Whenever you ask a marketing executive about his/her company’s investment in social media, we hear this statement a lot - “Our social media investments just don’t quite work like online ad investments such as Google PPC and hence it is very difficult to measure ROI in social media.” We examine the reasons and recommend some solutions in this article. Read more

Whenever you ask a marketing executive about his/her company’s investment in social media, we hear this statement a lot - “Our social media investments just don’t quite work like online ad investments such as Google PPC and hence it is very difficult to measure ROI in social media.” We examine the reasons and recommend some solutions in this article.

Social Media defined

For the purpose of this article we assume all major social networks like Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter and YouTube to be a large part of social media.

Why does Google PPC work better than all other social media?

Whenever a user is searching for a product on search engines like Bing and Google, there is an implicit intent whether to purchase, to get more information or to complaint about a product or service. It is because of this implicit intent that users are self-selected and are more prone to clicking on the ads. 

On the other hand, Facebook is about connecting people and hence its focus is social graph. Therefore, an ad trying to sell a product directly on Facebook is equivalent to someone selling network marketing services at a social gathering. What do you do when someone at a social gathering tries to recruit you for their network marketing service? Ignore! This is why most ads don’t work as well on Facebook unless these are playful and or just trying to reinforce the brands.

There are a whole host of Interest based social media sites like LinkedIn, Pinterest and Twitter to name a few. Unlike Facebook, these networks are built on some common interests that bind people together whether it is job search or high tech news. Therefore, discussing these common interests whether one-on-one or in the form of ads may be more acceptable than on Facebook. However, return on investment in these networks is still hard to gauge, as you really don’t know the intent of the users.

Finding the Intent

If we could easily discover users who express some intent in social media whether it is intent to buy, sell or customer service for a particular product or service, it will make the marketers’ job easier. One could try to do twitter search manually and might find people with intent to buy certain products. However, considering that there are 230 Million tweets per day, it is not humanly possible to do this manually.

Big Data meets NLP

This is a problem of big data wherein technologies like Hadoop are needed to be able to process this large data feed. When processed, Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques need to be applied to discover various intents including intent to purchase, sell and customer service.

Solution

At SocialNuggets, we have done the hard part and are now mining tweets and other social media content to discover intent to purchase. In analyzing a fairly large sample of a 1M tweets for few days, we found that about 1 to 2% of the users express an intent to purchase some product or service. When these users were offered a coupon or deal, CTR (click through rate) of 11% was observed.

If you are interested in increasing your social media return on investment, then why not find people that have expressed an intent in buying products you are selling! If you are interested to find out more please sign up with us.

In analyzing social media data for intent to purchase, we were surprised to notice that HTC still seem to lead intent to purchase followed by Samsung and Apple which is consistent with the market share data of Q3, 2011 released by Canalys. However, Samsung Galaxy SII seems to be handset with the highest intent to purchase followed by Apple iPhone 4S and HTC Sensation 4G. Read more

In analyzing social media data for intent to purchase, we were surprised to notice that HTC still seem to lead intent to purchase followed by Samsung and Apple which is consistent with the market share data of Q3, 2011 released by Canalys. However, Samsung Galaxy SII seems to be handset with the highest intent to purchase followed by Apple iPhone 4S and HTC Sensation 4G.

Which smartphones are likely to be holiday favorites?

This infographic shows the % intent to purchase for Top 10 smartphones. Besides Galaxy SII, Samsung also has Epic 4G Touch in that list. HTC is the only manufacturer with three smartphones in this list while Motorola has two and RIM has only one smartphone in this list. Apple has both iPhone 4S and its older iPhone 4 in the list though its older iPhone 3 doesn't appear in the list despite carriers giving it away for free. Also, since this data is collected from social media conversations, it's possible that people intending to buy iPhone 4S said iPhone 4. In that case, Apple iPhone 4S would lead this intent to purchase chart. 

Which smartphone manufacturer has the highest intent to purchase?

HTC seems to have the highest intent to purchase in social media when we add intent for all of its smartphones. Samsung seems to be second most popular manufacturer while Apple is close third. RIM seem to be losing its grip as it is 5^th manufacturer in this list behind Motorola who has certainly improved its position with various Droid phones including Razor.

Comparing smartphone vs tablet intent to buy

Looking at the social media data, there seems to be much higher intent to purchase tablets than smartphones this holiday season. Of the 400K conversations analyzed on smartphones we see about 0.5% intent to purchase conversations while on tablets we saw about 1% intent to purchase conversations among the 200K conversations analyzed.

Conclusion

Based on social media data, there seems to be higher intent to purchase tablets than smartphones this holiday season.  Among the smartphones, Samsung Galaxy SII seem to be most desirable followed by Apple iPhone 4S though HTC leads as the overall favored manufacturer of smartphones this holiday season.

Since the announcement of Amazon Kindle Fire on September 28, 2011, the Tablet market has changed dramatically. In analyzing Intent to purchase data from the social networks, we see that Amazon Kindle Fire is more likely to take sales away from Android and other tablets than from Apple iPad. Read more

Since the announcement of Amazon Kindle Fire on September 28, 2011, the Tablet market has changed dramatically. In analyzing Intent to purchase data from the social networks, we see that Amazon Kindle Fire is more likely to take sales away from Android and other tablets than from Apple iPad.

This infographic shows the % intent to purchase both prior to Kindle Fire announcement (September 1 -27, 2011) and post this announcement (Sept 28 - Nov. 7, 2011). Apple’s iPad intent to purchase has gone down a little while all of Amazon Kindle Fire’s gain has come at the cost of Android and other tablets (includes Blackberry Playbook, HP WebOS, Windows Tablet and unidentified tablets).

Which Tablet manufacturer leads now in the Intent to Purchase in social media?

In analyzing 200,000 discussions from Sept 28^th through Nov 7^th, we find that 1% of people have expressed an intent to purchase some kind of tablet. Of the people that have expressed an intent to purchase in their social media conversations, Amazon Kindle Fire leads the intent to purchase followed by Apple iPad (also includes conversation around iPad2 and iPad3). Samsung Galaxy Tabs and Asus Eee Pad Transformer have suffered the most from the Amazon Kindle Fire.

Conclusion

We also noticed as to how Kindle’s intent to purchase was an all time high when it was announced but has since come down and become more realistic as people learn more about its features. It also seems that Tablet race is getting down to Apple and Amazon while many of the Android and other Tablet manufacturers will have tough time to compete unless they reduce the prices or come up with some other unique differentiators. However, Amazon Kindle Fire’s true test will come after it gets in the hands of the users and depending on how it is liked by users will it really become the market leader. 

While we were writing some blogs, we thought of adding thumbnails of various tablets. Then started our search on Google and Yahoo! for images of various tablets. What we found was an utter lack of branding in the tablet marketplace — except in the case of Apple. Read more

While we were writing some blogs, we thought of adding thumbnails of various tablets. Then started our search on Google and Yahoo! for images of various tablets. What we found was an utter lack of branding in the tablet marketplace — except in the case of Apple.

Check out a chart we produced with thumbnails of various tablets. Can you really recognize any of the tablets? Well, I can only recognize Apple’s iPad and none else. When I asked people who own non-iPad tablets to tell me which thumbnails pointed to their Android based tablets, most of them failed in this exercise.

How About Smartphones?

Just having an Android label to kick start the market was a great idea and it worked for smartphones. However, if you ever see an HTC phone, it does have a clock image that can be differentiated even in the smallest of the thumbnails. BlackBerry has a very unique image that distinguishes it. Samsung doesn’t have a consistent image but with the launch of Galaxy II, it is getting better at it.

So What Happened to Tablets?

Needless to say Apple is the only manufacturer whose iPad tablets have a very differentiating look no matter which angle you look at. For some reason every other tablet (sorry HTC, clock is not enough to differentiate your tablet) manufacturer went with generic Android look except for some minor differences. Even RIM chose the generic look for its Playbook, leaving it no differentiation in appearance.

Oh yes, HP folks probably recognize their blue screen which became the blue screen of death for the device. It seems Amazon has learned that lesson already and has a distinguishing image for itself. This may not be sufficient but will contribute to its success.

Rethinking Product Looks in the Age of Internet

In the age of the Internet, products are typically evaluated online first. If your product doesn’t have a unique look, it will be lost in the crowd and all of your branding exercises will merely go to waste. So before you put out a product in the market, see what its thumbnail looks like on the web when your customers search for it.

Steve Jobs passed away on October 5 after battling pancreatic cancer for almost a decade. Read more

Steve Jobs passed away on October 5 after battling pancreatic cancer for almost a decade.

At SocialNuggets, we wanted to pay a tribute to this visionary and genius. We mined social data on October 10 and 11 to see how people all over the world describe him. The result is the Steve Jobs tag cloud we came up with. You can share our tribute by making this tag cloud your wallpaper.

Click the image to download a wallpaper in 1024 x 786

Steve Jobs has always been known for his inspiring speeches. When he died at 56, SocialNuggets decided to see which of his thoughts are most quoted on social media. We mined social data on the days following his death and came up with a poster with his most popular quotes. Go ahead download this wallpaper as a tribute to this genius. Read more

Steve Jobs has always been known for his inspiring speeches. When he died at 56, SocialNuggets decided to see which of his thoughts are most quoted on social media. We mined social data on the days following his death and came up with a poster with his most popular quotes. Go ahead download this wallpaper as a tribute to this genius.

Click the image to download a wallpaper in 1024 x 786

Apple announced 4S on Oct 4^th, 2011. Since that time, SocialNuggets, a company providing social media analytics for consumer electronics, has been analyzing social media conversations to determine which of  the announced features of iPhone 4S got the most mentions and the sentiments around each of these. Three of its features including New Camera, Simultaneous availability on Sprint, AT&T and Verizon and Siri command over 55% of the share of voice amongst all other features Apple announced. The intent to purchase stands at a respectable 69%. Read more

Apple announced 4S on Oct 4^th, 2011. Since that time, SocialNuggets, a company providing social media analytics for consumer electronics, has been analyzing social media conversations to determine which of  the announced features of iPhone 4S got the most mentions and the sentiments around each of these. Three of its features including New Camera, Simultaneous availability on Sprint, AT&T and Verizon and Siri command over 55% of the share of voice amongst all other features Apple announced. The intent to purchase stands at a respectable 69%.

Here is a quick summary of some of the key findings:

• iPhone 4S camera with higher MP, better lens and 1080P video is sufficient in convincing many iPhone users to upgrade
• Adding Sprint to the line up of service providers is the right decision as it is getting lion’s share of voice and evoking many positive reactions
• Siri is the new voice interface that everyone wants to try with over 70% positive reactions
• Better CPU, antenna design and graphics are  popular reasons for many to upgrade
• 4G or lack there of is the most negative feature of iPhone 4S and will cause many on Verizon and Sprint network to not upgrade
• On the whole, 69% of the people said they will purchase iPhone 4S while 31% said they will not purchase a new iPhone 4S

New Camera could help Apple sell more iPhone 4S

The New Camera on iPhone 4S has a share of voice of over 20.65% of the overall discussions. Not surprising, most discussions around camera are very positive and so much so that it could become one important reason for people to upgrade to Apple iPhone 4S. Of the camera features, 8MP got the most mentions followed by 1080P camera and then other photography features including the lens.

Here is a sampling of some of the comments from social media

Apple's iPhone 4S Gets an 8-Megapixel CMOS Sensor and an F/2.4 Lens | Popular Photography

BrandonSFL: #iPhone4S will have 1080P HD Video recording! That is the highest possible HD resolution

Addition of Sprint is cheered by many

Now that Apple iPhone4S is available at Sprint besides AT&T and Verizon, we expected Sprint discussions to increase but are surprised to see that Sprint commanded as high as 41% of the service provider discussions while AT&T only has 34% of the conversations with Verizon lacking with only 24% of the conversations. The unlimited data plan offered by Sprint is also getting some converts to its side. 

Here is a sample of one of the comments in social media

ATT just told me I get full subsidy on iPhone 4S, but I really seriously am considering Sprint

Siri is new cool interface everyone wants to try but will it bring new sales to iPhone 4S?

Siri is the third highest discussed feature of iPhone 4S. There is lot of intrigue around this feature with about 73% of the people expressing an opinion being positive about it. There are many questions on Siri’s availability on iPhone 4 and most users would like to try it on their iPhone 4 rather than buy a new phone for that purpose.

Here is an example of a typical conversation around Siri

If that Siri voice assistant works well...sick #iPhone4s

Better Performance will help Apple sell more iPhone 4S

Now with A5 the same CPU as in iPad, iPhone 4S will certainly have better performance and that fact got a lot of mentions as much as 47%. With new dual antenna and hence expectation of better voice quality got the second highest mention in performance category with 20% of the votes while better Graphics was a close third.

4G or Lack thereof is the most negative aspects of iPhone 4S announcement

Since Apple only announced support for HSDPA, a rather dated 4G technology only supported by AT&T, it left all of the LTE and WiMax supporters turning negative by this announcement taking over almost 20% of the discussions around 4G. As much as 26% of the negative opinions around Apple’s 4G offering gives a chance to its competitors to exploit while for Apple to defend its decision.

Here are some typical comments in social media

Iphone4s? No LTE? Not interested.

#iphone 4S - no LTE support - sign of smart product management; LTE can wait till iphone 5 or maybe

To buy or Not to buy

Based on all these discussions we wanted to analyze, if the intent to purchase for iPhone 4S is positive or not. As much as 69% of the people expressing their purchasing intent are very positive and hence ready to buy their new iPhone 4S. However, a whopping 31% of the discussions also indicate either wait and see attitude until next iPhone or just moving away from iPhone or not interested in switching from their existing phone. Depending on how iPhone 4S appeals to these people over time will decide how successful it gets.

Here are some examples of typical conversations around intent to purchase

Oh, and video recording in 1080p with a much better camera. I want one! #iPhone4S

#iPhone4S ? But they are comming out with an iphone5 i wouldnt buy it ! I wanna a new 4G blackberry :)

Conclusions

iPhone 4S has got a great start and even without the redesign that was speculated in iPhone 5, its new features such as camera, sprint support and better performance are contributing to 69% of the positive intent to purchase while its somewhat limited 4G support is contributing to 31% of the negative intent to purchase.

Apple announced its iPhone 4S and social media was buzzing with disappointment as it was expecting iPhone 5. Surprisingly some of the well known bloggers and wall street also showed its disappointment since they were expecting an iPhone 5. Was market disappointed because Apple didn’t call it iPhone 5 or was it for the lack of features in this announcement? We examined social media conversations today as well as for the last few months to come to our conclusions. Read more

Apple announced its iPhone 4S and social media was buzzing with disappointment as it was expecting iPhone 5. Surprisingly some of the well known bloggers and wall street also showed its disappointment since they were expecting an iPhone 5. Was market disappointed because Apple didn’t call it iPhone 5 or was it for the lack of features in this announcement? We examined social media conversations today as well as for the last few months to come to our conclusions.

Was iPhone 4S the biggest disappointment?

We examined a small sample of 2,000 tweets and comments on various blog sites today and found that most people were really disappointed that it was not called iPhone 5 as most people never expressed a reason as to why they were disappointed. They just were since expectation from the media was set for this to be a iPhone 5 announcement. There were less than 10% comments where disappointment had some request for features that this announcement lacked. However, there was no emerging theme but feature requests varied from larger screen, NFC to a different design.

What did iPhone 4S not deliver?

Looking at the Top10 features social media expected from iPhone 5, it seemed majority of the wish list came true except for the design change in the form of larger screen and redoing of the buttons. As you can see from the table below, iPhone 4S met most of the expectation and so the question remains why did Apple chose to call it iPhone 4S? 

Conclusion

Apple delivered on most feature expectations of the market for iPhone 5 including Sprint, 4G, better camera, iOS 5, iMessaging, longer battery life, Siri and A5. It decided to maintain the current iPhone 4 design and so chose to call it iPhone 4S. I am sure Apple had its reasons but it seems if Apple had called this iPhone 5, market would have been more enthused about this announcement.

In the months leading up to the press conference earlier this week, speculation about the prospects for Amazon’s new tablet reached a crescendo.  Would the new tablet be a worthy competitor?  Might it even dethrone the iPad? Read more

In the months leading up to the press conference earlier this week, speculation about the prospects for Amazon’s new tablet reached a crescendo.  Would the new tablet be a worthy competitor?  Might it even dethrone the iPad?

Even before details were leaked to the press, Forrester predicted that Amazon would sell 3-5 million tablets in Q4.  Following an exclusive hands-on preview, TechCrunch’s MG Siegler reported that “it’s going to be a big deal… potentially huge.”

Since Monday, when CEO Jeff Bezos took the stage to unveil Amazon’s new tablet, named the Kindle Fire, individuals have posted some 11k+ comments in sources tracked by SocialNuggets.  Mining these data gives us an early indication of how the market views and may react to the Kindle Fire when it is introduced mid-November.

Will the Kindle Fire unlock demand for tablets?

While not available for another six weeks, almost 10% of individuals posting comments earlier this week explicitly indicated whether they intend to purchase a Kindle Fire or not. These early results bode well for Amazon – among those expressing intent, the number intending to purchase a Kindle Fire outnumber those “rejecting” by 2:1.

Of course, that leaves a large number with intent “unstated,” so we (and competitors) will be watching these numbers closely.  As more individuals express views about the Kindle Fire, the data will permit us to report not only the Intent to Purchase Ratio but also break out users’ reasons for (intending to) purchase a Kindle Fire or not.

Reactions to Kindle Fire’s pricing and features

At $199, the Kindle Fire is priced at less than half the prevailing prices for an iPad and most other tablets on the market.  Not surprisingly, Amazon’s bold pricing generates considerable enthusiasm among prospective buyers. Almost 10% of the comments contained a favorable mention of Fire’s pricing – previous research from immr has shown that tablet prices must drop below $300 to open up the tablet market beyond early adopters,  so Amazon has clearly hit the mark with respect to pricing.

Although overshadowed by price and other features, Amazon also introduced a new browser named Silk that is integral to the overall user experience.  Touted by Amazon for its “optimized content delivery,” the browser generated quite a bit of discussion among early posters.  While the “cloud” was most frequently mentioned in connection with the browser, a significant percentage of individuals commenting on Silk – 1 in 3 – expressed concerns about privacy.

In the days following Amazon’s announcement, tech writers have also begun to explore the privacy implications of Silk. Clearly, Amazon will need to monitor views closely and address concerns at it brings the Kindle Fire and its “split, cloud-based” browser to market.

Is the Kindle Fire hobbled by missing features?

Surprisingly, a very small percentage of individuals’ comments mention Fire’s “missing features” – for example, only about 1% commented on the fact that Fire will not offer 3G, while even fewer commented on the fact that the initial model due out in November lacks a camera.

While Amazon is taking a calculated risk by leaving these features out, evidence from other sources supports their decision – based on immr research with prospective buyers, at the low-end of the market only 1 in 3 choose tablets with 3G (the majority choose lower-priced models with Wi-fi only).  immr’s research also shows that most prospective buyers expect to use a tablet “primarily at home,” so 3G, especially given the incremental price and monthly recurring cost, is not a highly sought tablet feature at present.

In addition, out of some 15 tablet features that immr examined using Choice Modeling, cameras rank #12 in terms of impact.  Apparently, consumers are content having cameras on their smart phones and are not overly concerned that tablets and the Kindle Fire in particular lacks a camera. However, given the relatively low cost to add a camera and the growing popularity of video chat on Skype and other services, we suspect that Amazon will offer this feature on future models of the Kindle Fire.

Has Amazon hit the sweet spot?

While these results are very preliminary and should be interpreted accordingly, these “early votes” suggest that Amazon has hit a sweet spot with the Kindle Fire.  Pricing is a big plus and the missing features don’t appear to be major deficits.  While privacy with the Silk browser could be a significant issue, we suspect most users will accept the trade-offs and “trust” Amazon with this data – nonetheless, Amazon will need to closely monitor and carefully address users’ concerns.

Of course, sentiment could shift as more information become available and users get more familiar with the Kindle Fire. As SocialNuggets continually tracks these and related sentiments, additional findings will be reported throughout the weeks ahead and of course after Amazon launches the Kindle Fire in November.  Stay tuned!

At SocialNuggets, we have been analyzing social media conversations on Tablets and saw some interesting marketing lessons that we thought we will share with everyone. Read more

At SocialNuggets, we have been analyzing social media conversations on Tablets and saw some interesting marketing lessons that we thought we will share with everyone.

HP was spending  a lot of money on TV and other advertising for its TouchPad but most of that was mis-directed as we pointed in our earlier blog. Despite this huge investment, its share of voice remained distant eighth.

Then HP prematurely announced discontinuation of its tablet hardware thereby creating what we popularly call in high-tech as a “boat anchor” and like with every discontinued product we expected its end. However, in the current craze of Groupon type deal discounting, HP reduced the price of its tablet to $99 from $499 in order to clear its inventory. Not only did it clear the inventory in a day but it decided to actually make more units to satisfy the resulting demand it created. Let me also point out that TouchPad’s share of  voice jumped from a distant 8^th to top 3^rd.  Its Net perception which was fairly high stayed almost the same and it jumped to third spot in Social Nuggets Index beating out all but Apple’s iPad2.

So what can marketers learn from this experience?

Any good product can be sold at a deep discount creating a high level of demand quickly. HP TouchPad’s net perception has been fairly high in social media indicating a decent fan base which liked its product. Can you imagine if HP had not announced discontinuation but just a limited time price decrease?

In this new consumer mindset of buying deals from LivingSocial and Groupon, this may be a better marketing vehicle for companies to introduce new products where they need to gain market share quickly in order to get developer attention. Also this is an indication to the consumer that you really believe in your product and are willing to incentivize early customers. Microsoft and Nokia may have some lessons to look here to gain on Windows 8 phones but for the long-term contracts!

The ideal tablet price is somewhere between $99 and $399 barring Apple who is on the top of the tablet market with its iPad2. Why $399? HP gained no share at $499 while Asus Eee Pad came up with a decent product and sold it for $399 while continuing to support it unlike HP. We saw its SocialNuggets Index position jump as well as it running out of stock. We also noticed that Blackberry Playbook continued to have negative sentiments on its pricing of $499. Does it give some hints to Amazon for what price should it chose for its Tablet at the introduction?

Despite large interest in the low price of HP TouchPad we also found many sentiments on the web indicating that it is a dead end product and so shouldn’t be purchased. HP jumped the gun here in order to announce to the wall street jeopardizing the future of its product line for ever.

Conclusion

The sweet spot for Tablet pricing lies between $99 and $399. HP succeeded in selling all of the units at $99 that it failed to sell with very heavy marketing expenses and $499 price point. May be it should have gone to one of the deal sites like LivingSocial or Groupon earlier rather than investing in misdirected TV advertisements.At SocialNuggets, we have been analyzing social media conversations on Tablets and saw some interesting marketing lessons that we thought we will share with everyone.

Mobile Advertising is becoming an important component of the marketing mix of companies, local and global, thanks to the rapid penetration of Smartphones and Tablets.  This blog elaborates on how mobile advertisers can take cues from online social conversations and use it to gain competitive advantage. Read more

Mobile Advertising is becoming an important component of the marketing mix of companies, local and global, thanks to the rapid penetration of Smartphones and Tablets.  This blog elaborates on how mobile advertisers can take cues from online social conversations and use it to gain competitive advantage.

Correlation between Advertising Impressions, Market Share and Social Data

At a Platform level like Android or iPhone, Share of Voice is seen to have a high correlation to the Market Share as well as to the Share of Advertising Impressions. However, at an individual handset level, social media data can be more predictive than other sources of data. For example, HTC Thunderbolt was seen having significant buzz in the social media even 30 days before its launch. From the month of its release, it had stayed at #1 position as the Smartphone with the highest Share of Voice. In the earnings reports of HTC, Thunderbolt was announced as one of the most shipped models that quarter alongside newer Smartphones like HTC Sensation and HTC Chacha. HTC Thunderbolt is also seen to be one of the Top 20 Smartphones ranked by advertising impressions.  Thus advertisers who listen and analyze social media conversations can have an unfair advantage over their competitors by being quick to market.

Choosing the right Mobile Advertising Mix

Advertisers and Advertising Agencies can also make use of social media in many ways - such as choosing the platform that matches their positioning and target audience or evaluating how a particular model's browsing experience affects the ROI of their advertising campaigns. 

Advertisers can also decide on which of the media is used most for what kind of conversations. For example, Twitter may be dominating most of smartphones and tablet conversations but knowing the next 10-20 media is as important to decide the right place to advertise.

Measuring performance of Advertising

Social media is a good indicator of measuring performance of advertising investments sometimes directlly and sometimes indirectly. There are many ways advertisers can look for clues such as:

Is our ad being mentioned and so remembered by prospects/customers?

Is our share of voice going up or down or staying constant after an ad campaign?

is the net perception of the brand and/or particular product going up or down or staying the same after an ad campaign?

The possibilities of using social conversations for better advertising are endless once we begin to listen.

Summary

Social media is both a leading indicator which can help guide the right message as well as a performance indicator for the mobile advertisers. If used correctly, it can provide competitive advantage to advertisers who listen and analyze social media data.

1. http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/?p=28516

2. http://www.millennialmedia.com/wp-content/images/mobilemix/MM-MobileMix-July2011.pdf

3. http://socialnuggets.net/smartphones/htc-thunderbolt-is-1-by-share-of-voice-in-us-for-the-third-time-in-a-row

4. http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/htc-ships-record-121-million-units-in-q2/53559

5. http://socialnuggets.net/tablets/apple-tablets-most-used-for-business-travel-local-and-books-reference

As you may know, HP announced that it is shutting down Touchpad and  reduced its price to $99.  After this announcement, we went back to the social media data we have collected over months and tried to see how and what HP could have learnt from social media to help it make the right decision. Read more

As you may know, HP announced that it is shutting down Touchpad and  reduced its price to $99.  After this announcement, we went back to the social media data we have collected over months and tried to see how and what HP could have learnt from social media to help it make the right decision.

Here is what we found:

1)   HP WebOS has not been able to increase its share of voice and was a distant fourth after Apple iOS, Google Android and RIM Blackberry QNX as shown in this infographic

2)   Even though there was excitement amongst the very small customer base of HP Touchpad, when we measure it by socialnuggets index, it was a distant 8^th brand on this measure as shown in this infographic

3)   When we analyzed “Intent to Purchase” for tablets, HP Touchpad was a distant fourth too as shown in this infographic

4)   HP’s marketing was misplaced from the beginning as it focused on entertainment and flash while most used applications on tablets are Business related where it has some clear advantages but none in the entertainment

Conclusion

As is obvious from social media, HP’s message was not getting through to the right customers as it was mis-targeted at entertainment market where it had only disadvantages against Apple. Rather than trying to refocus its message on enterprise where HP is strong, it decided to throw baby with the bath water.

We scoured through social media data to see who the winners and losers were in Google’s acquisition of Motorola. Some of them are very obvious. Motorola and Microsoft in the winners section, and Android OEMs such as HTC, Samsung and LG in the losers section. However, it is unclear whether Apple, Nokia, RIM and Mobile operators are winners or losers in this race. Here are some of our thoughts. Please add your comments: Read more

We scoured through social media data to see who the winners and losers were in Google’s acquisition of Motorola. Some of them are very obvious. Motorola and Microsoft in the winners section, and Android OEMs such as HTC, Samsung and LG in the losers section. However, it is unclear whether Apple, Nokia, RIM and Mobile operators are winners or losers in this race. Here are some of our thoughts. Please add your comments:

Clear Winners

Motorola is a winner since it got an excessive premium over its current share price. Microsoft is a winner since all of Android licensees now want to at least invest some portion of their resources on Microsoft’s Windows Phone and its latest Mango version of Windows Phone is making progress in the market. PC Mag’s article has done a good job in explaining this.

But how will Nokia, RIM and Apple  fare from Googorola?

Clear Losers

Google’s Android, which has been gaining in popularity, may see some defensive moves from its OEMs such as HTC, Samsung and LG who feel threatened by Google- Motorola phone despite Google’s assurance to the contrary. Google is a loser since it has overpaid for a patent portfolio that may not have the same level of relevance today as when these patents were developed. To quote Dan Ravicher, the executive director of the Public Patent Foundation from this Huffington Post article" There's a patent bubble -- a lot of speculation and bidding up. This reminds me of the housing bubble, the dot-com bubble. Five years from now, people will realize that they have overbid."

What about Apple, RIM, Nokia & Others?

Is Apple a loser in this? If OEM’s jump the Android boat, Apple will see less competition from Android. In that case, Google will put its energy in Motorola phone and in creating an end-to-end experience like Apple which may be more of a threat to Apple in the long term.

Is it a win for RIM, the makers of Blackberry phones? RIM has been losing market share and this may accelerate it. However, it also has a rich set of patents which will now be overvalued like that of Motorola’s thereby helping increase the valuation of the company if someone were to acquire it.

Is it a win for Nokia? Nokia had a choice of betting on either Android or Windows Phone and it chose the later and now must be happy with its decision. If Google indeed becomes an end-to-end supplier that will put Nokia at a disadvantage. Like RIM, it also has a very rich patent portfolio that may be overvalued if Microsoft were to pull the trigger on buying Nokia.

This may reduce the choice for both the consumer and mobile operators and when that happens prices go up and innovation suffers. So no matter which company wins, the consumer loses.

Conclusion

With this deal of Google buying Motorola, Microsoft and Motorola seem to be clear winners while Google and most of Android OEMs seem to be clear losers. Apple may benefit or lose depending on how Google handles this acquisition. RIM and Nokia may benefit or lose depending on what Microsoft may decide to do. This may also affect consumer and mobile operator choices when it comes to smartphones.

Compare brand/product perception with competitors' counterparts





Social media allows you to not only look at how your company is fairing in social media conversations, but you can also look at your competitors as well. Read more

Compare brand/product perception with competitors' counterparts

Social media allows you to not only look at how your company is fairing in social media conversations, but you can also look at your competitors as well.

Measure the effectiveness of marketing programs

Social media tools today enable you to monitor the number of conversations that are occurring around a particular announcement. Knowing these numbers helps you understand which news people care about. For example, if you invest in a new advertising campaign and your mentions increase by a factor of two, but most of the mentions turned out to be negative. With this information, you can change the ad campaign before it does more damage.

Engage with customers and/or prospective customers

Social media is about engagement and participation ? not just being a spectator. Companies such as Southwest Airlines and Comcast who have invested heavily in this engagement have benefitted immensely. By using social media to interact and stay up-to-date on customer demands, they significantly improved their customer service, resulting in happier customers and increased long-term sales.

Create better product designs by understanding customers' likes and dislikes for various features

With the proper tools such as (you guessed it!) social media, companies can learn in real-time which features customers like or dislike in their own products, as well as their competitors' products. They can react to that information and design better products. For example, recent data suggests that connectivity options on a smartphone are now more important to customers than better audio quality on phone calls. This is a significant evolution of customers? demands for phones, and companies in the industry can use this insight to make better product decisions.

Conclusion

Today, social media is deeply ingrained in our culture and filters into our workplaces and workflows. All consumers have a voice, and with social media, they constantly express it and so businesses can have quicker access to their consumer sentiments. Given this information, it is obvious that real-time social media insights are critical to the business cases of marketing professionals and other industry leaders, as they can use the information to increase their bottom line. We will continue to see the influence of social media analytics grow throughout all industries and providing a catalyst to potentially grow an organization. Social media analytics can not only tell a story on a consumer?s perception regarding a product, brand or service, but it can ? and should ? also influence marketing and branding strategies.

Everytime, we present new data from social media on various smartphones, many skeptics ask me so what? I have been pondering on this question myself and here is some background after which we will discuss what we found from our smartphone data for April and May 2011. Background SocialNuggets proactively listens to social media and mines about 1M conversations on smartphones from Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, Review sites and Forums. Then using our NLP (natural language processing) technology and sentiment engine we classify every post on the type of handset, model details, features and sentiments and that data is then put into a giant data warehouse for analysis. Read more

Everytime, we present new data from social media on various smartphones, many skeptics ask me so what? I have been pondering on this question myself and here is some background after which we will discuss what we found from our smartphone data for April and May 2011. Background SocialNuggets proactively listens to social media and mines about 1M conversations on smartphones from Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, Review sites and Forums. Then using our NLP (natural language processing) technology and sentiment engine we classify every post on the type of handset, model details, features and sentiments and that data is then put into a giant data warehouse for analysis.

Case Study for LG Optimus 2X Smartphone LG introduced industry’s first dual core smartphone called LG Optimus 2X in Europe and Asia and then launched in the US with T-Mobile labeling it as T-Mobile G2X at the end of April. What we learnt from the Social Media Data & its Correlation to actual events

• Highest ranked in SocialNuggets Index = Running out of stock at T-Mobile
• Decline in Net Perception = Problems in the field
• Success will now depend on Damage Control

Highest ranked in SocialNuggets Index = Running out of stock at T-Mobile Based on SocialNuggets Index for April, LG Optimus 2X (T-Mobile G2X) was rated number one handset and yes it ran out of stock at T-Mobile as early as second week of May. So, social media data could predict early winners in this market. Here are some more details: SocialNuggets Index measures both Share of Voice and Net Perception Score. Since LG Optimus 2X handset had already been introduced in other countries, it had a very healthy share of voice coming in at Number 4 as can be seen in this infographic. Its Net Perception Score, though not the highest, was also a good Number 7 in the list. When combined as SocialNuggets Index, it came on top. Decline in Net Perception = Problems in the field A sudden decline in Net Perception for Hardware and Service Provider in May (see Infographic) indicated issues in the field later confirmed by news media. Here are some more details: Now that social media data is real time unlike surveys, we could see what is happening in the market in April and May. In April itself, we saw that battery sentiments were poor on this handset while service provider, display and hardware were good. Considering it was the first dual core Android handset we didn’t see hardware sentiments to be the highest as expected. In May, we started noticing decline in both hardware and service provider sentiments indicating some troubles confirmed later by news media and subsequent handling or mishandling by T-Mobile. Looking at various verbatim, one can get an idea of the actual problem being experienced by end-users. Success will now depend on Damage Control Smartphone market is fast changing and new handsets are introduced constantly. So, once a handset has some major issues it becomes difficult for it to recover unless nicely executed damage control is in place. Looking at the social media and handling so far, it seems unlikely this handset may be the winner for next month in the US while it continues to be strong elsewhere. Summary Social media data can indeed predict possible winners as in the case of this handset running out of stock. Social media data can also pin point problems and issues in the field like it did in this case both with hardware and service provider handling. Once the news is out on negative perceptions, it also gets harder to do damage control and we will watch how LG and T-Mobile deal with the issues in next few weeks.

SocialNuggets released its BankInsight for Q1, 2011. Having analyzed over 300,000 social media conversations, the BankInsight shows that sentiments have dipped slightly this quarter from Q4, 2010 but most banks maintained their brand presence. American Express maintained its leadership position. JP Morgan Chase increased its net perception score this quarter as well as its share of voice, but seems to have specific difficulty in maintaining its share of voice in Twitter. Orchard Bank also showed the most improvements from last quarter with the company becoming a new entry in the Top 10 SocialNuggets Index. Read more

SocialNuggets released its BankInsight for Q1, 2011. Having analyzed over 300,000 social media conversations, the BankInsight shows that sentiments have dipped slightly this quarter from Q4, 2010 but most banks maintained their brand presence. American Express maintained its leadership position. JP Morgan Chase increased its net perception score this quarter as well as its share of voice, but seems to have specific difficulty in maintaining its share of voice in Twitter. Orchard Bank also showed the most improvements from last quarter with the company becoming a new entry in the Top 10 SocialNuggets Index.

SocialNuggets goal is to provide real-time data market intelligence for decision-makers to gauge their competitors, design better products and improve customer service. It is the only comprehensive consumer banking information gleaned from thousands of online consumer statements on various review, blog and social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. SocialNuggets gathers and analyzes consumer reviews, ratings and statements from a broad range of Web sources to build a picture of the consumer banking experience. Some of the vital areas covered include products and services like Credit Card, Online Banking and contribution of sources to sentiments as well as trends for each of the individual banks’ products and their peers. The company provides a preview of many of its nuggets from Q1 research at http://bit.ly/kYbpWU Highlights from this quarter findings include the following:

• Citibank, another co-resident of Top-performing Quadrant I, showed some improvement when measured without Twitter.
• Wells Fargo certainly improved its position but staying in Hard-working Quadrant II with or without Twitter.
• Bank of America showed a slight decline in share of voice and net perception score pushing it to Need-work Quadrant IV from Work-in-progress Quadrant III in the last quarter.
• Besides Orchard Bank, PNC Bank and TD Bank are the new entries in the Top 10 banks of SocialNuggets.
• Credit Cards actually overtook Mortgage conversations for the first time which is good news for the banks since Mortgage is one of the few products with net negative sentiments.
• Online Banking is the product with most net positive sentiment this quarter similar to last quarter but had some decline from last quarter.
• Twitter continues to dominate the conversations with Investorshub, Creditboards, Ficoforums and Investor Village making up the other entries in Top 5 sources this quarter. Among these sources, Investorshub has the highest percent of meaningful (positive and negative) sentiments conversations followed by Investor Village with about 85% meaningful conversations while Twitter has 36% of the conversations that are meaningful. Moreover, there are many banks initiated tweets and that is why looking at data with and without Twitter is needed to get more accurate picture

SocialNuggets banking data is available in various forms for researchers, analytics department, marketing, customer service and social media groups working with banks. Check here for more info or email us at info@socialnuggets.net  

SocialNuggets delivers real time market intelligence for fast moving industries by analyzing data from various social media sources. Our mission is to liberate social media data and sentiment analysis for use in real time research of brands, products and features. This blog post discusses the following: Read more

SocialNuggets delivers real time market intelligence for fast moving industries by analyzing data from various social media sources. Our mission is to liberate social media data and sentiment analysis for use in real time research of brands, products and features. This blog post discusses the following:

• Changing landscape of marketing research
• Current approach
• Technology requirements
• How does SocialNuggets work?
• Summary

Changing landscape of market research In the fast moving markets like smartphones, tablets, apparel and entertainment, traditional market research techniques like surveys and focus groups are just too slow and can’t be relied upon exclusively to make effective business decisions. Today, most consumers express their opinions voluntarily on various forums, blogs, review sites and social networking sites. This data, if mined correctly, is a goldmine of consumer sentiments and opinions and can serve as a source of real time market intelligence and that has been a missing piece in the market research area despite many advances in technology. Current Approach There are many enterprise software packages available that can be customized with lots of efforts and resources to get the right answers for a particular industry/company. Needless to say, this is expensive, time consuming, generally offered as an enterprise software behind firewall and not affordable even for many large companies. Technology Requirements In order to analyze this vast amount of Internet data we call social data, one needs the following tools and technologies

• Focused Harvesting
• Text Analytics
• Natural Language Processing
• Sentiment Analysis

As an example, we analyze over 1M conversations quarterly on the web related to smartphones, get rid of spam using our technology and then extract sentiments by

• Features (like long battery life is positive while long charging time is negative)
• Phone models (like HTC EVO, Apple iPhone 4)
• Brands (like HTC, RIM, Samsung, Sony Ericsson)
• Category (Android, Blackberry, iPhone, Windows Phone)

Our technology, developed over 20 man-years of effort, has been used by many companies for marketing research, customer service, lead generation and brand management. How does SocialNuggets work? In order to make our technology accessible to companies of all sizes with least amount of upfront investment, we have started SocialNuggets.net that provides detailed research from social media in various forms as following: Individual nuggets that anyone can consume by embedding inside of their websites or forwarding to their friends and colleagues – this is free so long as you maintain attribution to SocialNuggets and/or Our partners Monthly and Quarterly SocialNuggets Index for various markets which can also be used to make purchasing decisions Data behind individual nuggets that can be purchased for internal analysis Full data warehouse for internal analysis by companies’ internal business analytics package Reports and Customized research reports created by our staff/our partners Summary We have started this site with research on smartphones and are adding new nuggets daily for anyone in this industry to consume, enjoy, share and engage in making fast but smarter business decisions.

As the whole world was trying to predict the winners of 2011's Academy Awards/Oscars winners, we thought of listening to the pulse of people by measuring their sentiments and volume on various social media sites including Facebook and Twitter. We at SocialNuggets published our forecasts on the Slideshare site and now it is time to look at how, we the public, did by way of our social media conversations Vs Academy. So this blog has three sections Read more

As the whole world was trying to predict the winners of 2011's Academy Awards/Oscars winners, we thought of listening to the pulse of people by measuring their sentiments and volume on various social media sites including Facebook and Twitter. We at SocialNuggets published our forecasts on the Slideshare site and now it is time to look at how, we the public, did by way of our social media conversations Vs Academy. So this blog has three sections

• SocialNuggets Forecast Vs Academy's Decision
• Commentary on the results
• How was our research done

SocialNuggets Forecast Vs Academy's Decision

Commentary on the results It is clear that Academy doesn't always pick the most popular public opinion as expressed in social media. Our record of prediction was about 50%. So, can you really use the social media conversations to predict the winners? The popular opinion does coincide with the commercial success of the movie. Perhaps, someday Academy's opinions will align with the general public but until that time we will continue to learn from this experience and modify our algorithms and will be back next year with more. How was our research done Using SocialNuggets' technology of focused harvesting and text analytics and sentiment engine, we started mining social media conversations for the last few days not just for mentions but also for sentiments. We settled on only 9 award categories as there were not enough meaningful conversations to predict in other categories until 2 days ago. Using our engine, we came up with net perception score of each of the mentions and then multiplied the % of mentions with Serendio Net perception score to get a final score which was published in our slide share discussions.