Traditional Media to Online Media to Social Media: Monitoring and Analysis
Media Monitoring, Media Musings, New Media, PR, Social Media 3 Comments »Many corporates have accessed media monitoring tools for years taking press clippings from hard copy publications which has more recently extended to online mainstream media monitoring, to blogs and podcasts and now further to all social media channels. A description of the latest view of the impact these channels can have on companies from a company providing a solution is (from Radian6):
“The impact of social media on public relations and advertising is fundamentally changing the profession. Brand ownership is no longer solely the domain of the institution. A brand is now defined as the sum of all conversations taking place amongst users and it’s happening regardless of whether you are part of these conversations or not.”
Read an intro to Social Media Analysis here
Nathan Gilliatt of The Net Savvy Executive described (in order of increasing technology below) the types of solutions adopted by corporates for media monitoring.
- Analyst reports and briefings delivered by any method
- Single-user online dashboard
- Automated alerts and reports delivered by email
- Web-based dashboard used by a workgroup
- Web-based social media analysis platform with workgroup and collaboration features
- Installed social media analysis software on enterprise server
- Social media analysis system with links to CRM, intelligence or collaboration systems
- Custom social media monitoring and analysis platform linked to other enterprise systems
Recently I’ve seen a new range of products and services emerging catered to “social media analysis.” These companies monitor and index social media websites—including blogs, message boards, product review sites and then offer analysis on what the content they find. They can develop reports on the impact on your company’s brand and a recommendation for any communication required. This monitoring goes beyond blogs, podcasts and viral sites to all social media.
Net Savvy Executive’s view on baseline requirements for measuring social media.
1. Measure more than ‘traditional’ media, measure nearly all online vehicles that people are using.
2. Provide real time alerts about a particular product, company, person, competitor or industry.
3. Provide snapshot time reports that can benchmark changes across time.
4. These companies should also have hooks into other data sources, allow information to be pushed in and pushed out to create new times of dynamic reports.
5. Be flexible, cost effective.
6. Make it easy for companies to listen to the voice of the people.
Jeremiah Owyang of the web strategist says, “measuring is more than listening.”
Tools such as Technorati, Talkdigger, Google blog search, opinmind and Sphere will “listen” for you, the next step is measuring, analysing and the next taking action. Read a full list of companies measuring social media on Jeremiah’s blog (link above). They include:
- Umbria
- Buzzlogic
- Cymfony Acquired by Taylor Nelson Sofres, in Feb 07
- Biz360
- Radian 6
- Nielsen BuzzMetrics
- KD Paine & Partners (Analysing Consumer Generated Media since 1995, Katie Paine is a thought and action leader in PR measurement. I recommend checking out KDPaine’s PR Measurement Blog)
In Summary: I am not yet sold on the fact there is a need to pay for this type of analysis. Media (Traditional, New, Social) Monitoring tools are good when businesses need to track a mass of complex content, topics and stay abreast of opinions (e.g. an electronic clippings service that is timely and has indexing functionality), but I do not see value in outsourcing analysis of this content to a 3rd party.
I believe this “social media analysis” (or any media analysis) should be done internally and then findings from this spread across the business, with a communications plan developed where necessary. This plan that will constantly evolve, this is the nature of the online medium as new technology and tools emerge, but actions need to be allocated in real-time as issues emerge and need to be managed or responded to. A time lag is there if this content is not in-house which is not at all ideal in these channels.
Outsourcing this analysis to a 3rd party would be sure to destroy credibility with any online communities. If companies want to develop and retain a reputation in social media channels they need to understand them and actively participate in them, not get someone else to do it.
MORE LINKS
Here is a list from PodTech, Measuring Social Media: No cost tracking tools that work
http://www.podtech.net/home/4356/measuring-social-media-no-cost-tracking-tools-that-work
Links to Social Media News to prove that Social Media isn’t just teenagers on Bebo
Social Media for Social good - Charities
http://blogs.mediapost.com/spin/?p=1303
Officials use social media to send health notices - Healthcare
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080520/Virtual_health_080520/20080520?hub=Health
Citigroup scores high in social media marketing - Finance
http://www.banknet360.com/blogs/Item.do?pkId=10594&serviceId=1&biId=
Media Pros: Don’t fear the digital realm - Media
http://www.internetnews.com/webcontent/article.php/3748086/Media+Pros+Dont+Fear+the+Digital+Realm.htm
Some other links on Social Media
5 rules of Social Media Optimisation (with loads added from other contributors)
http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com/weblog/2006/08/5_rules_of_soci.html
5 ways to contribute to social media
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/5_ways_to_contribute_to_social.php
Some other links on Social Media Measurement
Measuring Social Media efforts - Chris Brogan Blog
http://www.chrisbrogan.com/measuring-social-media-efforts/
Choosing Social Media metrics
http://kdpaine.blogs.com/themeasurementstandard/2007/06/how_to_measure_.html
The Three O’s of Social Media Measurement
http://www.mguerilla.com/media_guerrilla/2007/12/the-three-os-of.html
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