Executive Summary: Is Social Media Monitoring just an academic exercise, or can it lead to concrete benefits to the Brand? We conducted a Monitoring exercise to find out. The chosen domain was iPod and iPhone speakers and docks. To know more about what we found, read on. (Hint: It was the latter)

The method used for conducting this Social Media Monitoring exercise was essentially similar to the previous exercises carried out by us (Online Travel Sector in India and Hybrid Cars – Whats the Social Media Buzz). The study differed however, in that we completely focused on deriving points of action from it. We specifically chose this particular market  (iPhone and iPod docks) to conduct the exercise, because it was very close to another market/domain (iPods and iPhones themselves) which have a very high level of noise. We would have to ensure, therefore, that the search was very well defined, so that the number of irrelevant results retrieved would be kept in check. The entire exercise involved:

1. Identifying the appropriate search terms to enter into the Social Media Monitoring tool, so as to reduce the number of irrelevant results retrieved. (We restricted the searches to retrieve four days worth of data, June 12th to June 15th)
2. Running the searches, and allowing the Software to perform a first level classification of the results.
3. Our Social Media Executives cleaning up the results, to remove all the irrelevant ones.
4. Higher level, intelligent classification, categorization by our Executives.
5. Analyzing these results to extract points of action, and identifying influencers.

Our learning:

If I was a company about to launch an iPod Dock/Speaker system, what would be the features I would ensure that my product had? Apart from the obvious feature, viz. Good Audio output, our monitoring exercise revealed two features which were highly appreciated:

1. Compatibility with different generations of iPhones/iPods: What may seem to be an obvious enough feature, was not present in some models (eg. Bose SoundDock Portable). Conversely, whenever a mention was made of a dock which had this feature, it was highly praised (eg. GenevaSound Medium).
2. Ability to charge your device while music is being played: This feature, as well, wherever present was highly praised (eg. Harmon Kardon Go + Play). Yet, not all systems seem to have this feature.

On Social Media, Issues resurface, constant vigilance is required. The Bose SoundDock Portable, mentioned above, had a problem. Days after the 3G iPhone was released on 11th July 2008, people started talking about issues with the SoundDock Portable. While charging the iPhone 3G, the dock made a popping/clucking sound, every 5 minutes. This was reported on a particular thread on the Apple Support forums. We saw users helping each other, recounting  their interactions with Bose’s support  (which incidentally, did not reply in the thread). The problem was solvable, requiring the users to send the dock to Bose, who would modify it and send it back. As it happens, three new posts was posted on the the same thread, on 15th June 2009 (which is why the tool picked it up).  These people had the same issue, one year later, and still had to help each other solve it.

Action Required:

We identified results, which merited response as ‘Action Required’ results. They were further classified into ‘Action Required: First Level Response’ and ‘Action Required: Escalate to Customer Service’. Within these four days, we found three results on which we determined action would be required, in terms of escalating those three results to Customer Service. They were all related to the Bose SoundDock and problems associated with the same. The first Action Required result was about Bose SoundDock not being able to charge a users iPod Touch. The second and third results were from the apple support forums, with users talking about the popping/clucking sounds being made by the SoundDock Portable.

Influencer Identification:

From among the various sources where iPod docks were spoken about, Social Media Monitoring also helps us identify the influencers, viz. sources with the widest reach. While the largest number of reviews of various iPod docking systems were on the blog Smart Reviews Online, the popularity rating for this particular blog was 2 (out of a maximum possible rating of 10). On the other hand, the blog Geek.com, which did not always talk about iPod docks, had a popularity rating of 10 (highest rating possible). The only talk about iPod docks on geek.com in this time frame was about the passPORT home dock enables the Soundock to charge iPods while playing them. Another big influencer, with a popularity rating of 10 (source with highest reach or popularity) was, unsurprisingly Apple’s support forums, which had a single thread active, with only three posts during this time frame. It became clear, that frequency of posting (which may lead to a particular blog/channel being seen as influential) may not really be the most popular source.

The above study is an illustration of how monitoring Social Media can very clearly be used to derive well defined and specific action steps. It also helps in identifying which are the most influential sources of information about your product or brand.

The categorization done by our analysts, opens up opportunities for some interesting insights. First let us look at what is the ratio of relevant to irrelevant results from the one’s extracted by the tool:

How do users percieve your brand? What are the thoughts, words they associate with your company? We can analyze the themes being touched upon on Social Media, when people are talking about your brand. In this example, we did this themes analysis on the entire set of relevant results, viz. across brands.

In the tag cloud shown above, larger the size of the word/tag, more closely it is associated with the brand (in this case across brands). The above cloud, for example reveals that the word ‘System’ is very closely associated with speakers/docks, something which should be considered while thinking of a branding strategy for your next product. The word ‘dock’ is individually bigger than ’speaker’, however, the word ’speakers’ also figures prominently in the tag cloud.

Now that we know the themes being touched, we want to see which domains have the maximum volume of conversations about iPod Docks and Speakers (a reminder, we are doing this study for the four day period from 12th June to 15th June. It can easily be conducted for longer durations, and on an ongoing basis). The most popular domains, which spoke about iPod speakers, were as per the following image:

If we look at the above graph carefully, we see that there are two posts on Craigslist. Which means there is probably a resales market for iPod docks. We classified these posts concerning resale, and now we can see, which brand has the most resale related posts  for the given duration:

These resale related posts were not restricted to Craigslist alone. Done on an ongoing basis, this can help identify the size of the resale market for a particular brand, or even a particular product.

In previous Social Media Monitoring exercises, we have seen some basic data analysis, including Ratio of Tone within brand, Tone analysis related to product etc. As we can see in this post, much more complex and insightful analysis is possible.

Your questions/comments are invited. What other insights would you like to be able to draw from Social Media?

If you wish to download the White Paper for this study (PDF), you can visit the Resources Page on our website.

Executive Summary:

People ARE talking about your Brand on Social Media. This much you know. Should you be tracking the conversations and interactions? Can actionable insights be delivered to you by monitoring Social Media for your brand (and that of your competitors)? In order to answer these, and other questions, about tracking the activity of your brand on this new media, we conducted a monitoring exercise for Hybrid/Electric cars. What follows is a detailed report of the same.

Contents:

• The Idea
• The Methodology
• Our Findings
  • Relevant/Irrelevant Ratio
  • Competitor Comparison related insights
  • Ratio of Tone, within brand
  • Product Related, by Tone
  • Price Related, by Tone
  • Buying Stage/Lead Generation
• Conclusions drawn/Learning
• Notes/Appendices

The Idea:

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We have previously performed Social Media Monitoring exercises on the Indian Elections 2009 as well as on the Online Travel Sector in India. We now shifted our focus to the worldwide Hybrid Car market. Our aim was to see if it is possible to get insights about a market, by monitoring the Social Media buzz around the same.

The Methodology:

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1. We used the industry leading Social Media Monitoring tool SM2 by the people over at Techrigy for the first stage of the process, viz. Capturing the data from across Social Media.

2. Since the study was to be about Hybrid/Electric Cars (as against elections), we decided to query the vast space using some well known brand names in the Hybrid/Electric cars market.
3. We used the SM2 to retrieve results over a 4 day period (12^th June ‘09 to 15^th June 09). This period gave us a total of 2822 results. SM2 did a great job of first level Categorization of the results.
4. Then, our team of Social Media Analysts swung into action. Using SM2, we first created a set of categories, which we believed would deliver insights into the monitoring effort.
5. We then analyzed each result, individually, categorizing it as appropriate. Humans, understanding Humans, as we like to say. We then sliced and diced the results, to get some interesting insights.
6. What did we find? Over to the next section.

Our Findings:

Relevant/Irrelevant ratio: (Back To Top)

Even with a very specific query, a large number of results, which had no bearing on the subject were recovered. During the human cleanup phase, these were categorized as irrelevant (What was classified as irrelevant?). These irrelevant results, are not considered while drawing further insights.

Of the total volume of 2822 results, the number of irrelevant results is 1837, the remaining being relevant. In terms of percentage, 65% were irrelevant, whereas 35%, relevant.

Types on insights available:

Competitor Comparison Related: (Back To Top)

If two or more brands of Hybrid/Electric cars have been compared, we marked the result as ‘Competitor Comparison Related’, while also tagging the result according to the tone it uses for each of the companies being compared. 37 relevant results were marked as ‘Competitor Comparison Related’.

Example: Is the Prius too mighty to take down?: (this was marked as being Neutral for both Honda and Toyota, as well as Price Related).

Summary: Among the results tagged as ‘Competitor Comparison’, the recurring comparison was the one between the Toyota Prius (entering its 3rd generation) and the first generation Honda Insight. While the sales of the Insight are said to below expectations and the Prius sales have also fallen, among the two, the 3rd generation Prius emerges ahead of the Insight. Examples: (1, 2).

Ratio of tone, within brand: (Back To Top) 

A brand has some chatter about it. But within this chatter, how much is positive/negative/neutral? How does the percentage of positive/negative/neutral results for a brand stack up against the same percentage for another brand?

Tone For GM: 78% Neutral Mentions, 13% Positive Mentions, 8%Negative Mentions

Summary: The Negative results for GM followed the announcement that GM canceled most of its Hybrid lineup, including the Malibu Hybrid 2010. Largely, the positive results were those which spoke the upcoming Buick having a Hybrid Powertrain.

Tone For Toyota: 78% Neutral Mentions, 19% Positive Mentions, 2%Negative Mentions

Summary: Negative results for Toyota came in the form of Tesla motors CEO saying that the Prius is not a true hybrid. Other negative results were about the Prius not being able to cross the 50 MPG average of fuel efficiency. Positive results for Toyota came from talk around the Prius, which people seem to be happy about, as well as reviews of the Toyota Civic hybrid.

Tone For Ford: 72% Neutral Mentions, 26% Positive Mentions, <1%Negative Mentions

Summary: The one negative result about Ford concerns how Toyota is beating Ford and GM, by employing lean business practices, allowing them to come up with innovate faster and cheaper as in the     case of the Prius. The largest number of positive results for Ford were around Senator McCain planning to buy a Ford Fusion Hybrid.

Product Related, by tone: (Back To Top)

When someone is talking about the features of your product (in this case, a Hybrid car), what tone does she use?

Take Toyota, for example. If a brand manager at Toyota wanted to find out, if someone has spoken on Social Media about the brand using a negative tone, this can be done. We can see all results with a negative tone, about its product (viz. The car itself, as against price, availability etc.). The following result matches the criteria:

Why is the Toyota Prius such a bore:

This result is ideal for posting a response to, and could have been escalated to the relevant department.

Summary: By far, the largest number of results for all brands are Product related. The Product related category is where correct Categorization can yield great results, as seen in the above example. The topics being discussed are by and large:

• People discussing news and events related to the brands (1, 2)
• Features of existing Products (1, 2)
• Upcoming releases (1, 2)

Price Related, by tone: (Back To Top)

39 results have been Categorized as ‘Price related’. Example: Honda Insight a Flop?

(This has been categorized into Honda: Tone Negative, Price Related)

Summary: Most price related results were about the Toyota Prius and the Honda Insight. The Honda Insight is priced at $2000 less than the Prius, and in response, Toyota has slashed the price of its car by $1000. Despite the lower cost, the Honda Insight is likely to miss its sales target.

Buying Stage/Lead Generation: (Back To Top)

As we saw in the case of travel websites, listening to Social Media can be used as a method of lead generation as well.

An example of a result Categorized as ‘Buying: Early Stage’:

Summary: In the Buying Stage: Early category, people spoke about cars which they were considering as possible purchases. In the Buying Stage: Late category, most of the noise was around Senator McCain’s decision to buy a Ford Fusion.

Conclusions Drawn/Learning:

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About the Hybrid Cars Market, and related chatter on Social Media:

1. In terms of Social Media Volume the largest brands are Toyota, GM, Ford and Honda
2. The most discussed cars are Prius, Insight, Fusion and Civic
3. Smaller brands are also being spoken about on Social Media, with much lower volume.
4. The most discussed topics surrounding these brands and cars are the products themselves (features etc.), upcoming releases, price related issues, comparisons and news related to the brands/cars. There was also discussion related to the fact that despite the 24 hour production schedule of Toyota, there still exists a waiting period for the Prius.

About the Social Media Monitoring Exercise:

1. For any Brand/Company interested in knowing about the Social Media chatter surrounding them, this kind of a Social Media Monitoring exercise can deliver great value as well as actionable insights.

2. Such an exercise entails

• A Social Media monitoring tool, which can extract relevant data from across Social Media properties, based on the query that is set up.
• Setting up a Query, in such a manner that all possible relevant results are captured, while at the same time minimizing the incidence of irrelevant results being caught.
• Setting up of appropriate categories which will allow for better analysis of the data gathered. Both the above (query and category set up) are iterative in nature, with ongoing tweaking required.
• Beyond this, a layer of human intervention is absolutely necessary. The results retrieved by the tool need to be cleaned, by humans.
• To these cleaned results, appropriate rigorous categorization of the results must be done.These Categorized-by-Humans results can then be sliced and diced to derive actionable insights.

Your questions/comments are invited, of course.

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Notes and Appendices:

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NOTE: The above report is an analysis of the Social Media buzz around the subject of Hybrid Vehicles. None of the above statements represent any personal views of ours, on the subject.

NOTE: The numbers mentioned above, say for GM, are only of those results in which the brand name ‘GM’ (or ‘General Motors’ and its variations thereof) was mentioned. The same is the case with the other results as well.

What was classified as irrelevant? (Back To Top)

Two kinds of results were classified as irrelevant:

1. Results which were not related to Hybrid/Electric Cars: Many results talk about the different brands mentioned in the query and use the words ‘Hybrid’ and ‘Electric’ in a context other than the one relevant to the search. Example.

2. Results related to Hybrid/Electric Cars, which are irrelevant to people interested in monitoring the brand: Some results like link farms (blogs with only links pointing to other pages), many wiki talk pages (where the brand/product reference is not edited). Example.

[Edits: Tweaked the Title and the above notes]

[Edits 2: Changed graph style, formatting, added menu]

If you wish to download the White Paper for this study (PDF), you can visit the Resources Page on our website.