Social media analytics, to a large extent are meaningless. The number of likes, comments and shares are generally worthless statistics. The figures give no real insight into how social media is impacting a brand. Research shows that negative social media comments can lead to consumers changing brands.
In terms of social media interaction, brands need to respond directly to negative comments. But many businesses lack the expertise, desire or resources to do this.
In one instance, a negative comment was posted on a company’s Facebook page about poor service more than a year earlier. There had been no response by the company who hadn’t updated their Facebook page for more than a year.
Now, New York-based Information Builders has released a social media analytics tool to analyse social media comments and word trends on Facebook, Twitter, e-mails,blogs and other social media platforms.
Christopher Smith, MD of Sha-Izwe Communications, a systems integrator of the product, says the software, based on Information Builders’ WebFOCUS business intelligence solution, analyses key words, sentences and phrases relating to posts on social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms.
“It enables companies to monitor comments in real-time and analyse activity on social media platforms, following what people are saying,” he says.
“Facebook content contains a wealth of vital information about consumer sentiment such as what image does your business portray to customers? What are customers saying about your products and services? Are they satisfied with the support?”
The software analyses large volumes of social media words and phrases. By employing an advanced algorithm that break sentences into component parts and removes common words, and provides visualisations of the most meaningful words and trends and the frequency of their use. It is easy to identify words that are gaining popularity related to your brand, positive or negative.
“By analysing this, businesses are able to follow what people are saying about a product or service on social media or analyse what is being said on competitors’ social media sites,” says Mr Smith.
