Tracking Conversations Online
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We are routinely asked to provide intelligence on what’s being said about a company and its competitors online. Savvier companies also ask us what to do about it. And everyone wants to know how to measure it.
So, we have been offering three separate services that are conducted best in concert.
- Listening
- Engagement
- Measurement
Campaigns begin with what we call a Social Media Report Card. This evaluates a company’s reputation, popularity and category across a dozen categories to benchmark an indexed score for the company. The Report Card varies based on a company’s objectives, and the role of its Web site.We then use a combination of public and private data streams to evaluate targets. We filter through relevance, influence and popularity. This intelligence is sustained by listening daily into conversations online. From what we learn we are able to identify incorrect information, potential crises and opportunities for engagement. It is one of the best canary in a coalmine services you can find.
For many companies this is enough. But why learn what the problems are if you are not going to fix them? Our engagement on behalf of clients is systemized in mapping our upfront keyword analysis to specific online communities and individual leaders within the communities. Then in turn we match spokespeople and digital assets required to interest each target.
We use the listening to create an attention response system, in which we use the topicality of conversations to guide our engagement. Since one of the hallmarks of a quality social media campaign is a feedback loop, we use our success to optimize outreach.
We combine the tools of online marketing with the sensibility of PR. This allows us to measure these campaigns through PR metrics such as tonal sentiment of conversations and quantity of conversations. We can also measure online metrics like increase in inbound links, market share of the conversation and traffic. Through Earthquake we are also able to extend the conversation online, and extend the seeds of word-of-mouth online, and the learning that comes with it, to customers offline.
And thus, we change consumer perception and help guide purchasing decisions.