Social media monitoring: What are they saying?

Professor Matthew Kushin, PhDMarch 2012

People are talking about your brand when they’re happy with you,

& especially when they’re not!

If you were in PR: What would you want to know about what people are saying about your client? Brand, non-profit, candidate, etc.

Commonly monitored

Questions about your company & industry

Brands / services discussed and not discussed

Mention of your competitors

Requests for support/help from customers

General Comments / feedback

Complaints / Compliments

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

Today’s Focus

Preview

Today: Real Time Web – text and multimedia Blogs

Soon: Trends!

1: Real Time Web

Example Scenario

Our organization recently received negative press. We want to get a sense of what people are saying.

Example Scenario

We’re doing PR for Taco Bell

Its been a few weeks since the beef fiasco.

We want to know if people are still concerned over “taco bell beef” situation. So we search daily “taco bell beef”

Reaction

Reaction

Beyond Twitter: SocialMention – indexes blogs, images, microblogs,

news, events, etc.

Censored

Real-time Multimedia sharing

Photo search

Topsy Photo: http://topsy.com/photos Defined: Social photos (e.g., instagram) search

Multimedia Sharing

Source: Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/yusheng/2034957680/

Blog

Taco Bell Fandom!

Post Comment

“YOUR BRAND IS THE PERCEPTION OTHERS HAVE OF YOU. IT IS NOT THE PERCEPTION YOU HAVE OF YOURSELF.”

What are people saying about our client?Social Media Monitoring Exercise

Mini Example! Products

Sentiment Positive:

Negative: Couldn’t Find Any!!

Audience Profile Young people; socially active; diverse interests &

locations

“Influencers” Competition

Burt’s Bees wants to know WHAT people are saying about their brand and its products.

Goal

Answer the question: What 4 Burt’s Bees products are people the most

passionate about (2 positively and 2 negatively)?

Your goal is to scan the social sphere, collect data on your Google Doc, and use it to answer the above question.

If…. Strategic communication is about

understanding audiences. Then, affecting behavior strategically and measuring it.

Then… how could we use what we’ve learned about our

audience: As research in beginning stages of a PR campaign? To begin using social media to engage our

customers? Strengths / Weaknesses?

?

In sum

People are talking about your brand when they’re happy with you,

& perhaps especially when they’re not!

Social media

helps us

monitor that convo!