption” factor, and would not let us be content with our initial progress.

My advice to entrepreneurs (or businessmen) is to be honest with your situation and realistic about what still needs to be done. Acknowledge the challenges ahead so they become less daunting and you and your team can prepare to overcome them. A lot of people at this stage tend to bury their heads in the sand.

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Intrepid Acquired by Alterian

Posted in business, entrepreneur, tagged Alterian, Intrepid, John Song, M&A, social media on September 1, 2010 | 4 Comments »

It was shortly after we signed on as a customer of Techrigy’s SM2 last year that we heard about Alterian’s acquisition of the social media tools company.

Now, our company, Intrepid, has just been acquired by Alterian as well. Obviously, I applaud Alterian’s vision. Together, we will be able to provide a very compelling solution around social media intelligence.

The growth in the adoption of social media has been astounding, yet we’re still just in the beginning stages. Social data is growing exponentially, and buried in it are gold mines of insights. I believe getting at them properly requires both a robust platform as well as good human effort.

Alterian offers a world-class integrated marketing platform. Intrepid offers services that provide insights around social data. Together, we extend each other’s reach and complement one another’s strengths. Alterian customers and partners now will have accessible support around how to use social data. Our analysts can do the digging of the data that uncovers the gold mine of actionable insights.

As part of our integrated launch plan, Alterian has prepared service packages that will immediately add value to those deploying Atlerian’s SM2. Once customers and partners understand what and how to ask compelling marketing and research questions around social data, the platform will become much more valuable. I’m confident that our social media expertise will be a welcomed augmentation to Alterian’s marketing platform for both customers and partners.

For Intrepid, we now have a solid marketing platform behind us. This allows us to be a legitimate player in coming up with over-arching social intelligence solutions that are more efficient and eloquent. Alterian’s global reach really offers a tremendous opportunity for all of us to push thought-leadership in social data solutions across different markets.

It’s still a brave new world in terms of social media intelligence. And I’m very excited to have joined forces with Alterian to make our impact.

Here is a link to our video about the acquisition:

http://www.yourbusinesschannel.com/vip/9a55f630-8afa-4703-8f4b-0ab2842a001a/bf4469d8-4da4-45bc-9ab0-43d153257422/540