Social media analytics, to a large extent, are meaningless. The number of likes, comments and shares are mostly worthless statistics. The figures give no real insight into the actual value of social media and how it is impacting a brand.
Research shows that an average of seven negative comments on social media leads consumers to think worse about a brand. An average of eight causes consumers to think twice about buying the brand.
Fifty-two percent of people think brands should respond directly if someone leaves a negative comment on social media. 56% of companies researched by the Altimeter Group complained about the inability to tie social media to business outcomes. 39% said there is a lack of expertise and resources and that analytics tools were poor.
The fact remains that negative comments posted on Facebook and Twitter can have a devastating effect on a brand. This can negate the benefit of all the work done to improve the analytics.
In one instance, a negative comment was posted on a company’s Facebook page about poor service, more than a year earlier, with no response by the company and the company hadn’t updated their Facebook page for more than a
year.
Now, New York-based Information Builders has released a social media analytics tool that will analyse social media comments and word trends on Facebook, Twitter, e-mails, blogs and other social media platforms.
Johan Jurd, MD of InfoBuild, the sole representative for Information Builders in SA, says the software, based on Information Builders’ WebFocus business intelligence solution, will analyse key words, sentences and phrases relating
to posts on social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and even e-mails.
“It enables companies to monitor comments in real-time and analyse activity when launching new products and enables them to, follow what people are saying,” says Jurd.
“Facebook content contains a wealth of vital information about consumer sentiment. What image do you portray to your customers? Do they like your products and services? Are they satisfied with the support they receive?”
“Our Facebook Adapter can mine data directly from Facebook, such as publicly accessible comments and posts from walls and applications pages, as well as any other text-based content, in accordance with user-granted
permissions.”
The two main aspects are:
* Sentiment analytics – the software helps determine comments that require immediate attention. It analyses the emotional intensity within large volumes of written text, including Facebook status updates and Tweets, as well as blog posts and e-mails.
Each message is then assigned a sentiment score – displayed as a negative to positive range of numeric values – so it can be prioritised and followed up.
* Word analytics – knowledge of the specific words used to describe your company and its offerings is crucial to your ability to effectively assess public opinion. The software employs an advanced algorithm that breaks sentences into component parts, removes common words, and provides visualisations of the most meaningful words and the frequency of their use over time.
It is easy to identify the words that are gaining popularity, and which ones are positively or negatively impacting the business.
