staggering. The T heisnumbers areThe number of us roar deafening.

speaking, and the noise were making on social media, has taken on a scope that escapes accurate projections. The latest research shows that its just about doubling every few months. While that runaway growth is a positive development for companies that have leveraged these interactions, theres a new concern on the social media horizon. For as big and loud as it gets on social media, theres a chance your company wont hear it, or possibly wont make sense of it. The problem is that too many companies are trying to gather and

interpret consumer sentiment, intent and behavioral data as expressed on social media without an automated approach. Simply scouring the fan pages and feeds every morning will not adequately educate marketing, sales and operations teams. It wont help an executive make the kinds of fact-based decisions needed to compete in the hyper-connected world where channels are fluid and loyalty is constantly in motion. A real-time, automated and actionable approach to social media analysis is needed. Only with this new technology can true social intelligence be gleaned from the runaway growth engine that is social media.

Searching For IQ
A more detailed example is brought to life through the launch of Microsofts Bing search engine brand. When the brand was first launched, Microsoft intended to capture mindshare from a major Internet search competitor. With a goal of targeting specific interest groups, the company needed a clear understanding of each groups 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 conversations. Though it had developed a sophisticated way to analyze the online conversation and had plenty of resources at its disposal Bing was unable to quickly sort through and make sense of the information it had collected. We were drowning in data and struggling to reconcile conflicting information, says Lise Brende, Director of Marketing Analytics, Bing and MSN at Microsoft. 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 couldnt indentify customer affinity, customer problems or overall sentiment about the brand. After analyzing one month of online conversations, Crimson Hexagon was able to provide Microsoft Bing with answers regarding where online conversations take place, drivers and behaviors for key segments and details on who influences the online conversation. While Crimson Hexagon analyzed conversations on both blogs and forums, it found that the bulk of conversations were taking place in forums. It also identified 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 primarily as a 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 analysis helped the company identify ways that it can connect with its target audiences in more interpersonal ways.

The New IQ

Defining Social Intelligence

To fully appreciate the impact that social intelligence can have on brands in todays world, let us consider the numbers. According to Nielsen, 53% of active adult social networkers follow a brand. More than 70% of active online adult social networkers shop online, 12% more likely than the average adult Internet user. The growth for brands and the need to monitor customer behavior was brought into focus by comScore in an October 2011 report. It showed that that mobile social networkers also were likely to interact with brands on social networks with more than half (52.9%) reading posts from organizations, brands or events. One in three mobile social networkers received a coupon/ offer/deal, with one in four (27.7%) clicking on an ad while on a social networking site. This growth in social media usage calls for new monitoring and measurement approaches. The lack of actionable insight derived from first-generation approaches (basic social monitoring) makes the social media explosion less useful for sales and marketers. However, new and more advanced technology can help smart companies understand whats truly happening on social media and how it can inform their business at a strategic level. This new discipline is called social intelligence. According to industry analyst firm Forrester Research, social intelligence is the concept of turning social

53% of active adult social networkers follow a brand. More than 70% of active online adult social networkers shop online, 12% more likely than the average adult Internet user.

media data into actionable marketing and business strategy. On a more tactical level, social intelligence is providing a means, process and strategy for companies to derive and evaluate an actionable insight about their own brands and services as well as their competitors. Forresters March 2010 report, Defining Social Intelligence, which initially described the concept, 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, report author Zach Hofer-Shall wrote. Marketers trying to do this alone will spend countless hours digging through spam-filled search results. The importance of defining social intelligence is essential to having actionable customer data. Past methods of harvesting customer sentiment have amounted to little more than a rearview mirror view for companies to consider in next years decisions. Basic social monitoring, while useful, lacks sophisticated automation and analytics. Social intelligence is an The New IQ

automated approach that will provide insight into customer sentiment and behavior. This is then made available for future action, not retrospective reaction. For example, a major pharmaceutical company was planning the introduction of a new insulin delivery device for people with diabetes. The company wanted to analyze online conversations to help improve its product launch messaging and marketing. It could have achieved a level of this through Google Alerts, manual monitoring of message boards and even low-level computer search sweeps. Instead, using a true social intelligence solution, the company analyzed the nature of online conversations about diabetes and insulin, looking specifically at how patients discuss the complexities of treatment and control, the core messages that will resonate most with these consumers and the significance for new product launches. The pharmaceutical company was surprised by the findings. It turned out the area they had planned to focus its messaging on the effectiveness of its insulin delivery represented only 9% of the online conversation. In comparison, 23% sought personal support, 17% were concerned about success of their treatments, and 16% voiced frustration with the impact diabetes had on their lifestyle. If the company had not been able to reach this level of detail, it would not have been able to follow up with a strategy based on influencing the future. The company now knows that lifestyle messaging works better than themes based on product delivery and effectiveness. The New IQ

The lack of actionable insight derived from first-generation approaches (basic social monitoring) makes the social media explosion less useful for sales and marketers.

Why Social Intelligence?

One of the reasons businesses are attracted to social media is the somewhat captive nature of the customers. They have raised their hand as a fan or follower and marketers have a unique opportunity to observe them in the wild. But as stated earlier, the attraction has a danger. That individual customer who just Liked a new product may not accurately represent the true sentiment associated with that product. She may make the observing marketing department feel accomplished at that moment, but she is one customer, not the entire customer segment. Whats needed is the ability to look at the entire relevant online conversation and distill the true insights from all of its participants. Anything less will be inaccurate. Advanced technologies analyze the entire social Internet (blog posts, forum messages, Tweets, etc.) by identifying statistical patterns in the words used to express opinions on different topics. Based on this insight, these technologies will deliver a clear understanding of the real-time, dynamic nature of the online conversation the key themes, their relative size and how they change over

time with extremely high levels of accuracy. Time and accuracy are important elements for improving social IQ. Lets take accuracy first. The smallest discrepancy can leave key social insights hidden. Even fairly sophisticated computer sweeps can miss them. A recent survey from Yahoo and BBDO took insights from more than 1,000 consumers and marketing professionals. The study found that theres a consistent mismatch between what marketers think consumers want from brands and what consumers actually say they want. A vast majority (96%) of consumers want to know price, product attributes and proof points from a brand. Compare that to 86% of marketers who think that this information matters to consumers. While 58% of consumers say they want to know about the history and quirky details of a brand, only 41% of marketers think consumers care about this type of information. Almost half (45%) of consumers are looking for interesting stories about the brand, but just 41% of marketers think consumers care about interesting stories.

Social media has infiltrated the purchasing funnel, helping consumers make informed decisions, from what to have for lunch to where to go on vacation. So, as a brand marketer, you want to know what online channels you should be targeting [with what message] in order to reach the perfect audience for your product.
- Laurie Drell, Associate Editor, Mashable

What happens when you break those numbers down further? How does a brand know if they change? Accuracy is critical; so is timely tracking and reporting. The basic nature of social media is constantly changing and growing. Therefore any improvement in a brands social IQ will be tied to the ability to track that growth and change. If customers want stories and details about brands, marketers should be able to quickly understand if adding those details to messaging will have the desired effect. The best social intelligence platforms are capable of this kind of rapid analysis and insight. Social media has infiltrated the purchasing funnel, helping consumers make informed decisions, from what to have for lunch to where to go on vacation, says Laurie Drell, Associate Editor of Mashable. So, as a brand marketer, you want to know what online channels you should be targeting [with what message] in order to reach the perfect audience for your product. The New IQ

Implementing A Strategy To Improve Your Social IQ

Increasing your social IQ needs to be a fast and easy-to-integrate process. Mastering all aspects of social media can be complicated but it does not have to be difficult to analyze and measure. Software as a service (SaaS) technology makes these capabilities more accessible and easy to automate. When considering a solution, expect that gathering and implementing social intelligence will happen in three phases: Phase One: Audit and assess. Size of company, size of current social media community and ambition are key factors. The first phase also will help define business goals. Does your company want to test the effectiveness of campaigns and messaging? Does it need help with sentiment analysis? Does it lack basic customer profile data? Do you want to analyze social media conversation in multiple countries and languages? All these factors drive the initial approach.

Phase Two: Identify sources and outputs. A vendors solution should help a client pull relevant mentions from blogs, videos, resources and forums and social networks. It should track specific topics, graph daily mentions, produce averages and conduct sentiment analysis, as well as other types of data mining. It also should create automatic alerts for certain levels of activity. Key outputs can be daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly reports with a variety of key measures and data visualizations.

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 what theyve learned into action. It could come in the form of avoiding certain language or using entirely new words for campaigns. It also could change media approaches, or the rules for customer segmentation. The insights should be used to inform both tactical and strategic business decisions.

Phase Two: Identify sources and outputs.

Phase One: Audit and assess.

Phase Three: Act on insights.

The New IQ

Intelligence At The Speed Of The Internet

Social interactions shift and create segments of consumer sentiment in near real-time. New data is generated at an astonishing pace. Twitter generates 250 million new posts per day. Facebook numbers in excess of 800 million users, at least half of which log on daily. Those same users interact with more than 900 million pieces of content, such as pages, groups and events. Every day, more than 250 million photos are uploaded. Traditional market research or simple online buzz marketing metrics dont deliver true social intelligence and they dont scale as the online conversation gets larger and less manageable. Those methods tend to be time consuming, lead to artificial results or dont provide the depth of information needed to make meaningful business decisions. The fastest, most reliable way to gain deep insights is by understanding what the online conversation in social media really means for your brand. Properly implemented, social intelligence solutions can rapidly deliver a view of how engaged consumers truly think and feel about your brand and related themes. With these dynamic insights which go far beyond whats possible via basic social media monitoring marketers will see better-quality results, make smarter marketing decisions, and understand precisely how to respond to prospects and customers. Provide better competitive intelligence. Be better aligned with and fully understand customer at all levels.

The Outcomes From Investing In Social Intelligence

How will companies act smarter as a result of achieving social intelligence? By executing a social intelligence program, companies will understand the following things about their customers, marketing and positioning, and can then take action to: Monitor and manage reputation, crisis management and consumer sentiment. Add more data to pre- and postcampaign tracking efforts. Understand the effect or lack thereof from brand positioning. More effectively track and make changes for product and service satisfaction. Make fact-based decisions regarding pricing. Generate more data around best practices for new product introductions. Produce real-time insight into market trends.

The New IQ

What complaints do people have about your company or competitors? Why are consumers choosing another brand over your own? What do your advertisements and marketing really mean to people? What are the most important factors to consumers when choosing a product in your category? These answers can be part of the daily analytics that sales, marketing and operations teams can incorporate into their ongoing operations. As Forresters Hofer-Shall notes, social media gives firms a constantly populating channel of real-time opinion data on products, campaigns, customers, competitors and employees. Through the breadth of social media data, nearly all parts of the enterprise can find value. As companies start to use listening platforms for critical business applications like customer and business intelligence they require business-ready tools to keep up.

Properly implemented, social intelligence solutions can rapidly deliver a view of how engaged consumers truly think and feel about your brand and related themes. With these dynamic insights marketers will see better-quality results, make smarter marketing decisions, and understand precisely how to respond to your prospects and customers.

The New IQ

About Crimson Hexagon

Crimson Hexagon, founded in 2007, offers a best-in-class social media intelligence solution. Crimson Hexagons 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 Companys 10 Most Innovative Web Companies in 2011.

Content Coverage
Historical content dating back to May 2008 Collecting ~250 million conversations per day; more than 100 billion conversations stored to date Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, Forums, Comments and News License to full Twitter Firehose since July 2010

Output Examples

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 nuances in conversation (e.g. passion, nostalgia, sarcasm) Language-agnostic (including character-based languages like Japanese) Margin of error +/- 3%, supported by validation studies