Polygraph leaves beta: big data analysis of brands on Facebook

Polygraph reports bring big data science to Facebook

Austin-based Polygraph Media today announced the official launch of its Polygraph™ Reports which AG first introduced you to in April, making their data mining tools and analytics suite available to the public so that intelligence can be gathered on your brand or even your competitor’s brand. Polygraph Reports are being called a “truth detector” for Facebook marketing and are key for brands and agencies.

What makes Polygraph so unique and attractive is that they are not using the Facebook API which is traditionally used to regurgitate publicly available information to unsuspecting buyers, rather they are using a data science approach to use real-time data from Facebook Pages and subscriber-enabled Profiles, and quantifies it in over 40 charts, graphs, and data visualizations which the company says gives marketers “actionable intelligence to inform marketing campaigns and strategies.”

Marketers struggle to justify Facebook investment

“Facebook has grown so quickly that companies are now significantly increasing their marketing spend on Facebook Pages and Advertising,” said Polygraph founder, Chris Treadaway, who is also the book author of Facebook Marketing: An Hour A Day. “But increasingly, we are hearing that marketers need to justify the increased attention and budget. Is it all worthwhile? If we spend more money or human resources on Facebook, what will we get out of it? The answers lie in the data — every social interaction that takes place on a Page is a discrete and important data point that can be mined for information. We created Polygraph to serve this need — an analytics solution that can look at your Pages and those in your competitive environment, and can clearly survey the Facebook battlefield for marketers, executives, and agencies.”

Polygraph brings the power of data science (mining, analysis and reporting) to anyone who wants to analyze business to consumer activity on Facebook. Polygraph Reports cover all major Facebook marketing scenarios, including community management, content marketing, top Content, and competitive benchmarking. Additionally, Polygraph can identify the Top 1,000 Fans of any Page on Facebook — essentially a “Klout” for Facebook Pages. The result is a concise report that not only shows marketers the “cause and effect” of Facebook marketing strategies and tactics, but also allows innovative agencies the opportunity to create custom campaigns based on the data.

“The most robust Facebook analytics I have ever seen.”

“We’ve all heard how if Facebook were a nation, it would be the third largest country on earth. So it’s common sense that brands have focused so much attention there.” says Brad B McCormick, principal at 10 Louder Strategies and a former senior digital leader at Ruder Finn, Porter Novelli, and Cohn & Wolfe global agencies.

“But just because a company can be on Facebook doesn’t mean they know how to be on Facebook and measure success,” McCormick continued. “Acquiring Facebook ‘likes’ is just the first step for brands. Ongoing engagement that builds brand equity is the holy grail of Facebook. But all too often today, brands and agencies are measuring success with empty platitudes and without data or relevant benchmarks. Polygraph Media offers by far the most robust Facebook analytics I have ever seen. It not only gives brands new insights into their own performance, it allows them to compare each of their KPIs against their competitors, in real time. It’s a game changer.”

Big data application built on Microsoft’s cloud services

A SaaS solution built entirely on Microsoft’s cloud services, the Windows Azure cloud platform, Polygraph is one of the first major big data applications built on Azure. “We have been working with Polygraph on the development of its social data mining tools and are very pleased with how quickly Polygraph Media embraced and adapted to the Windows Azure platform,” says Rodney Sloan, Principle Platform Strategy Advisor, Microsoft. “Equally exciting for Microsoft and its customers is to have an innovative company like Polygraph Media become a Windows Azure Platform partner. Polygraph is putting the value of Azure into action.”

While Polygraph will offer data mining tools and analysis for other social platforms (Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube) later in 2012, the company deliberately began with Facebook, “where critical information has, to date, been inaccessible, locked away in individual comments, sentiments,” says Polygraph Media.