How Social Intelligence Is Helping Provide Clarity For The C-Suite Around The Critical

Factors Of Confidence, Customers,

Connections & Cash

The Four C’s Of Social Media For

The C-Suite

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Social media is becoming the executive equivalent to catching

lightning in a bottle. It has quickly gone from the ultimate focus

group and brand popularity contest to a very serious digital

marketing platform. As it does, it has bubbled up from a quirky,

unpredictable experiment to a measurable customer lab.

As this phenomenon moves to an even more intense level, it

needs the attention of savvy and digitally sophisticated C-level

executives. When it gets that attention, executives will need to

have confidence in their social media campaign plan, metrics

around customer engagement, and connections to automated

technology to consistently analyze and measure their efforts.

Traditional measurement methodology makes the social media

data explosion useless for the C-suite. However, new technology is

helping smart companies understand what’s happening on social

media. This new discipline is called social intelligence. According to

Forrester Research, it is “the concept of turning social media data into

actionable marketing and business strategy.” On a more tactical level,

social intelligence is providing a process and strategy for companies to

evaluate and generate actionable insight about their own brands and

services, as well as their competitors.

Forrester analyst Zach Hofer-Shall urged marketers to take

advantage of social media monitoring tools and listening

platforms: “These solutions help speed up the process of tracking

customer actions across the social web and

aim to boil it down to actionable insight,” he

said. Marketers trying to do this alone will spend

countless hours digging through spam-filled

search results.

That report from Forrester Research validated

the concept of social intelligence. Originally

called “Defining Social Intelligence,” Hofer-Shall is working on

an update. As he begins his research he wrote toward the end

of March 2012, “It’s been two years since our first public use of

‘social intelligence,’ yet I still see many companies monitoring

social media, some listening to customer conversations, and

few beginning to find intelligence in the data they collect. As a

result, I’m currently working on a report addressing a social data

maturity model.”

His original research called out the following specific advantages to

automating social intelligence measurement:

1. Optimizing marketing and product planning

2. Understanding purchase triggers

3. Assessing the competition

Finding Intelligence In The Social Explosion“Social Intelligence is the concept of turning social media data into actionable marketing and business strategy.”

- As defined by Forrester Research

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Social data maturity cannot wait for analyst pushes or

anything less than an automated intelligent approach. You’ve

undoubtedly seen the staggering social numbers. More than

300 million tweets per day. 800 million Facebook users. Map

it to consumer behavior and the numbers are even more

impressive. A December 2011 report from comScore says social

networking now accounts for 19% of all time spent online, a

major difference from a mere 6% back in March of 2007. This

continual spike in consumer social behavior, as well as the

amount of data generated by almost every purchase and

non-transactional element of daily activity, has created the

concept and reality of “big data.”

Exactly what is “big data?” IT analyst site

Wikibon says: “Big data is data that is too

large to process using traditional methods.

It originated with web search companies

(that) had the problem of querying very

large distributed aggregations of loosely-

structured data.”

That’s what social media has become. It is

simply too big and growing too quickly to process by traditional

methods. A report from global research house Connotate shows

that more than half of companies surveyed have used big data

to better understand either competitors or their own brand (60%

and 52%, respectively). Companies also looked at big data

for marketing-related strategy, such as product and pricing

information (40%), or revenue-generating data services (39%). This

syncs up exactly with the way that social media and its data can

help today’s CMO. Social data is a challenge. Social intelligence is

the best way to meet that challenge.

Social networking now accounts for 19% of all time spent online, a major difference from a mere 6% back in March of 2007.

- comScore December 2011

Turning “Big Data” Into The Right Data

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Although the potential of social media and big data is becoming

clear to C-suite executives, there is still apprehension around

managing it. A recent IBM survey of 1,700 global CMOs found that

more than 50% of respondents think they are underprepared to

manage the data explosion (59%) and social media (57%).

This data shows a huge gap between the opportunity and the

ability to execute on social data and customer behavior. C-level

executives do not have to be daunted by social media. Almost

50 million messages can be measured in real-time, similar to the

analytics available from retail and Internet traffic behavior. This

real-time nature of gathering and disseminating social intelligence

bridges the gap. It is one of the leading-edge technologies that

can develop the confidence in this new data opportunity and use

it as a key element for executive decision-making.

CASE IN POINT: Large Automobile Manufacturer Taps Social Sentiment For Purchase Intent

A large automobile manufacturer illustrated the potential for social intelligence

surrounding customers. It used rudimentary tools to see how often people

mentioned their brand in social media conversations, and to detect the sentiment

of these conversations. But the data lacked true intelligence. Leveraging social

media analytics technology, the company was able to drill down into that

sentiment. Why did people feel positively about their brand? Why did they have

negative feelings?

The automobile manufacturer tried to convey this idea through its communication

and marketing, but it found more varied ways that customers were expressing it. If

somebody says, “I feel like a 15-year-old driving in my car,” or “Taking my wife out

on a date in this car makes me feel young again,” that’s the idea the company

wants to promote. Traditional measurement won’t produce these results. The

report also shows how the brand can capture something critical, like intention

to purchase. When you look at the range of insights here, you can see why an

understanding that people feel positively about your product isn’t enough. It’s

much deeper than that.

The C-Suite Connection

A recent IBM survey of 1,700 global CMOs found that more than 50% of respondents think they are underprepared to manage the data explosion (59%) and social media (57%).

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In order to manage, analyze and measure social media — and

recent case studies show that this can be done — today’s C-level

executive needs to focus on four areas:

The Four C’s

1. Confidence: Because social media

cannot be measured with traditional

methods or tools, new processes and

technologies must be embraced in order to

provide the C-suite with the confidence that

the marketing programs and product rollouts they are banking

on are resonating with customers. Without confidence,

experimentation and the chance for inefficiency are greater.

With a comprehensive understanding of consumer opinions,

brand sentiment and competitive set information, confidence

in social media measurement can be reliably developed.

2. Customers: Customer intelligence has

graduated to social intelligence. Smart

C-level executives need to move away from

the chaos of social media data and toward

gleaning customer intelligence in real time.

3. Connections: Measurement connects

to results. The right technology can connect

to better brand awareness, higher sales and

stronger customer relationships. The right

measurement tools can track specific topics,

graph daily mentions, produce averages, conduct sentiment

analysis and other types of data mining. It should also create

automatic alerts for unusual or increased activity. It should

connect a company’s total effort with consumer perception

and behavior.

4. Cash. Revenue. Capital: Call it

what you want, but at the C-level, decisions

are based on revenue.

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C-level executives, as we’ve seen in the IBM report, lack

confidence in managing big data and social media. Which begs

the issue, how do they become confident? Two key answers come

up time and time again:

1. Develop brand monitoring

2. Develop insightful decision making

For example, Microsoft recently measured usage and consumer

perception to refine the brand positioning for its Bing search

platform. Despite the expertise inherent in its product and

company, Bing was unable to quickly sort through and make

sense of the information it had collected. It couldn’t identify

customer affinity, customer problems or overall sentiment about

the brand. After analyzing one month of online conversations,

Microsoft Bing had insights regarding where online conversations

take place, drivers and behaviors for key segments, and who

influences the online conversation. Once conversations were

analyzed on both blogs and forums, Microsoft was able to identify

the top 20 forums for each of the two key audience segments.

The analysis yielded a surprising result. The target segments viewed

the online channel as a preferred way to share their thoughts

and experiences rather than to find answers to their questions.

For instance, feedback dominated the conversations of those

interested in creative projects, such as cooking, painting or

making videos. On the other hand, those with health concerns

seemed most interested in sharing personal stories. Overall, the

social intelligence gathering generated valuable customer insights

about the brand and helped executives make new decisions for

repositioning it.

The Confidence Quotient

Click to Download the full Microsoft Bing Customer Success Story

With a goal of targeting specific interest groups, Bing needed a clear understanding of each group’s needs and habits. While the company actively harnesses social-media channels in its marketing efforts, it needed a way to better manage the flow of online conversation.

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Two key elements defined the Bing experience and will also be

critical for C-level executives as they proceed in social media:

Brand monitoring and analysis: The way in

which C-level executives measure their product and service

performance has changed with social media. Brand lift studies are

good at past performance, but don’t predict very well. Whether

or not consumers “like” or follow your brand is also becoming more

suspect as a metric. When the CMO Council asked Facebook

users in Q4 2011 about their expectations after “liking” a brand

on Facebook, the top expectation (67%) was to be “eligible for

exclusive offers.” The smart C-level executive will look at new

methods of monitoring the mass or “big data” generated socially.

New technologies are able to rapidly monitor hundreds of millions

of news and social media posts. That’s a new method and a new

scale. Both are necessary to proceed with confidence.

Decision-making: C-level executives make million dollar

decisions every day and are accountable for them. Social

intelligence can help predict the success of these decisions by

measuring consumer attitude and potential brand affinity. But

you can’t do it through current analytics. The executive that has

$20 million riding on a major product launch needs an up-to-the

minute, fact-based pulse of the target consumer. It’s available. It’s

a confidence essential.

Social interactions shift and create sentiment in

real-time. Data is generated at an astonishing

rate in real-time. Twitter currently generates 300

million messages a day. Facebook numbers in

excess of 800 million users, at least half of which

log on each and every day and often multiple

times per day. Those same users interact with

over 900 million pieces of content: pages,

groups, events and more. Every day, over 250 million photos are

uploaded. Traditional measurement methods will not capture the

“big data” element of social media.

Drilling Down For Deeper ConfidenceThe executive that has $20 million riding on a major product launch needs an up-to-the minute, fact-based pulse of the target consumer. It’s available. It’s a confidence essential.

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Putting Customer Intelligence To Work Before social media, “customer intelligence” was the term used

for the limited amount of information generated by purchase

behavior and surveys. Now it’s part of “big data.” An intelligent

approach to big data is stepping up your ability to collect and

act on the right data. Enter “social intelligence.”

Social intelligence, the information that can lead to insight on the

C-suite, is a relatively new concept. But it is essential to learn. A

Pitney Bowes-sponsored survey from November 2011 showed only

15% of those responding said social media would encourage their

loyalty to a company. However, it concluded:

“These findings will give decision-makers pause for thought,” the

report stated. “Businesses can be forgiven for getting swept away

by the hype of surrounding social media and wanting to invest

in such activity as soon as possible. ... But results show that those

businesses tempted to lead with such techniques will quickly find

themselves out of step with customer thinking.”

Connections To Conversions

The ability to generate and measure social

intelligence connects to results. Traditional

analytics, including semantic search and

keyword monitoring, will not connect efficiently

to social data. It will not manage big data. New

social measurement technology will translate

the sarcasm or irrelevant semantics that can

pollute social media results. It can provide

a scalable, repeatable approach as social

media spins into a new orbit of growth.

Early success stories and use cases have

shown that gathering and implementing social

intelligence will happen in three phases:

Phase One: Audit and assess. Traditional “buzz” marketing

measurement tools will not achieve the depth of sentiment

needed to make intelligent branding decisions. A realistic

assessment of what a brand has for social data, and what

it doesn’t have, must precede any measurement initiative.

Analyzing statistical patterns used to express opinions delivers

insight beyond a simple “positive” or “negative.” Real time market

research delivers this immediately. The timing of current social

media measurement should also drive new measurement. The

speed of analytics and the depth of consumer insights are the

most relevant metrics in social intelligence measurement.

“Businesses can be forgiven for getting swept away by the hype of surrounding social media and wanting to invest in such activity as soon as possible. ... But results show that those businesses tempted to lead with such techniques will quickly find themselves out of step with customer thinking.”

- Pitney Bowes 2011 Survey

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Phase Two: Identify sources and outputs. After assessing the

current state of social media intelligence, brands will need to assess

technology platforms. Going beyond the ability to automate

social intelligence, the elements that need to be considered in this

phase are features, functionality and benefits. Features from the first

generation of “buzz” measurement tools should be improved upon

in favor of newer platforms with more robust analysis capabilities.

Examples:

• The volume of social media mentions is generally not as

impactful as the meaning of the conversation.

• Keyword counting should be replaced by statistical analysis.

• Language limitations should be considered when global

analysis is desired.

• Accuracy of the social media analysis should be high enough

to support strategic business decision-making.

A truly futuristic, intelligent platform dashboard should graph daily

mentions, produce averages, conduct sentiment analysis and

measure progress against campaign goals. It should also identify

what’s driving negative sentiment to keep track of issue resolution

or escalation.

Phase Three: Act on insights. All the analysis and intelligence

available is useless without a change in business practices.

Just as Bing reached out to more conversations, brands

need to put learnings into action. It should inform marketing

campaign strategy and messaging. It could change entire

media approaches. It could change an approach to customer

segmentation. But the ever-changing social media world should

generate enough insight about the most influential individuals

regarding your brand, category or topic to rapidly create a

smarter company that’s more aligned with its customer.

Click to Download the Webinar “How to Move from Social Monitoring to Social Intelligence”

Uncover key challenges marketers face in today’ s rapidly evolving social media marketplace, including:

• Business challenges that can stem from first-generation social media monitoring practices

• Weaknesses of only measuring in reactive ‘what-happened?’ mode

• Differences between basic brand monitoring and true Social Intelligence practices

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Converting Intelligence Into CashA recent study found that when consumers were exposed to

social media in addition to other online ad formats or marketing

channels, such as search, email and display, the average revenue

per order was more than double the order size compared to the

average of all digital channels.

How will a company act smarter as a result of social intelligence?

By executing a social intelligence program,

companies will understand the following things

about their customers, marketing and positioning.

• It will monitor and manage

reputation, crisis management and

consumer sentiment.

• It will add more data to pre- and post-

campaign tracking efforts.

• It will understand the effect or lack

thereof from brand positioning.

• It will more effectively track and

make changes for product and

service satisfaction.

• It will make fact-based and consumer-sentiment-based

decisions around pricing.

• It will generate more data around best practices for

new product introductions.

• It will quickly produce deep insight into market trends.

• It will provide better competitive intelligence.

When consumers were exposed to social media in addition to other online ad formats or marketing channels, such as search, email and display, the average revenue per order was more than double the order size compared to the average of all digital channels.

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For C-level executives, social media takes the conversation

with the customer and turns it into a near real-time focus group.

Marketers have always spent money to support that conversation,

but all too often it has been a monologue. In fact, that’s where TV

advertising started: by talking to — and not with — the customer.

Social intelligence informs important business questions and

reveals actionable answers about your brand, consumers,

messaging and competition. The ROI for such insight is so valuable

that it is actually hard to calculate. Bottom line: Social media can

inform multi-million dollar decisions.

The right social media measurement model

informs those million dollar decisions. It will

analyze social media conversations to answer

important business questions and reveal

actionable insights about your brand, your

consumers and your competition. The current

state-of-the-art in social media analysis tools

give brands the ability to learn from both the

context and the tone of those conversations.

Cashing In On Million Dollar DecisionsThe right social media measurement model will analyze social media conversations to answer important business questions and reveal actionable insights about your brand, your consumers and your competition.

Click to View an Overview Video from Crimson Hexagon

Achieving Social Intelligence: Best-in-Class Social Media Analysis with the

Crimson Hexagon ForSight™ Platform

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Confidence, customers, connections and cash. Without those four elements, C-level executives don’t

have a business. With them, they have the essentials for managing “big data” and the biggest drive

behind it: social media. And it’s not slowing down for any executive to catch up with it. As YouTube co-

founder Chad Hurley recently predicted: “Social media will be the main engine of discovery, giving us

the ability to find the signal within the noise. As people’s networks and interactions expand, massive data

sets will generate predictive models that will know what you want before you look for it.”

Those brands that are applying social intelligence models to gauge consumer opinions, purchase

sentiment and competitive analysis are able to confidently support their million dollar decisions around

marketing campaigns, product rollouts and pricing models.

Without the ability to monitor and act on social intelligence, companies are operating at a competitive

disadvantage. Trying to analyze real-time interactions and conversations with traditional analytics only provides part

of the story but fails to sort out what can be a chaotic and complex sea of data.

The reality is, deeper social intelligence can translate to better strategic decision making, predictable revenue streams

and stronger customer relationships, as well as better alignment. By tracking specific topics, brand mentions, and

conducting sentiment analysis and other types of deep data mining, leading edge brands will have more informed

C-suites, as well as better alignment across all stakeholders.

Conclusion: Clarity For The C-Suite“Social media will be the main engine of discovery, giving us the ability to find the signal within the noise. As people’s networks and interactions expand, massive data sets will generate predictive models that will know what you want before you look for it.”

- Chad Hurley, Co-founder, YouTube

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Company Overview

Crimson Hexagon, founded in 2007, offers a best-in-class

social media intelligence solution. Crimson Hexagon’s

proprietary algorithm, developed at Harvard University,

combines human judgment with computer scalability to

analyze unsolicited consumer opinions expressed through

social media. Crimson Hexagon joined Twitter, Google,

Foursquare, Microsoft, Zynga, Netflix, Tumblr, Stockwits

and Conaco Productions as being named one of Fast

Company’s “10 Most Innovative Web Companies.”

Content Coverage

• Historical content dating back to May 2008

• Collecting ~450 million conversations per day;

more than 140 billion conversations stored to date

• Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Blogs, Forums,

Comments and News

• License to full Twitter Firehose since July 2010

Analytical Capabilities

• Primary drivers of opinion and key topics of

conversation over time

• Share of voice, trends and net sentiment for

comparison and benchmarking

• Most influential and most prolific authors; Tweets by

state and country

• Exploration features: Word Cloud, Word Cluster,

Topic Wheel and Verbatim Post List

Key Differentiators

• Recognizes nuance in conversation (e.g. passion,

nostalgia, sarcasm)

• Language-agnostic (including character-based

languages like Japanese)

• Margin of error +/- 3%, supported by validation

studies

Output Examples

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