One of your company’s first goals in using social media is achieving brand recognition and engagement on sites like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Pinterest. The next step is analyzing what is being said by your core audiences. The problem is: it’s easier said than done.
The context of consumers’ comments about brands can often be interpreted in many different ways. Reporting platforms such as Radian6, PeopleBrowsr Playground, or Twendz, will help you discover the sentiment behind the comments. This will be particularly useful for product development, retail design and customer service functions.
A Forbes article by Eric Savtiz highlights why companies should analyze social sentiment. The article is calling this phase of social media tool usage, “Converged Media.” The article cited an Altimeter Group report that found 84 percent of businesses stated the primary business impact of social media was not revenue generation but, “insight that helped us meet customer experience goals.” This is information that organizations like Radian6 provide on a daily basis.
Radian6 uses social media measurement tools to analyze the demographics of your followers but also the sentiment of their posts around your brand, deciphering keywords, hash tags and phrases to gauge the positive and negative posts.
The idea of context sounds easy but it is not. Changes in slang used by consumers must be deciphered. Words like cool, bad, tight, and many others used by consumers have specific meaning. Consistently collecting and analyzing those words is the objective for brands if they are to maximize social media to gain insight into their markets.
To make the most out of your social media efforts it is important to know what your audience is saying about you on all social media platforms. Social media is a breeding ground for product ideas, real time experiences and testimonials. Your company will continue to take steps forward with proper analysis of how the public perceives your brand. This critical information can be found on a daily basis by reviewing and deciphering the interactions on social media.
