A flawed social media trend
As social media monitoring tools like Radian6 and Crimson Hexagon have become more popular with companies and agencies alike, it seems everyone has started to assume they can use social media to predict the future be it the future of box office sales or
political races.
While in some cases there may in fact be a connection or correlation between social media conversations and offline results, we all have to be careful not to assume such a connection always exists and is always reliable.
“To date, I have never seen a repeatable correlation between social media mentions/ sentiment and the actual vote,” wrote Tom Webster at BrandSavant.com with his column’s overall point being that what people say on social media and what they actually do offline is often very different.
I can tweet all day long about loving Apple or wanting to purchase a new iPad, but if I never follow through and make that purchase, then what did my social media behavior predict? In the end, nothing of great value to the company.
HP spends a great deal of time and resources monitoring social media, and I like their approach to the results. To them, social media is another means through which they can understand their consumers and learn a bit more about what makes them tick. Social media is simply another form of market research and intelligence, but it’s no more magical than customer surveys and other factors.
Legitimate insight available
Even though social media cannot always predict what will happen offline, there are still a great deal of insights you can find simply by listening to how consumers talk about you online:
- Untapped market segments. Two years ago when I was helping to build a social media monitoring process for a CPG client, we made a few discoveries that no one really expected. While discussing results of a brand audit, I casually mentioned that college-aged students seemed to be the most vocal consumers talking about the brand on Twitter. This brand was never really marketed to that demographic and had not considered that they may be a target. Alternative and unknown product uses. While working with a food company, it was discovered that even though their product was not marketed or intended as a breakfast food, it was being consumed much of the time for breakfast or with other breakfast foods. The brand had not known about this use and wondered if they should start marketing their product as a breakfast food as well.
- Marketing and advertisement crowdsourcing. One common use for social media across industries is crowdsourcing. Listening to consumers talk about the brand in everyday contexts and conversations often sparks brand managers to think about their own brand in a different way and can help breathe new life into tired marketing campaigns. You may discover new ways or phrases used to talk about your brand if you listen for a little
while.
- Rough feedback and reviews. Similarly, social media can often be used as a means to get feedback or reviews on new products, offerings or even marketing concepts. This type of feedback will not necessarily be representative of all of your consumers, but it’s a quick and easy way to get a reading on how consumers are reacting in a natural environment. Many brands have used the Facebook polls functionality to ask questions
about potential marketing slogans or new product attributes (such as flavors or colors).
- Hidden opportunities and threats. Social media conversations can show brands and marketers organic feelings and opinions from their consumers. And while many times this leads to new opportunities (such as new product uses or target markets), sometimes it can lead to threats you never suspected. You may not realize that a brand recall or issue from years ago is still widely discussed in social media. Or may be there is a growing trend that will negatively impact your brand’s image. Digging into social media can reveal this information and help you plan to use it to your advantage.
How else do you use social media to do research or discover new trends? In what ways have you found social media doesn’t always equate to reality?
