Hello from sunny and beautiful San Diego! SurveyAnalytics is really enjoying our time at The Market Research Event. It’s going to be very hard to leave 70 degree weather and go back to Seattle where it’s 48 degrees and “drizzling.” Only in Seattle do we have different words for rain. For those who could not make it to The Market Research Event, we wanted to share with you one of the presentations we’ve enjoyed so far.
Our favorite presentation came from Microsoft’s Mark Eduljee on “Social Media Listening.” 
The main question posed to the crowd was , “Do you listen to social media?” Keep in mind that it’s much different than monitoring social media. Sure, you are reading Facebook and twitter comments here and there but are you really hearing your customers at the right place and time and turning it into actionable results?
The focus should be on information gathering at different life cycles of a product/service, identify value action opportunities, uncover comments that can impact your business ideals, and review the customer experience the story. It is more important than even to be able to listen at the right time to be actionable.
4 dimension of social media metrics:
1-Measure effectiveness and reach. Identify Share of voices. Look for a pattern in key words .
2.-Engagement – Interaction, influences, attach rates, relationship, etc .
3- Communications – Social media intelligence. Who, what, where, etc.
4-Listening – What do you want to hear right now that can be actionable? Examples include customer experience, issues pending, early warnings
How to set up a Listening Framework:
1-Start with the end. Identify Needs vs Wants.
2-Listen to Global English. Surprisingly, Microsoft found that 70% customer voice from multiple countries are the same when it came to products in different countries. I am going out on a limb to say that this may be apply to other companies as well…although not perfectly applicable.
3-Develop a plan. Define goals, and scope your audience. This will help you gather relevant data and not build a bunch of DIGITAL BRICKS (probably my favorite word of the conference so far).
4-Find your Rhythm. With time and practice it will become consistent, predictable, trustworthy and scalable.
5-Analyze Intelligence. Is this the right info, the right source at this point in time? What is the voice of your data?
In any company the researchers need to be honest and not sugarcoat the report. This is not a dog and pony show. The truth hurts sometimes, but you are doing your job. In the end you will be able to measure your ROI which ultimately reviews customer impact and business valuation. By implementing these simple listening strategies shared by Mark Eduljee we can stay on track of turning data into dollars.
If you are currently at TMRE don’t forget to stop by our booth #118 and sign up for a free evaluation license and enter into a drawing to win an Apple iPad.We would love to meet you.
Cheers!
The SurveyAnalytics Team
