The Social Media Intelligence » monitoring

Social Media Marketing – German companies are too scared

Sten Franke — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 21:27:02 +0000

The development around Social Media and its adoption in Marketing, gains more importance in the marketing mix. At first glance, it looks like as if the U.S marketers are more courageous in their approach to social media marketing. But at second glance, there are actually relevant successful examples in Germany for the adoption of social media marketing. Langnese and Tchibo are two great examples, on how the social media actually influences the German marketing department. Unfortunately, the big giants Advertisers in Germany are yet to let loose their reservations about social media marketing.
What might be the cause of these reservations from the German Advertisers? A quick and close attention to consumer generated communication platforms provides answer to this question. The digitals communication platforms enable each user to submit contents, as well as to publish them and to connect with other users. Well, what does this imply for the marketers? Quite easy: the brands message seeded in these channels are no longer under direct control of the marketers. Well plain and simple, through this media, the users have taken control over brands communications. Ultimately, the multiplier of brand messages is about being pro consumers and less about classical marketing campaign. We think, this shift of power on behalf of consumers, is what scared most of the German companies, to actually be actively engaged in Social Media.
Although for the most part, this fear is without reasons. Marketers should definitely get in direct dialogs with their target group and their customers. In Social Media, it’s all about direct communications with consumers, since consumers are often also users of social networks, visitors of products valuation portal, as well as forums users and at the same time functioning as brands representatives. Hence, marketers must enter into transparent dialogs in respective platforms with these multipliers. Being pro consumers should also mean for the marketers to give authentic information for their consumers and by using social media strategies, provide a real added value to their target group.
But where and how should a marketer start, in the realm of social media? What should be the first thing to do in regards of social media initiatives? Well, if I – as a company- actually want to get into dialogs with my costumers, then I should better be listening first. Thereby, the first step would be applying comprehensive communication strategies through Social Media Monitoring. But, an effective Monitoring solution is only a small part of the comprehensive social media strategy. Lee Oden provides an overview of fundamentals for communications strategy in social media:

• Audience – Listen and understand your audience and how they communicate/interact on the social web. What types of social networks, media sharing and assets do they engage? What are their goals for doing so?
• Objectives – It’s important to consider both the goals of the company as well as the audience you’re trying to reach. Marketing on the social web is about giving to get. Knowing what your community wants is key in reaching your own organization’s goals because you’re going to give it to them.
• Strategic Plan – What approach will you take to meet the needs and interests of your audience in order to meet your own? Will you engage influencers, will you energize brand advocates or will you create demand by offering non-branded resources?
• Tactics – What social media marketing tactics and corresponding technologies will you use to implement the plan? Blogging, microblogging, social networks, video, forums, blogger relations and outreach. There are many to consider.
• Tools – What specific tools will you use to efficiently monitor, communicate, create and promote social content? WordPress, Facebook or MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, etc. Again, there are many to consider.
• Metrics – How will you measure success according to the objectives you’ve identified? What tools will you employ and at what point will you take benchmark measurements as well as interval measurements? Who will you report results to in the organization and will there be success metrics that you can share with the community you’re engaging?

From my point of view, these propositions from Lee are actually quite right. The existing fear of losing control should not lead German marketers to completely ignore this media. Such behavior would inevitably result in complete loss of control. After all, social media is not a temporary phenomenon, but rather it is a long lasting change in communications behavior. Only, a pro active and strategic approach in the realm of social media would enable control in the area of brands communications. Thereby, Leo’s above mentioned strategy propositions do provide some insights. After all, a marketer should not ask the question, if he/she should be engaged in social media, but rather, how long he/she could afford avoiding this social media engagement.

The Relevance of Social Media for Corporate Communication

Sten Franke — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:48:42 +0000

In June, Manager Magazin presented ethority’s reputation index. Next to “image” data, it also displays the overall buzz the CEOs’ names generated. The analysis of over 60,000 contributions in forums and blogs yielded the following ranking:

Furthermore, we conducted a topic oriented analysis of those blog postings. The following graph shows what topics bloggers addressed in combination with the different CEOs:

The findings of this study clearly show that the “commanders” of German corporations are discussed intensely in consumer generated media. Therefore, the question for corporate communication should no longer be if those channels should be integrated but rather how soon the monitoring of social media can be started. Whether you choose to listen to it or not – the buzz concerning companies and their leaders will not stop. And to bury your head in the sand is certainly not the right strategy to achieve new goals. Weblogs, forums, twitter and social networks with their online conversations have long surpassed the state of being marginal phenomena. Today and in the future, public is created and happening online. Therefore, being aware of such channels and monitoring them can only be the first step in this context. Corporate communication departments and PR agencies have to go even further: only the ones that “listen” to discussions in social media and actively communicate online will be able to participate in building the image of their company in this rapidly growing part of society.

ethority provides forthwith Twitter and Network Monitoring

Marcus Lauks — Tue, 13 May 2008 13:15:53 +0000

With immediate effect, the ethority GmbH & Co. KG includes the web service Twitter und large networks such as Xing in their monitoring and advisory portfolio. According to NZZ (Neue Züricher Zeitung), the number of twitter users has doubled within the past six months. But also the many-to-many communication within the online communities of major networks becomes increasingly important for the social media analysis.
With this extension, ethority is the state-of-the-art provider in the field of social media analysis. Micro-blogging and communication in online communities within the major networks produce a flow of information which should not be underestimated and which has to be evaluated accordingly.
Nils Maier, Director Business Development and Operations at ethority, states: “Monitoring the micro-blogging service Twitter enables us to be directly located at the pulse of sentiments and opinions of the consumer generated media. Not only the ordinary internet user has discovered Twitter but also journalists and news agencies increasingly use this service in order to spread information within the web. This development indicates that ‘twittering’, as a type of communication channel, will establish itself more and more and, thus, becomes highly interesting from the perspective of social media analysis. A specific field of application for the twitter survey is the utilisation of received information as a leading indicator for the issue management. In the United States, it is customary that companies keep an eye on twitter. On this point, see also Michael Arringtons experiences with Comcast. We have modified ethority’s range of services in order to provide our clients with an overall insight into web 2.0 communication. Hereby, overall means not only the conventional websites, weblogs and online communities but also network communities and twitter streams. “

ethority Study – Travel Trends 2008 Part 3

Sten Franke — Tue, 13 May 2008 13:05:06 +0000

Within the channels of user generated media, family holidays are the most frequently mentioned issue. Users in weblogs like to discuss the topic of winter holidays, whereas a vacation in the snow does not enjoy great popularity in online communities. Here, users prefer to talk about cruises, while this topic cannot be found under the bloggers’ top 5 ways of travelling. Moreover, and in contrast to active online community members, bloggers rather choose to have conversations about package tours. Concerning the ways to travel, bloggers and online community members seem to agree on adventure and city travels. In both channels of communication, they are the most frequently discussed.

Top Ways to Travel – Online Communities:

Cruises
Last Minute
Adventure Vacations
City Trips
Family Holidays

Top Ways to Travel – Weblogs:

Package Tours
Adventure Vacations
City Trips
Winter Holidays
Family Holidays
Users in weblogs and online communities also agree on the way of booking travels. At this, statements for booking offline have the lion’s share of the topics. About 2/3 of the statements on both channels are allotted to the traditional booking method. This confirms the results of the recent AGOF study. Consumers like to obtain detailed advice in the user generated channels but prefer to book offline in a travel agency.

Booking Methods – Online Communities:

Internet
Travel Agency

Booking Methods – Weblogs:

Internet
Travel Agency

The here described booking behaviour indicates the path that marketers have to take in the future. The increasing consumer focus on information concerning products or travels in online domains sets new benchmarks for a successful marketing mix. No matter if it is a large-scale print campaign or an elaborate TV spot – traditional forms of advertisement impress consumers to a lesser and lesser extend. Therefore, it is essential to meet the consumer where he increasingly searches for information. More and more often, customers use portals such as Holidaycheck, TripAdvisor or Opodien in order to obtain information about their potential travel destinations and holiday accommodations before booking. In any case, marketers of the tourism industry should be prepared for this tendency, especially in consideration of the current number of internet users. By now, according to the latest survey of Bitkom, already 63% of the Germans roam the internet.

ethority Study – Travel Trends 2008 Part 2

Sten Franke — Tue, 13 May 2008 12:55:46 +0000

Regarding travels outside Europe, the US and Asia are clearly the main topics in weblogs and online communities. This resulted from the quantitative analysis of consumer comments in the current study. For the intense buzz in the United States, surely the decisive factor is the favourable dollar exchange rate because of which the US has become something like a shopper’s paradise.
In online communities, the African continent ranks third as a potential travel destination, whereas it ranks fifth concerning the overall buzz in weblogs. Bloggers show a greater interest in American Oceania and South America.

This quantitative netnographic study was based on 6500 user opinions in weblogs and online communities concerning the topic of Social Networks. The categorized and evaluated comments originate from ca. 1000 blogs and 400 online communities which have been located with the assistance of the gridmaster technology. Within the scope of this process, the respective channels of communication, topics and the tonality of the comments have been recorded.
The ethority study illustrates the importance of the channels of communication within web 2.0 for the tourism industry. Online communities and weblogs are increasingly used by consumers as relevant sources of information. Furthermore, recommendations, which are exchanged in these channels of communication, exert direct influence on booking decisions. The studies conducted by the American market research institute eMarketer, in collaboration with Deloitte (2007), are able to document this influence by means of their data.