This is the presentation material delivered March 25, 2010, at the Social Media Conference Northwest in Mt. Vernon, Washington, by Clay McDaniel of Spring Creek Group. Session name: "Product and Marketing Improvement Through 'Free' Research - Social Media Monitoring as an Alternative Focus Group".

1. Social Media Monitoring as “Free” Focus Group, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Buzz Clay McDaniel Principal, Spring Creek Group March 25, 2010

2. We’ve Got an Hour Together… Let’s make it useful. Historical Context: Bazaars, Souqs, Markets, Pubs, Listening, and You… A Brief Aside on Statistical Significance The Power of Osmosis: Always-On Monitoring What to Harvest, Where, How, and Why Next Steps: 1, 2, 3

3. Historical Context: Back to Basics In the beginning, there was… [Courtesy: Amazon.com “Look inside the book”]

4. Historical Context: Back to Basics PRODUCT + SERVICE + LISTENING = REPUTATION = WORD OF MOUTH + REPEAT SALES = LIVELIHOOD

5. For a Little While There, However,We Kind of Lost Our Way… 1950’s  ~2000: WAAAAAY too much emphasis on this one, courtesy your friends at Life, NBC, CBS, etc. [Courtesy: NetMBA.com]

6. When Brands Ceased to Be Ours, They Became Nothing More Than Theirs Brand! “Tagline” “Cooked-Data Claim” “Message” “Tagline” “Tagline” “Cooked-Data Claim” “Cooked-Data Claim” “Tagline” “Message” “Tagline” “Message” “Cooked-Data Claim”

7. [Courtesy: http://www.cigarettecentury.com/images/MoreDoctors2.jpg]

8. Enter: The E-Commerce & Consumer Empowerment Era! 2000  Present: Product Quality + Service rising ascendant once again! [However, product offerings have expanded dramatically…] Moves with Product Quality Almost Everything, Almost Everywhere Jaded, Tired Buyers [Courtesy: NetMBA.com]

9. Behold, The Rise and Rebirth of theBrand as Proxy for “Product” Brand!

10. The Challenge – and Opportunity –for Marketers Today Don’t “Shift” Purchase Decision-Making. “Simplify” It... Through Trust... Via Active Listening.

11. The Social Media Web Interesting…But What Does All of That Have to Do with the Value of Social Media Research?

12. Remember This? PRODUCT + SERVICE + LISTENING = REPUTATION = WORD OF MOUTH + REPEAT SALES = LIVELIHOOD

13. Social Media: The Land of the Malcontents (or is it?) Naturally Grumpy People Who Have Used Your Product Social Media! Mean / Snarky / Lying Competitors Teenagers, Geeks, and Late-Night Gamers Page 13

14. It’s True, The Motivation to Complain > Motivation to Praise But Remember: For every ‘Hyena’, You Could Be Encouraging a ‘Badger’ …or just nipping something bad in the bud, and demonstrating that you care enough to be open to feedback in the process.

15. Oddfellow’s Café (Seattle, WA) [Courtesy: http://www.thestranger.com]

16. Delfina’s Pizzeria (SF) [Courtesy: 7x7.com]

17. Yours Truly…

18. As @Oprah Says, “When You Know More, You Do Better”

19. Before We Go Much Further A note on statistical significance: De La Soul said “3 is the Magic Number”, but in fact, 33 is the magic number. Traditional focus groups often fail in this regard; surveys and polls do better *if* you can afford the scale.

20. But ‘Traditional’ Research, At LeastI Can Control – and Trust – The Results $ Report [Clipart Courtesy: http://www.marktoon.co.uk/cartoons.htm]

21. Are You Sure? A note on observation and responsebiases: Heisenberg, Schrodinger, Hawthorne, and you, dear researcher… Similarly, the mere act of asking introduces some measure of bias into a ‘traditional’ research exercise.

22. So Maybe It’s Worth At Least Considering This Approach as Well. The Social Media Web ? + [Clipart Courtesy: http://www.marktoon.co.uk/cartoons.htm, www.cksinfo.com, www.4afixit.com ]

23. The Social Media Web Ok, Get on with it… How Can I Learn What People Are Saying About Me, My Products, and My Competitors Online?

24. What It’s All About(courtesy Michael Mann) McCauley (DeNiro): “How did you get this information?” Cezar (Voight): “It’s out there. Just floating around. You just gotta know how to grab it. See, I know how to grab it.”

25. Social Media Research… for “Free” What Can You Learn? The Approach The Tools The Frequency + Some Cool Sites and Potential Eye-Openers

26. 1. What Can You Learn? With survey or focus group research, you enjoy the benefit of… Lots of questions, Which you define. With Social Media Research, you must focus on… Small number of questions, For which you can actually learn answers. The Social Media Web Report

27. Key Questions (which you can actually answer online via social media) Local / Regional Organization: How do people rate/score my business? How do people rate/score my competitors? What do customers say about their experience with my business? Is my business (or another with a remarkably similar brand name) ever mentioned in blogs, forums, or editorial news?

28. Key Questions (which you can actually answer online via social media) National Consumer Brand/Organization: What are people talking about when they cite my brand? What do customers say about their experience with my business? How frequently is my business mentioned on blogs, in forums, in the news, on Twitter? How does that rank relative to my competitors?

29. Key Questions (which you can actually answer online via social media) National B2B Organization: Is anyone talking about my business on the Web? If so, where and how much? If so, what are they saying? If not, is anyone talking about my competitors on the Web? If so, where and what are they saying? Is anyone talking about my industry on the Web? If so, where and how much? If so, could I add value to that community?

30. Key Questions (which you can actually answer online via social media) Global Brand: How much is my brand mentioned online? Where? How does that relate to my competitors? How is volume changing over time? What are my customers saying most frequently when they cite my brand? Which things are good, and which are bad? Where are major brand equity opportunities or problems going to appear first online?

31. Services: Local Directories + Reviews

32. Products: Amazon!

33. 2. A Simple SM Research Strategy Matrix

34. 3. The Tools Blogs, Forums, Mainstream News Media: Google Alerts Daily, unless your volumes are small Your Brand + Key Competitors Trendrr (volumes), Technorati (top sites with ‘authority’) Free-to-Try, Pay-to-Buy Active Monitoring SaaS Tools ScoutLabs Radian6 SM2

35. Google Alerts Free or Paid? Free Where? Google.com/alerts Key Info + What It Does: News, blogs + forums, videos Collects, summarizes, and provides email summary “clipping service” with links Frequency configurable Links to original content

36. Trendrr

37. Technorati

38. 3. The Tools Twitter: ‘Always On’ Monitoring… Tweetdeck, Seesmic Desktop or Web apps, and more Ad-hoc Inquiries… Twitter Search! (search.twitter.com) Seesmic Look (download desktop app from Twendz (www.twendz.com) Visualizations, Relative Charting, etc… Twist (twist.flaptor.com) TwitterStreamGraphs (www.neoformix.com/Projects/TwitterStreamGraphs)

39. TweetDeck

40. Seesmic Look (desktop app)

41. Twendz

42. Twist

43. TwitterStreamGraphs

44. 3. Additional Free SM Monitoring Tools Twitter only: Monitter (http://www.monitter.com/) Twitter fall (http://twitterfall.com) WeFollow (http://www.wefollow.com) CrowdEye (http://crowdeye.com/ ) VisibleTweets (http://visibletweets.com/) #hashtags (http://hashtags.org) Blogs, Forums, and elsewhere in social media land: Scout Labs* (www.scoutlabs.com) *free to try for short period Technorati (www.technorati.com) Alltop + Alltop Search (www.alltop.com) BuzzDing (www.buzzding.com) + several others called out in the comment thread… (http://bit.ly/5QkTV)

45. 3. Paid/Licensed SM Monitoring Tools Blogs, Forums, Communities, Twitter, Soc Networks, Etc.: Visible Technologies’ TruPulse, TruVoice, TruCast Radian6 ScoutLabs CrimsonHexagon Techrigy SM2 Nielsen BuzzMetrics Collective Intellect …and on and on and on…

46. 4. The Frequency (of Monitoring should probably mirror the Activity) © 2009 Spring Creek Group Recommended Frequency Wikis Microblogs YOUR Blog Forums Others’ Blogs (Commenting) Your Press Release Social Networks (Updates / Page Posts) Message Durability

47. 4. The Frequency (of Research and Data Harvest, Not Necessarily Your Engagement) Active Monitoring Alerts: Daily, or As-it-Happens (depending upon volumes and your anxiety level) Twitter, Facebook, etc.: Daily if there’s volume; Several time weekly if not Total Buzz Volumes + Comps: Monthly Brand Sentiment / Product Reviews: Monthly (if possible)

48. 4. The Frequency (Of attention will yield different insights… the power of osmosis) Rapid, Infrequent Data: “WHAT” Consistent Review of the Volume, Sentiment, Tone, Location, & Key Themes over Time: “SO WHAT”

49. And Finally… A Few Cool Sites That Will Allow You To Crowdsource Your Research, Plug into the Zeitgeist, and Ride the Meme Waves

50. Brandtags.net

51. Zeitgeist / Memes (courtesy the engines)

52. Twistori.com

53. Wefeelfine.org

54. Wrap it Up, Already…

55. Prologue: Next Steps 1,2,3 Set up your Google Alerts Spend one month determining where your customers, competitors, others are posting most about you, themselves, and your market Top 2 key social media channels for you: Monthly deep-dives using one or more of the right tools [and lastly, remember what @Oprah said]

56. Prologue: Additional Resources… http://www.slideshare.net/SpringCreekGroup http://www.marketingprofs.com/9/essential-social-media-listening-tools-mcdaniel.asp http://www.slideshare.net/SpringCreekGroup/essential-tools-for-social-media-womma-webinar Mashable.com search on “social” and “monitoring”

57. Thank You. Join / Follow / Read some quality Social Media industry observations at… http://www.SpringCreekGroup.com/blog http://www.facebook.com/SpringCreekGroup http://www.twitter.com/SpringCreekGrp … or, for the truly adventurous and Seekers-of-the-Random-Thought… http://www.twitter.com/ClayMcDaniel http://www.ClayMcDaniel.com