Lately Google has been adding features, such as its Preferred Sites or SearchWiki, that enable users to narrow in on the one result they want even better, or to promote or demote sites in their own future searches. These features will clearly help users find the needle in the haystack, but as they get better for this purpose, we should not expect them to also improve our ability to characterize a whole set of web documents. Here’s an example where searching for the needle can be limiting:  Academics are in the business of pushing forward the boundaries of knowledge. But if you don’t know where the boundaries of knowledge are, its easy to spend a great deal of time reinventing wheels and all manner of other existing technology.

So you’d think that the advent of search engines (including academic search engines like Google Scholar) would make our jobs much easier — and they undoubtedly do in some ways. But here’s the risk: there’s been some evidence lately that these search engines have caused academics to read and cite fewer articles (i.e., only those that appear at the top of search results) and for our articles to be less comprehensive overall.  There’s an ongoing debate about this evidence in academic and technology circles, but you can see how it might happen.  Search engines are about searching for one item; we shouldn’t expect them to be as good at describing the haystack as they are at serving up needles.

Photo credit: pierreyves0

Tags: brand monitoring, research by Gary King
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For everyone that missed the excitement: Motrin, a staid J&J brand, had a social media campaign blow up in their faces last weekend. They posted an online video, aimed at mothers with young children, that was perceived by some ‘Mommy Bloggers’ as condescending and preachy.  A firestorm rapidly ensued on Twitter, video parodies appeared on Facebook, and the social media cognoscenti emerged to offer their counsel to the surprised brand managers. Motrin, to their credit, reacted quickly, pulling the advertisement and issuing an apology within 48 hours.

To borrow a phrase from State Farm’s ad campaign:  Now what ?

Counterintuitively, Motrin is in a great position for its next foray into the social media conversation. The outpouring of customer opinion, albeit negative, has been a fire-hose of feedback on the Motrin product and brand. This feedback can be a valuable resource for Motrin when constructing their social media engagement.

Motrin has the opportunity to use this episode and its unsightly residue in the blogosphere to learn three things that will help their future social media efforts

1. What were people’s initial perceptions of product or brand?
This incident probably generated more text from consumers about Motrin than has been written in the last five years.  The insight mined from these comments can be used to help steer future product innovations or marketing planning .

2. Who are the key influencers in the social network?
Knowing how opinions spread, the key channels, and the node influencers, will help Motrin avoid future problems. By understanding whom they might reach out to and give them a roadmap to spread desirable messaging.

3. How long will the damage last?
Motrin will learn how badly this incident has tarnished their brand, if at all. (Personally, I view this as a case of ‘any publicity is good publicity’). Motrin has found itself with a naturally-occuring case study for gauging the ROI of social media investments.. This lesson can help them weigh the benefits of social media marketing, as well as understand the pitfalls.

Tags: advertising, brand, brand monitoring, uh oh by edward
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Words come in and out of fashion — and election year headlines provide exceptionally rich fodder. Some words and phrases will work their way into everyday speech while others are slated for the dustbin of history.

When new words emerge suddenly to express an opinion we’re tracking with our technology, we’re able to keep up. How?

Our technology “reads” language with an approach based on how humans are likely to express themselves. For example, if you say that a politician is a jerk, stupid, an idiot, etc. and then come up with a new word to describe him (say, fluborizer) that means the same thing , you’ll surely use that word as well as lots of other words already known to the algorithm. Human expression of opinion is often inefficient and repetitive — that’s what makes it recognizable and authentic. Humans’ predictable language patterns enable our technology to keep up with language shifts as they occur.

Our technology — which amplifies human intelligence and can understand new words — can be contrasted to tools which merely count words chosen ex ante. If you set a fixed lexicon and choose the wrong words, you can end up missing the opinion you’re targeting.

Tags: brand monitoring, customer voice by admin
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I stayed up too late last night reading (and then thinking about) Seth Godin’s Tribes. Lots of thought-provoking vignettes about groups and leadership, and the past hierarchies imposed on information that the internet has effectively blown up.

Godin provides an example of Ronald Reagan’s “secret” to leadership: listening.

The secret, Reagan’s secret, is to listen, to value what you hear, and then to make a decision even if it contradicts the very people you are listening to. Reagan impressed his advisers, his adversaries, and his voters by actively listening. People want to be sure you heard what they said– they’re less focused on whether or not you do what they said.

As we talk to brands listening to opinion online, we hear concerns about listening to the negative opinion, and then needing to react to every negative voice. I’m with Tribes on this one: the value of a brand leader’s listening is not only the knowledge you gain to fix every problem — it’s also the the cultivation relationships to make your constituents feel heard.

Tags: brand monitoring, customer voice by admin
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When consumer research giants like P&G and Unilever announce an impending industry shift, it’s time to take notice. It’s no surprise that consumers are tiring of solicited feedback: lately it seems that every online purchase I make from movie tickets on up merits an exhaustive survey. Even a call to a mutual fund company yields an intrusive follow up call to see how the first call went. Phew.

Wouldn’t it be better to minimize the endless questioning, and limit the solicited research to the highest value settings and interactions? That’s the thinking behind this Advertising Research Foundation initiative. ARF is bringing together industry giants to  engage with this consumer research crisis.

We’re hearing about the challenges of finding qualified participants on the solicited research side, and on the monitoring side, a concern around sampling vs. statistically significant results. As the barriers to online content fall one Tweet at a time, we’re thinking we’re closing in on the ability for consumer brand discussions to consistently generate statistically significant insights.

Tags: research by admin
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Seth Godin ponders listening to and engaging with high-volume customers — not the bulk buyers, but the loud kind.

It’s a question we bat around when developing monitors to gauge online opinion. Weighting results for authority and relevance is vital for brand marketers. But how important is it to track the insights in ALL the opinion, and not just the opinion that you subjectively (”everyone reads x”) or objectively (rank, link analysis, etc.) assign?

We see companies starting to do what Seth Godin talks about: amplifying some voices over others by giving them a platform. Whether that’s monitoring and integrating inbound customer messages, opening up blog comments, or hosting a community depends on the level of engagement companies are prepared to offer.

Tags: brand monitoring, customer voice by admin
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