Market research has evolved, propelled largely by the development of technology, the proliferation of data and a broader consumer reach. The shift from stores to online shops and the social media boom have enlarged business frontiers, literally and figuratively.
This shift has also created new ways for brands to identify themselves, position themselves as unique in the market and truly engage with their customers. We could even argue that this new landscape has greatly increased expectations regarding market understanding, customer relations and overall marketing performance.
For a long time, marketers have used primary research — surveys, observations, interviews, and so on — as one of their main ways to keep in touch with customers. Today, Marketing Analytics adds an even deeper dimension. Social media listening combines technology, data and analytics to become the latest addition to the marketing toolbox. You don’t have to ask a single direct question, yet you still get a wealth of rich insights garnered from social media listening tools and services. Online users routinely share their independent reviews, their comments and concerns about brands, even their unfiltered experiences. The emerging topics and recurring themes should be of great interest to any marketer.
It’s legit. The data is made up of users’ own comments. It is entirely genuine, an excellent source of significant insights on what motivates consumer behaviour.
It’s accessible. Social media data can easily be extracted through various tools. Social media listening services are also a good approach.
It’s fast. Any new campaign, marketing activity, or product launch can get near-instant feedback from your social media accounts.
It’s broad. On the basis of social media data, you can see a demographic analysis of brand positioning and performance.
It’s deep. Sentiments and recurring themes about the products or services can be extracted by using analytics techniques such as sentiments analysis and text analytics.
The next logical question is, How do I get started? Here are five places you can choose as your entry into this great new capability.
Must-hear conversations: Marketers love their keywords when it comes to online advertising. In social media listening, keywords, again, play an important role. Choosing the right keywords can give you remarkably exact data. Once you zero in on the type of keyword — broad ones for your category, precise ones for your brand — you’re on your way to social media listening. There are four types of social media conversations that can be used to extract consumer insights.
Category-Level Conversations Category-level data helps you know the trends in the market; category-level conversations are like real-time market information generators. The topics are broad: hair, pizza, cars. Just focus on your category. If hair styling is your category, conversations let you know what kind of content and dialogues are being had around hair, hair colour trends, style, etc. These topics become your themes. Carefully studied, these themes can improve your campaign-based category data insights.
Brand-Level Conversations These conversations are specifically based on a single brand name, such as Tata Tea or Hershey’s chocolate. Sentiments and major themes can be extracted through sentiment analysis, topic modelling and text analytics for brand. Focus on brand-level conversations to find data for measuring brand equity, analysing brand recognition, and gauging brand marketing effectiveness.
Product-Level Conversations Many social media users post product reviews and recommend their favourites. For example, data can be analysed for an ice-cream maker to know which of its products or flavours is the most or least popular among users. Zeroing in on data based on the product name will help your organisation see product performance and market popularity. User feedback can show you how to enhance your product as well.
Competitor-Level Conversations Digging up data about your competitors clues you into their overall performance in the market. Cadbury, for instance, can measure the performance of Mars, Hershey’s and Godiva by analysing their campaigns, mentions, brand presence, engagement levels and other key areas. There is still a place for your trusted primary and secondary research methods, but social listening uses analytics and machine learning to take it to a whole new level.
Social media listening is a worthy addition to your marketing playbook as it can deliver results in real time. It can act as a supporting pillar to your marketing plan, giving you quick insights into feasibility, customers and the market as a whole.
Richa Kapoor is Marketing Manager at Absolutdata Analytics and Anamika Gupta, Senior Analyst – Social Media Analytics at Absolutdata Analytics.