From its outset, the Internet has been a social medium. Bulletin board systems beget personal homepages. Personal homepages beget blogs. Blogs beget social networking sites.
Along the way, people have had a huge amount of conversation. Talking about everything they might face to face and leaving that conversation for the world to see. When these conversations are repeated over time, people leave these long, winding wakes of data, which is publicly available and gives us major insight into who they are.
We have smart clients. In recognition of the wealth of data people leave behind, they have recently been asking for us to mine it with questions like: What are people saying about my brand online? How much conversation is about my brand compared to my competitors? How can I best influence this space? Why should I care?
The way we’ve begun to answer some of these questions is through a process of “buzz monitoring” where we either call upon our best Googling skills or a more formal buzz monitoring service. We’ve found advantages to each:
Do It Yourself
DIY monitoring consists of an individual or team sitting at his/her browser and searching through those free services that point to content in the social web. This process could include going to any of the following:
Google, Google News, Google Blog Search, Google Reader, Google Insights, Google video, Blog pulse, Technorati, YouTube, Twitter search, Facebook Lexicon, MySpace, Flickr, Yahoo! Pipes, Yahoo! Answers, Delicious, Feedburner, Digg, Slideshare, Brand Tags, Forums, Niche social networks, other blogs, etc.
We use these and services like these to gain understanding on a qualitative level, which tends to answer questions like:
Is my brand being talked about? What are some of the topics related to my brand?
Is my category being talked about? What competitors have a buzz presence? What are some of the topics relating to the category?
The major advantage to DIY monitoring is that typically the only cost involved is agency time, but the problem is that the simple search tools listed above DO NOT SCALE.
Buzz Monitoring Services
Formal buzz monitoring services are a different beast. These engagements with third party research groups that capture online conversations in a comprehensive scale. As opposed to informal testing, they use software and leveraged relationships with social media sites to mine through the whole of the data.
In addition to those qualitative tidbits that you might gain from informal monitoring, these services help add numbers to the data. In addition to those questions above, buzz monitoring services answer questions like:
How much is my brand being talked about? What is the share of buzz between topics? What is the overall sentiment there? Where is most of the buzz about my brand? Who has the most influence over it? Is my marketing doing anything to change that?
Who in the category has the largest buzz presence? What is the overall sentiment within the category? What market issues have an impact on our target’s decisions? Which ideas best engage our target?
These engagements typically run anywhere from a snapshot report of $3,500 to more detailed, long-term engagements upwards of $60,000.
Here’s a list of providers worth looking at in this space: Nielsen Buzzmetrics, TNS Cymfony, Radian 6, Converseon, Visible Technologies, Collective Intellect, and Motive Quest.
The space is new and growing, and we’re always on the lookout for new way to discover and use the data people leave in their wake. What sorts of tools have you found that provide some insight?
5 Comments | Trackback | Categories: Research, The Buzz | Email This Post
April 27th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
Brian,
This topic seems pretty overwhelming. What are the top three resources you turn to most and trust to give you a quick snap shot of a brand’s online vibe?
April 29th, 2009 at 10:39 am
Hey Brian,
Thanks so much for including Radian6 among your recommendations! The monitoring space is becoming so crucial to companies looking to efficiently and effectively hear what’s being said about them, but also determine the best way to engage with their communities.
Appreciate the shoutout.
Cheers,
Amber Naslund
Director of Community, Radian6
May 4th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
i titled the MYT this week: Capturing Customers. My point is that if you can capture the conversations and partake in them yourself, then you can capture customers by engagement. Cool. I should have pointed people to the Clickhere blog had I known your post was so timely and relevant. How could we sync this up in the future?
May 29th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
James – I’ve found myself more and more turn to Twitter search, Google Insights, and Delicious.
We’ve recently been testing Scout Labs, who’s inexpensive product (starting at $99/month) is yielding some good results. I’ll let you know what comes out of that.
Amber – sure thing! Keep pushing this stuff further. Thanks for listening.
Erin – What day do you send out your MYT? The latest blog post is sent out in the buzz on tuesdays.
June 28th, 2009 at 11:49 pm
Brian, thx for an exhaustive list. I look forward to hearing your comments on Scout Labs. Additionally, are any of your existing clients using any of the other monitoring services with success?
@mikedmerrill