social media monitoring basics: who is your audience? & free tools
DESCRIPTION
Class lectures for Comm 399: Fundamentals of Social Media, Fall 2012, Department of Communication, Shepherd University.TRANSCRIPT
Social media monitoring: Audiences
Professor Matthew Kushin, PhDShepherd University | Department of Mass Communication | 2012
PR & Social Media
PR seeks to Understand existing perceptions. Build positive, mutual relationships with publics.
So, many PR professionals monitor what people say about their clients on social media!
Strategic Campaign Stages
Research
Planning
Execution
Evaluation
First things First
Before we do ANYTHING on social media we must first know who we’re targeting!
Success
Is about listening to & understanding your audience
Image: Laverue
Questions to investigate
Who is talking about us?
What are they saying about us?
What are attitudes about us?
How are these people influencing the conversation?
(How) are we influencing the conversation?
Is what we’re doing effective?
Image: Laverue
Today’s Focus
2 audiences really…
Who is talking about us?
Who do we wish to target (e.g., who do we want to be talking about us)? Publics: Young adults, high school athletes, mothers
of young children in the county, etc.
Today’s Focus
Imagine you work for a PR company promoting a brand:
What type of questions might we want to know about an audience?
Starting Questions: Who is your audience?
Where do they live?
Where do they work?
What do they do for fun?
What is their lifestyle?
Where do they hangout when not at work?
Where do they hangout when online?
What types of conversation are they having?
Are they talking with your partners? With your competition?
How much money do they make?
What is their lingo? Tone? Casual? Professional?
Source: 8 Things You Must Know About Your Audience to Inspire & Connect In Social Media by Pam More
Facebook, YouTube, G+, Twitter, etc
Where?
Example Scenario: Popular restaurant chain teams up with county
schools Campaign targeting middle school and high school
teens to exercise three days a week. Social media strategy targets: Twitter, Facebook,
MySpace
Problem?
How do we monitor?
2 popular ways: Monitoring the “real time web” Exploring “trends” on the social web
Today’s Focus
1: Real Time Web
Tap into the discussion!
Real-Time Web Search Is: Process of searching for information as it is
created
Use: What are people saying RIGHT NOW about a topic Opinions / attitudes/ feelings / experiences
Most Popular “ream time” search
Audience Profile: Twitter
Who are they?!
Real-Time Web
Beyond Twitter: SocialMention – indexes blogs, images, microblogs,
news, events, etc.
Real-Time Web
Beyond Twitter: Topsy.com – indexes tweets, Google+, photos, links,
video
Digging Deeper: Other Profile Search Tools
Twitter profiles are limited… G+ is much more robust Google Plus search: http://gplussearch.com/
Audience Analysis Competition
You’ve just been hired to help launch a new PR campaign
But you don’t know about who uses their products!!
Goal
Answer the question: Who is the type of person who talks about this
brand and its product?
Your team’s goal is to create the most comprehensive profile as possible!
Mini Example! Audience Profile
Young people; socially active; diverse interests & locations
Influencers
Activity
Part A: Gather Data and post to Team Google Doc
Part B: Use this data to answer the questions on the Handout.
Class Discussion
Turn in handout @ end of class
Discussion
Who uses Burt’s Bees?
How might this information be helpful to us as a foundation?
Where can we go from here? What else can we start to learn?