Harnessing the power of online conversation
19 July 2011
The rise of social media as a new medium for public discussion has opened up a vast market of opportunity. For those that listen in and analyse what’s being said effectively, the rewards can be limitless.
Understanding and monitoring what people are saying about your brand places you in a real position of power. With the knowledge of what’s being said, businesses can work to adapt, react and improve.
A capable partnership
ORC International works in partnership with Social Radar, an industry leading social analytics tool. With the help of the tool, clients can measure the level of ‘buzz’ around their products, services or brand. Social Radar has been collecting billions of messages and articles from millions of online sources since 2007.
The online reach
If people have a particularly good or bad customer experience, they will often want to tell people about it. Whereas in the past, the reach of this discussion would largely be limited to friends and family, the potential spread has now increased exponentially.
One tweet or blog entry by an influential user can have a huge positive or negative impact on a brand. It is estimated that 31% of consumers comment on products or services online. eMarketer predicts that in 2011, the number of bloggers will reach 28.1 million, while the number of readers will reach 122.6 million.
The value of tracking
There are rewards for those who embrace the technology. A businessman brought a ticket on a train from London to Manchester. He had an allocated seat and was expecting to do some work on the journey to prepare for a day filled with meetings. However, the booking system had a fault and when he boarded the train, there was no seat allocation, his seat was taken and he was forced to stand in a packed train all the way to Manchester. During this time, he used his Smartphone to tweet about how terrible the train company was.
This particular train company was monitoring online conversations. When the man got off the train, he was greeted by a surprise. A representative was waiting on the platform, holding a sign with his name on it. The man approached and the company apologised and offered him compensation.
This is an extreme example of a company that was able to turn a negative into a positive and create an advocate from an unsatisfied customer.
The real value of ORC International’s Social Radar is that it allows an organisation to be reactive. If something is going wrong and customers are talking about it, our services can help you to quantify this so you can take action to prevent negative perceptions in the future.
