Social Media Analytics

THE CHALLENGES

The Challenge of Expanding Content
The explosive growth of user generated content and user sharing, group collaboration, and media consumption are changing the media landscape now. These phenomena alternatively referred to as UGC (user generated content) and CGM (consumer generated media) are creating a whole new media paradigm. The structure, sharing and interaction are entirely different than past media channels and the growth is much faster. This necessitates new metrics, new strategy, new thinking and new planning. The new landscape is increasingly fragmented – due to new sites, platforms, networks, widgets, gadgets, APIs and mashups. New segments of users and shifts in behavior and cross-linking between social media platforms add to the complexity and chaos. Everyday people are joining new social networks and dropping their engagement time on other sites. Their supply of interest, attention, and devotion is finite and fickle. Because of all these factors, waiting on your social media strategy is not your best option.

The Challenge of Expanding Tools
The proliferation of new tools, technologies, social media platforms, social networks, social applications and widgets is giving rise to a new form of information overload . The work required for analytic tool evaluation, testing, training and setup becomes a project unto itself; well before your data is being collected and the analysis begins. You will have to pay for tool access and setup, without receiving the guidance and strategic consulting you need from tool vendors. Over time changes in your goals, processes, data aggregation, reporting and analysis will impact your strategy, decisions and execution. These challenges fall outside the expertise of tool vendors. This is where SCG comes in.

Your Questions Multiply
Which goals are most important to us? What can we measure? Which tool is best? Which experiments are conclusive? Which experiments are most valuable now? How do we proceed? How do we link our departmental objectives to social media monitoring results and then to corporate goals? How frequently should we monitor on an ongoing basis? How do we adapt to the changes we see?

You Need a New Form of Sensing
To understand today’s market opportunities and risks you need to look at patterns of behavior and changes in user conversations across social networks. This is the leading edge of change where markets are most vibrant and disruptive. These new opportunities, threats, and risks are happening now. They will impact you. It’s much better to know what’s coming and plan in advance. Reactionary strategy is very risky, expensive and likely to fail due to the time lags to execute and recover. The spread of social media and potential virality of content; good and bad – exaggerates the need for understanding, planning and measurement now. Confidence and knowing comes from proper data collection, aggregation and measurement that links these results to key decision criteria, which will impact your strategy, resource allocation, decisions and execution plans. Having tools with data accumulating and people assigned is not enough to deliver the results you need.

Recognize Your Internal Limitations
You need to understand the timelines for measuring, evaluating, deciding and achieving goals. The best way to do this is to avoid new tool evaluations, testing, training and setup and to work with an established, analytically trained, interdisciplinary team like Skyfollow Consulting Group.

Our Solution
You need a strategic process linked to your specific goals working with external experts to avoid diverting existing staff or to avoid trying to hire individual full-time experts in house and have them form new teams and new processes and evaluate new tools. These are enormous obstacles to results and success. You may decide to do that ultimately, but it’s much more cost effective and time-critical to partner with an external consulting firm initially. SCG is the right consulting firm to focus on achieving your results in social media analytics. Reducing cycle time is a key component of competitive advantage, especially when it comes to sensing market shifts, behavior trends and product preferences and allegiances. SCG helps you achieve Agility by building a specific Listen, Learn, Adapt process that is right for your goals, your products, your markets and targeting potential new segments.