What would Microsoft say? Could Twitter become the social model for customer service delivery?

Hear Microsoft’s answer in a Radian6 Twebinar Thursday January 7^th at 2pm EST

How many uses does Twitter have?

With 40 million using 140 characters to communicate, Twitter’s ‘reason for being’ continues to evolve. Twitter’s simple question “What are you doing” helped a U.S. President become elected; helped free American James Buck from an Egyptian jail after issuing his one-word tweet “arrested” – which subsequently inspired a book called Twitterville; helped Dell sell $6.5M in computers – and with Comcast, Ford and now Microsoft as examples, it’s also becoming part of an emerging model for customer service.

What does ‘Social Customer Service Engagement’ look like?

Meet Microsoft’s Elite Tweet Fleet. It’s a new team that tackles customer service issues the social way. The Fleet listens and scours the Twittersphere for customers having problems with their Xbox 360 and asks how they can help. Customers can also contact the Fleet directly on Twitter @Xboxsupport. It’s the brainchild of McKenzie Eakin who created a pilot project to see if communicating socially could help educate and enable customers to help each other. And it worked – so well – that the pilot is now part of the business, working closely with the customer service crew.

Meet the Elite Tweet Fleet in our first Radian6 2010 Twebinar

The Elite Tweet Fleet has been up and running in time for the Christmas rush. Sales for Xbox 360 consoles were close to $1M last month alone and with all the latest Xbox games found under this year’s tree, Xbox consoles are no doubt getting a workout. So our Twebinar next week with Microsoft’s McKenzie Eakin and one of her Elite Tweet Fleet members, Jerry Kansky, will be topical. It will be our first Twebinar in 2010 so collect your questions and join the conversation Thursday January 7^th at 2 p.m. EST.

So… what is a Twebinar?

A Twebinar is a mashup between a live podcast/audio broadcast and Twitter as the backchannel for discussion.

How Can I Participate?

Join us by logging in with your Twitter account on Thursday, Jan 7th (no preregistration is required) or listen to the audio on our Engaged Brand BlogTalkRadio channel.

Since we’ll be using Twitter, just tweet us your questions with a #radian6 hashtag, include a “?” and we’ll be sure to see them. We’ve built the Twebinar interface so you can see all the tweets and discussion at a glance, listen to the broadcast, and submit your questions as we chat.

Twebinar Tips:

• Once the Twebinar has started, log in and you should hear music or the live broadcast. If you don’t hear the audio right away, please refresh your browser.
• If you login before the Twebinar starts, refresh your browser once the Twebinar begins and the BlogTalkRadio (BTR) interface will show up and start playing.
• To ask a question, type it in to Twitter using the #radian6 hashtag and end it with a “?”. We’ll see it.
• Your hosts for this episode will be @ambercadabra and @davidalston. Feel free to send them advance questions on Twitter if you like. We’ll also have @vargasl on hand to help gather and answer your questions during the broadcast.
• If you’d prefer to listen to the audio without the Twebinar interface, you can do so at our BlogTalkRadio channel.
• The full broadcast of the event will be posted on our blog shortly after the event is over, or you can always listen to the archive on BTR.
• Any other questions, leave them here in the comments or ask us on Twitter and we’ll do our best.

The end of the year is perfect timing we address the third step of achieve success in a challenging situation to stimulate positive change. When getting started in social media, you cannot dismiss and ignore an organization’s fears about social media engagement. Social media success is dependant upon a drastic change in corporate culture’s thinking and execution process. Already we have addressed two out of eight steps as defined by leading change management thinker, John Kotter – increasing the level of urgency and building the guiding team.

Now that urgency has been established and there is a team in place to lead, a relevant vision is needed to guide the way. How do you get the vision right?

1. Be creative – Quantitative data is always a necessity, but go beyond the number crunching and discover the emotional needs and desires of your community. Find out what they want to talk about and most, importantly, what they expect of your organization.
2. Capture clarity – One of the hardest things about change is communicating goals so other people see them as you do…with the same passion, intensity and drive. Draw a clear picture of the vision. Demonstrate the engagement that can be achieved.
3. Grasp low hanging fruit – Get the organization behind your team by scoring quick wins with easy opportunities discovered while making the case for change. Don’t try to tackle the big items on your agenda without first proving your team has the ability to succeed.

Stay tuned for how to turn this step into a resolution you can keep in 2010!

Many of us are tidying our desks today before we take a much-needed holiday break before the new year. Santa may have adapted social media, but perhaps your company is not quite there to making the jump into social media or gone beyond monitoring social media into customer engagement. This can be a frustrating situation, but before you leave your desk today, start brainstorming about your social media state of the union and compile your own holiday wish list.

We’ll help you compile the resources you need to make your case, so you can spend the next couple of weeks dreaming about sugar plums and enter the new year with a positive attitude!

1. Courage – Your first conversation (or repeat discussion) with the boss about social media can be a bit intimidating, but if you are prepared, never fear! Go ahead and schedule time on the boss’ calendar in 2010.
2. Bigger Ears – Conversations are happening everywhere and can be a bit overwhelming and hard to make the case for social media if you do not know what you are listening for. Determine what you are listening for, the point of need and what to do if the chatter is not about you.
3. More Time – Let’s face it, even if Santa were to grant us more time in the day, we would still find a way to waste it away. So perhaps, we should scratch the original request and ask for the gift of time management.
4. Additional Arms – The social media strategy for every organization matures at various speeds. No matter what stage of implementation you are experiencing, one person cannot handle it all. Explore how you can assist socializing the organization.
5. Reinforcement – Come back after the new year and discover the new goodies we have in store for you. In the meantime, check out some of the great conversations we have had with people just like you struggling and living the social media life.

Many of you read Chris Newton’s post last week  introducing Radian6′s take on automated sentiment, and we promised some more details on how it works inside the Radian6 system.

So without further ado, give a click and download this handy PDF that walks you through some of the basics of setting up and analyzing automated sentiment capabilities in Radian6. And of course, if you’re a Radian6 user, you can find some nitty gritty details in your dashboard under the FAQ section.

Automated Sentiment is just one of the capabilities we rolled out this past year, too. Have a look at some of the other stuff, like CRM and web analytics integration and Google Sidewiki monitoring, in these earlier posts. We want to help you make the most of Radian6 and the insights it can provide.

In 2010, we’re looking forward to talking more with you about how you’re using Radian6, and what would make it better, easier, and more valuable for you. Many of the features and capabilities we’ve developed and integrated have been based on your input about the value of social media monitoring and engagement, and how you connect the dots between your social media work and other areas of your business.

Please keep the feedback coming. Email us at community@radian6.com anytime with your suggestions and input, and look for more advancements in the coming year for weaving social media monitoring, measurement, and engagement deeper into your business.

Thanks for all of your support this year. We can’t wait to continue the conversation in 2010.

The end of the year is a popular time for reflection, and often times we look big picture to see what the past year has carried with it, and where the future might lead.

While you’re looking at trends and the big stories, though, now is a great time to reflect on your own company and where it stands with immersion and integration of social media. Looking back with an honest eye can help you get a handle on what worked, what didn’t, and how you’d like to sketch out next steps in 2010. Auditing should be as much a part of your business processes as planning.

So gather your team, grab some coffee and bagels, and talk through some of these questions for listening, engaging, and measuring social media.

Listening

1) Are we satisfied with how our listening outposts are set up? Do we feel like we’re getting the data and information we need?

2) What have we heard overall so far? What are the key themes that run through our listening efforts? What are the positives about what we’re hearing, and what do we want to work on?

3) How have we disseminated our listening intelligence through the business? Where could we improve this in the coming year?

4) Where have we focused our listening efforts to date (marketing, branding, PR, customer service)? What other aspects of the business could benefit by more organized listening efforts, and how can we help them integrate it?

5) How can we expand our listening efforts beyond our brand? What about things like industry trends or competitive analysis, and what advantages would those have for us?

Engaging

1) How would we define our engagement and outreach strategy this year on social networks? Was it primarily reactive or proactive? Is that course working for us, and why or why not?

2) What were our goals for participating in social media conversations, and did they change through the year? How?

3) Did this year illustrate the need for social media/engagement guidelines? Or if we already have them, how might we need to update them in the coming year?

4) What did we learn about our community and market’s expectations for things like response time, available information and answers, and what were the topics that came up most?

5) Where might we need to connect internal dots and processes to better flow the information and interactions that come from social media? Are there new/other departments and people we need to involve?

Measurement

1) Are we currently measuring elements of our social media efforts? Which goals do they align with, and what are we tracking?

2) What are we not tracking right now that would help us better understand the impact of our social media programs? What metrics or measurements do we have the capacity to track, and which require new methods?

3) Based on what we’re tracking, what efforts are progressing positively, and how do we define that? Which ones aren’t working as well as we expected, and what will we adjust based on what we’ve measured?

4) How much time are we devoting to measurement proportionally? Does it feel like too much or too little? How can we adjust? Do we have the right tools in hand to do the analysis we need?

5) How are we communicating our learnings from our tracking efforts, and to whom? Is that process working or how do we refine it?

So these are just a handful of ways to look back at 2009 and see where you’ve come, and help chart where you’re headed. You’ve got more, I’m sure, but perhaps these get you thinking.

Ask the hard questions. Ask some that you don’t have answers to, but make it a point to drive toward those answers in the coming year. Think about where you are on the path of social media maturity, and what the next logical steps are based on your available resources, goals, and other priorities.

What else are you looking at to see how your social media programs stacked up this year?

image by xmatt

One of the biggest criticisms of social media and communities is that they involve a lot of mindless chatter. At first and even second blush, this chatter doesn’t seem to lead anywhere and certainly doesn’t suggest hard business outcomes. It is, however, critical to building relationships. Conversational artifacts – the subjects and themes that people talk about – are critical to building long-term and sustainable relationships. Good salespeople have known this forever – it’s why CRM systems in all their clunkyness have space for birthdays, anniversaries, hobbies, etc. While those software fields are rarely used, people with good relationships skills never forget those small facts. Why? It is the mechanism we use to re-engage because it is
rarely effective to ask after an absence “Why haven’t you bought my product or service yet?” That would be darn awkward. Everyone needs some warm up before a game.

An example of the importance of conversational artifacts hit me recently at a conference. I was at the Inbound Marketing Summit and @newmediajim was speaking. He is a photographer/ videographer for NBC in the White House press corps and for those in social media circles a micro-celebrity in his own right because he gives a unique and first-hand account of history. I’ve been following him for quite a while – as someone who worked in Washington D.C. with a politics degree, I am fascinated by the inner workings of government. Other than that, I really have no reason to talk to Jim. Before the conference had started I saw a tweet from him giving some indication that he was having trouble finding the conference location.
I had tweeted back some specific instructions to help them find the entry. I got no response from Jim because I was just one of tens of thousands of followers – we had no relationship.

At some point after Jim’s presentation, he was chatting with someone I knew so I went over to introduce myself and tell him what a fan I was. But then something funny happened. I must have touched his arm when I said hello and he had on a very soft, velvety jacket. I made some comment about it and that led to some good natured bantering. That gave us the conversational space to continue a discussion and we talked for quite a bit about Washington, politics, and social media. Why? Because of Jim’s jacket. Stupid? Absolutely. Critical? Incredibly. Weeks later Jim sent the following tweet:

This is how relationships start – with a common thread and recognition. Talking about Jim’s jacket was an incredibly effective artifact in developing a relationship where he not only recognized me but remembered me well enough to know how to reach me. I’m sure Jim met a ton of other people at the Inbound Marketing Summit and if he’s like me, many of them are hazy memories. But we had a very funny conversation about something that really didn’t matter that much to either of us. I now know that I am likely to hear back from him if I have a question for him. Now in this case, I’m not at all sure that Jim and I will ever do business together per se but the example serves to illustrate a really important point about mindless chatter. It is exactly how we can start to orchestrate serendipity. For example, it was recently announced that NBC is being bought by Comcast. My husband’s company was recently purchased by Comcast. Maybe that ends up being a helpful connection. I don’t know that it will be but I can take an educated guess that it might be. Orchestrating lots of those probable opportunities leads to connections and relationships with people that matter. Over time you can track it.

I am a strong proponent of planning for specific business outcomes with social media and community initiatives and because of that, it is critical to understand the power chatter has to those outcomes. Does it make it harder and noisier to isolate the drivers of the business outcomes you are looking for? Maybe but I think that noise has always existed in the workflow, it is just that traditional database-driven applications do not do a great job of tracking or exposing it.

For social media managers looking to get political buy-in for some of these tools that can seem ‘chatty’, I recommend doing exactly what I did here – engage influencers and show some of the conversations to your colleagues. Many of them will be surprised at how quickly you can build personal connections and relationships with people who are critical to the hard business outcomes for which they are looking.

On this blog and across various other channels on the social web, we like to talk with you about the general principles and best practices of social media engagement and how you can encourage your organizations to monitor, listen and engage online. Several people on our team have been asked to speak about these topics to our budding generations of communicators and marketing professionals. Often, it was lamented that we did not have a program in place for students to use the Radian6 platform in a public relations campaigns or research course and get a hands-on social media monitoring experience before entering the real world.

Lament no further…Many of you asked for it and now we have it! We are pleased to announce the Radian6 Higher Education Trial Program. Faculty members (on behalf of their undergraduate classes) and graduate students can now apply to use the Radian6 platform for four weeks at no cost.

Each Radian6 Higher Education Trial Program session is for a period of thirty days only. To be considered as a candidate for this trial program, you must be a faculty member representing one undergraduate class or a graduate student currently enrolled in an accredited college/university. Each candidate will receive a training webinar. A webinar is mandatory before having access to the platform. We host them live via web conference, and they’re super easy.  They take about 30 minutes, and are designed to help answer your questions and give you a solid walk-through of our platform. Up to two additional hours of training will be be given to each candidate throughout the trial session to assist with their area of research.

Currently, we are only accepting three candidates (two undergraduate classes and one graduate student) per session throughout the Spring 2010 semester. The submission deadline for Session 1 is 28 December. Candidates will be notified of selection 30 December. If you are not immediately selected, we will keep your information handy for the next month’s selection.

Please email the following information to Lauren Vargas at lauren.vargas@radian6.com:

First Name:
Last Name:
College/University:
City, State, Country:
Work Phone:
Email Address:

If a student, what is your class standing?:

• Freshman
• Sophomore
• Junior
• Senior
• Graduate Study

If a faculty member, what are your research specialties or teaching interests using the Radian6 platform?

If a graduate student, what are your research specialties using the Radian6 platform?

Please select trial session of interest in order of preference:

• Session 1: 4-29 January
• Session 2: 1-26 February
• Session 3: 1 March – 2 April
• Session 4: 5-30 April

We are looking forward to the new year and this exciting new program for students! Along the way, we will share our findings and feedback with you about how students are experiencing and using the platform. So, apply today to become a part of the trial program or please pass along to educators and other relevant college/university programs.

Ho, ho, hold the social phone. Come on now, Santa is as about old skool as you can get.  He’s the jolly-old poster child traditional isn’t he – what with the sleigh transportation and sticking to snail mail for most of his communication?

Could he really change? Has he seen the light, dug out from under that snow bank of old ways and is he really trying something new?  What signs would we look for with this secretive, red & white clad, ZZTop facial-haired man to know something had changed?

In the spirit of good cheer, here are the 10 ways we think you’ll know that Santa’s embraced social media this year:

10. Foursquare shows him checking into your livingroom, and another 2 billion livingrooms for that matter on Christmas Eve;

9. Job posting appears on LinkedIn for “Elf of Social Media”;

8. TechCrunch first to break the story of Santa’s Sleigh 2.0 feature release;

7. #cookiesandmilk top trending hashtag on Twitter;

6. “Fan of Rudolph” appears in your Facebook friend requests list;

5. Ashton scrambles to come up with new picture of Demi brushing her teeth in the bathroom as @jollyoldstnick moves into top spot;

4. Mrs. Claus seen crowdsourcing new knitted gift ideas on her blog;

3. Santa’s Village Entertainment launches joint venture with Fred Figglehorn creating The Elf Channel on YouTube;

2. Status update email from TripIt shows Kris Kringle about to start trip to 43,244 cities the week of December 21st;

…and the number one way you’ll know Santa has embraced social media this year is…

1. Announces he’s using social media monitoring this year to to help him know who’s been naughty and nice

Happy holidays everyone.

We are closing in on the end of 2009 and everyone is trying to get a pulse of the industry to predict what the future holds. Marketing Profs helps shed some light on this topic with the recent release of their State of Social Media Marketing study. This research was conducted using the input of a panel of social media experts and survey responses of more than 5,000 Marketing Profs readers. In addition to these audiences, comScore mined its own panel data and shared with Marketing Profs to get an unbiased look at global usage of social media among non-marketers.

Some of the study’s key findings syncs up with our monthly topic of making the case for social media:

• The majority of companies do not have a social media policy or online interaction guidelines in place, but that having said policy/guidelines, leads to less internal confusion or more effective social media marketing. Why should your organization have a social media policy or rules of engagement?
• The majority of marketers state their measurement of return on investment (ROI) for their participation in social media is mediocre or average. The good news is, over half report they are using some form of tracking. How do you begin to make the case for social media with measurement?
• Only 15% of social media marketers state their job descriptions include blogging, posting or networking responsibilities. However, more than 50% of marketers indicate they are integrating social media into their existing job responsibilities. What is the first conversation you have with the boss to get started in social media and begin integrating new tools?

The report is divided into three sections and focuses on company, individual marketer and consumer use of social media. Each section delves further into exploring how social media responsibilities are currently being integrated into traditional tools, mindsets and culture. While perusing the report, you may find our very own David Alston quoted along with several other social media marketers.

One of the neatest things about this report is the section about how the self-reported Myers-Briggs personality types of social media marketers mesh with their industry responsibilities. Those who are social media marketers are more likely to be ENTJ (Extrovert-iNtuitive-Thinking-Judging) and enjoy mixing their personal and professional lives more so than the general population at ISFJI (Introvert-Sensing-Feeling-Judging).

How is social media changing?

While one cannot predict the future, it is always interesting to speculate what is on the horizon. Here are some highlights:

• Increase in case studies integrating social media with traditional tools/channels
• Increase in comfort level for expressing social media needs, desires and challenges
• Increase in social media policies/guidelines allowing for more open corporate culture

Many tool trends were mentioned, but the relevance of those remain to be seen. This report gives great insight into how we are moving forward as an industry, sharing knowledge and learning valuable lessons along the rocky road of social media integration. Happy reading and processing!

Measuring the performance of your social media campaign might be the hot button topic of 2009 and 2010 however it also seems akin to the recent mess with Tiger Woods in that everyone has an opinion and only a few really know what’s going on.

In the race to measure progress, some have:

• totally distorted the true definition of R.O.I (it is return on investment no matter what anyone tells you)
• given people a list of metrics to use without regard to whether or not they fit the company’s goals
• provided a similar list of metrics without any background in how to calculate them
• tried to apply traditional media metrics to social media
• quite frankly, made it harder on those of us legitimately trying to crack the social media measurement nut!

I’ve sat through a number of presentations this year where social media strategists with large corporations say that, for the moment, they aren’t as concerned with finding dollar-for-dollar impact of their efforts. Before we jump on them for it, let’s take a step back and realize that there will come a time when showing that impact is essential or there won’t be a social media budget.

Now, what I am comfortable in saying is that these folks are measuring their progress in some way, and that they’ve arrived at those metrics by going through a relatively simple process. You see, we (communications pros) like to make things harder than they really are. Are the metrics we use to measure social different than traditional? Yes, absolutely. Is the process by which we determine the metrics to use any different? Absolutely not! So what does that process look like?

• Benchmark research – Giving a number of talks myself over the last five years about measurement, I know that this is a step often skipped by communications pros. Don’t do it! Like traditional programs, conducting social media research is essential to establishing the baseline by which you measure progress. In social media, that has traditionally been through listening. However, there are those of us, including my friend Adam Cohen, who are talking about many other kinds of research that we can conduct before creating our social media goals and strategy. Whether it’s listening, or gathering data from Adam’s seven other sources, make sure you’ve allotted the money to conduct this research. You won’t be disappointed. 
• Establishing measurable goals – This is where we commonly get tripped up. What does a measurable goal mean? In its simplest terms, it’s a statement that combines elements of time, change (typically a numerical figure) and the behavioral element we are trying to alter. The goals should be based in large part on what we’ve discovered through our benchmark research (read: they shouldn’t come out of thin air). They should also be reasonably attainable. Far too often we create measurable goals at the high end of a range, which is only setting us up for criticism and failure down the line.
• Developing our strategy and tactics – Here is where we can finally get down to talking about the “fun” stuff. Obviously, the strategy and tactics should seamlessly flow from the research you’ve conducted, and the goals you’ve created.
• Implementation – Now, you can put your research, your measurable goals, your strategy and tactics to the test. Did your due diligence pay off? 
• Measurement – After you’ve conducted your research, established your goals, developed your strategy and tactics, implemented your plan you come down to the part where you figure out whether or not you’ve achieved what you hoped to achieve. Katie Paine always says this step isn’t about placing blame; it’s about ensuring that your communications programs achieve what they are meant to achieve. She’s right, obviously, and this is where you determine what changes you might need to make so that you can achieve those goals.

You see, if we return to basics on how we measure, measuring social media becomes less of a Rubik’s Cube®, and more something we can easily manage.

Before I turn you loose, I’d highly recommend that you check out what Katie Paine, Don Bartholomew and Olivier Blanchard are also writing on this subject. If you get stuck walking through the above steps, make sure you ping any of us on Twitter, or on our blogs. We’re working to make social media measurement as easy as we can!

About Chuck

Chuck Hemann is the manager of research and online reputation management for Dix & Eaton, a communications consultancy, based in Cleveland, Ohio, with specialized expertise in social media strategies and tools. You can connect with Chuck on Twitter and at his blog that tackles a myriad of PR/social media-related topics. The views in this post belong to Chuck Hemann and do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of his employer.

Thanks to all of you who joined us for today’s Engaged Brand Twebinar with Edward Boches, the Chief Creative Officer and Chief Social Media Officer at Mullen. We really enjoy it when you come prepared with questions and boy were you guys prepared today.

Edward has such a passion for social media. It was evident in all aspects of our conversation. His enthusiasm and expansive knowledge on the topic is definitely worth a second listen. So be sure to download the Mullen podcast.

I put together some of the highlights from today’s Twebinar but, seriously, there were so many awesome insights you really should listen to the podcast.

Some of Edward’s tremendous take-aways on Social Media:

• The cool thing about social media is that you can do a lot of things quickly, learn from them and then do something else.
• Counting fans and followers is a vapid metric. The quality of your followers is much more important than quantity.
• One word-of-mouth recommendation is worth more than 200 TV ads.
• People are turning to their social friends for recommendations.

Why should you get involved in Social Media?

• If you don’t you will be obsolete so fast
• It is the most exciting, inspirational, creative source of media. It is a revolution. It gives you more access to thinkers and new ways to expand your tribe

The 25 tactic when using Social Media:

• 25% of the time, talk about yourself or promote yourself.
• 25% of the time, promote content created by your followers.
• 25% of the time, identify and share links that will be useful to your community.
• 25% of the time, engage in dialog, answer questions and interact with your community.

If you take that approach people will spread your content, share things back with you, say nice things about you and share word-of-mouth.

Current Trends:

• Consumers want to participate, not just watch.
• People’s relationship with media is way more complex than it used to be, eg Obama’s inauguration.
• There are so many choices and options that people no longer have the same shared experience like they did when there were only 3 TV channels. People want to be connected to as individuals. Brands should customize their approach and invite communities to participate.

What is next for Social Media?

• In 1 or 2 years we won’t be using the word Social Media, everything will be Social.
• CrowdSourcing: Invite co-creation for everything you do. Your community will create content.

If we didn’t get to your question today, make sure you follow @edwardboches on Twitter. You can connect with him directly and see what he’s up to next. And be sure to check out his new blog TheNextGreatGeneration.com, it’s written entirely by Gen-Y 18-25 year olds who will share their thoughts on life, love and everything in between.

Thanks again for listening and participating. Here are a couple of the cool tweets that took place during the Twebinar:

One of the most talked about capabilities of social media monitoring platforms is sentiment analysis, more specifically the automation of same. It’s a technology that’s important and can be valuable to companies’ social media analysis, but it’s critical to understand how it works, when it’s useful, and what its limitations are.

At Radian6, we’ll be publicly releasing our automated sentiment capabilities inside the platform early next week, and they’ll be immediately available to all current and new customers. As a bit of background, however, we thought we’d talk a bit about what we see as the role of automated sentiment in social media monitoring and engagement, and how Radian6 is approaching it.

What is Automated Sentiment technology, and How Does Radian6 Use It?

Automated sentiment analysis is a system for automatically determining the sentiment of a sentence or phrase. Sentiment refers to the thought or mood of a post and can be either positive, neutral or negative.

Radian6 automated sentiment reviews on-topic posts as they come in, determines the sentiment of the post at the sentence level, and aggregates a positive, negative, or neutral designation at the post level based on specified sentiment keywords and phrases. If a particular document or post touches multiple topics, sentiment can be determined for each separate topic.

Stay tuned on the Radian6 blog next week for more detail on Radian6′s automated sentiment capabilities.

What Automated Sentiment Can Help With

As a first pass, automated sentiment analysis can help streamline the workflow of processing a high volume of posts by providing preliminary determinations of sentiment for each post. Users can then follow up with review and manual adjustment as necessary. Automated sentiment also provides an initial snapshot of postive-negative-neutral ratios, and can help identify trends at a macro level such as sparklines or aggregate changes in sentiment over time.

Looking at ratios of positive to negative sentiment over time can sometimes indicate collective brand preferences as expressed online, or the overall mindset or mood of audiences. The unfiltered and unedited nature of the opinions expressed on the social web and tracked through sentiment analysis can sometimes offer a more realistic, less clinical view of how customers and communities are responding to companies and brands.

Armed with this high level analysis and trend information, Radian6 users can better craft engagement strategy, understand hot button issues and topics around their brand, and reach out to their customers informed about the pulse of opinion about the company and it’s work.

Automated Sentiment and The Human Factor

Sentiment analysis, whether automated or manual, is a subjective process and always needs to be considered in the context of business goals.
What’s read as positive for one person or in one context might be considered neutral for another, so businesses need to consider and outline criteria for positive, negative, and neutral definitions based on their goals for online presence and engagement.

In addition, the complexity and nuance of the English language combined with available technologies for text analytics means that sentiment analysis cannot currently achieve 100% accuracy. In fact, accuracy rates across sentiment analysis engines can be highly variable, as the criteria to define an “accurate” sentiment determination is also somewhat dependent upon human interpretation and context.

There will always be a need for human review and involvement to verify automated results, and ensure that sentiment levels are tagged within the context of individual and unique business goals and agreed upon criteria.

For More on Radian6 Sentiment Analysis…

Stay tuned for a post early next week with some additional detail about the technical features of Radian6′s automated sentiment, and information on how to set it up inside your Radian6 dashboard. And as always, if you have questions or feedback for our team regarding this or any other feature, we’d welcome your input and conversation.

Image by richkidsunite

For some organizations, social media is a big playground and moving the conversations and relationships into that space is a natural move. For others, social media is explored because executive management sees an article in a business magazine or hears about Twitter and other online channels through CNN or other mainstream sources. Finding the motivating factor for many organizations is a tough nut to crack, but we are here to help you find a solution and make a relevant case for social media.

Knowing what you want out of social media and preparing the foundation for growth is just the beginning of what several organizations require before engaging. Locating an organization’s driving force for entering social media does not have to be an enigma if you know the general areas where you may find your source of inspiration that will spur your company into action.

First, you have to listen.

• What is provoking your community to participate in the social media space? The answer to the force you seek may not be found within your organization’s walls, but within the community you serve. Determine the rationale for why your community is flocking to social networks. Take a pulse of their attitudes and behaviors and how this compares to their offline engagement.
• Who are the people talking about you? Determine where these conversations are occurring and identify influencers…they are out there, but if they are not in the numbers that will generate interest for your organization, go beyond your own buzz.
• What are your competitors doing? Flip the conversation and begin seeking business intelligence. If your competitors are engaging in social media, determine where and why they are participating. If your competitors are not on the social media bandwagon yet, capitalize on this opportunity to grow online relationships.
• Where is there opportunity in your industry? Listen for the point of need. People are expressing their wants, needs and desires and you will only glean insights from this information if you are listening.

The first conversation you have with your boss about social media does not have to be nail biter if you have built a case on what you have gleaned from listening. Knowing what urges your community to foster discussion offers a wealth of inspiration and motivation for your organization to engage and become part of the conversation

& MTV is listening….

MTV is changing TV – yet again.  It’s listening and engaging with its audience – which at first glance, just sounds smart, not new.  But when you consider the audience is engaging from Twitterville, it starts to sound really interesting.

TV and Twitter Talking Together?

What do Tiger Woods, Adam Lambert and Twilight’s movie cast have in common?  While it sounds like the start of a bad joke, they’re actually the hot topics among the at-home TV audience for an MTV pop culture show – where real-time conversations from Twitter are integrated into the content of the TV show; “It’s On With Alexa Chung”.

Alexa Chung is a 26-year-old former British model turned TV host. Her American MTV show debuted in June featuring celebrity interviews, live music and videos: a mash up of TV and web to attract a young audience who spends time on Facebook and Twitter.

The audience interacts across a number of platforms:  TV, online and mobile. There’s a large and active following on Twitter. The show engages that Twitter audience who tweet their thoughts about the guests and the show. Then MTV takes the pulse of viewers by aggregating the themes of those Twitter conversations. What’s cool is that MTV then reflects that picture back to the audience via a visualization called Twitter Tracker.

MTV’s Twitter Tracker visualizes the volume of tweets around a guest or show topic based on the Twitter activity generated by MTV’s hosts, guests and fans. An individual who will never step inside the MTV studio is still able to engage, contribute content and become a catalyst to generate even more conversations – while becoming part of a community of fans and part of the story.

The show broadcasts weekdays for 30-minutes but the Twitter Tracker keeps the pulse of conversation going for the other 23.5 hours a day on its website — giving fans the opportunity to engage anytime.  This builds on MTV’s continued leadership in being a brand that engages its audience where, when and how they want.

The Genesis of Twitter Tracker:

The potential to use this innovative application with a daily audience has its roots in a couple of successful one-time shows. Twitter visualizations were first used during the MTV Video Music Awards show September 13^th and again during the European Music Awards show November 5^th.  As the shows were being broadcast, the Twitter Tracker was reflecting what people at home were tweeting about the show, connecting the at-home audience with a TV host who was reporting what was being tweeted. The show inspired the tweets and the audience’s tweets fed the show.  What celebrity doesn’t want instant feedback?

Here’s a taste of the first MTV Twitter visualization at the VMAs:

How it works and why it’s important:

These applications and content are created through a partnership of MTV, Twitter, Stamen Design and Radian6. Stamen creates the great visuals and applications that plug into the Radian6 platform.

For Radian6, it’s great to have clients like MTV who use the Radian6 platform in new and different ways. It also shows the potential of integration of social media with TV and other forms of offline media.

More importantly it shows how MTV works on growing a community. Engaging their audience and fans online at any time of day keeps them connected with content, not just during a broadcast. It also enables a window into the audience to discover what they’re thinking and talking about.  It’s no longer just about watching TV; it’s about enabling a live interaction between the show and the audience.  By bringing the community into the content, brings new people into the conversation and reinforces to the audience that they are part of the whole experience.

So what’s next?

MTV has been a leader in pretty well everything in media since it launched in 1981.  It’s a network built on firsts: in programming, technology, popular culture and personalities.  They’ve continually shaped and reflected the new and the emerging and no doubt will challenge us at Radian6 with new ideas to engage their community in the experience.

About Rob: Rob Begg is Radian6’s Director of Business Development for the media and entertainment industries.  You can connect with Rob on Twitter @rbegg.

“Turbulence is life force. It is opportunity. Let’s love turbulence and use it for change.” –Ramsay Clark

Social media has rocked the way organizations communicate with their communities. While social media is nothing new (we have always endeavored to foster mutually beneficial relationships), the tools are new and the dialog is open and direct without a middle man interpreter. This turbulent change may be uncomfortable, but has the potential to rocket your organization into another dimension of community engagement!

When getting started in social media, you cannot dismiss and ignore an organization’s fears about social media engagement. Social media success is dependant upon a drastic change in corporate culture’s thinking and execution process. Leading change management thinker, John Kotter, states there are eight steps to achieve success in a challenging situation and stimulate positive change. We have already addressed the first step of increasing the level of urgency. Now, let’s move on to the second step, building the guiding team.

One person cannot change the tide of an organization on his/her own. A collaborative effort is required. Finding and recognizing the individuals necessary to blend together and drive a social media vision is not a difficult process, but must be thorough and set the stage for the remaining change management steps.

1. Determine Purpose: The guiding team should ensure change is successfully implemented and entrenched within the organization. Their vision and goals must be clear, but we will talk about how to ensure clarity in future steps.
2. Create Team Composition: The team should balance a whole range of skills, experiences and viewpoints and include people who are trusted, respected and share an understanding for change, strong leadership and communication skills, and represent all levels of the organization.
3. Establish Emotional Commitment: It is essential all members of the team be emotionally aware this change is much more about the future health of the organization than it is about them. Team members must be invested in the well being and growth of this team and vision through good times and those rocky, turbulent moments.

Finding your social media superheroes is a great first step to building your guiding team. However, you need more than the social media savvy to make your vision a success! Don’t forget to invite your harshest critics into the fold (like your legal team). Learning up front what their concerns are and inviting them to help overcome those obstacles is the quickest way to establish buy-in and help the enterprise socialize.

How did your organization build your guiding team? Who is representative? What makes the team gel? Please share your experiences, strength and commitment with us.

Sidewiki has been a hot issue since Google announced its release in late September. Why is it so hot? Google Sidewiki is a browser sidebar that enables you to contribute and read helpful information alongside any web page. Sidewiki provides an easy way for users to share their insights about any page on the web. Now any web page is social.

Google Sidewiki Monitoring Support

Last month, we rolled out Googel Sidewiki monitoring support because we know many of you asked if Sidewiki posts will be included in Radian6 results. By adding the Sidewiki feed URL as a Source Filter in your Topic Profile Configuration, Sidewiki posts will show up as comments in your Radian6 results.

So, we are making it easier than ever to put on your listening ears and find out what is being said on Google Sidewiki. As a Radian6 user, check out our newest training resources to assist you in configuring your Topic Profile to gather Sidewiki results:

• Training Video: Google Sidewiki available on your Radian6 Dashboard Video Tutorial area
• Radian6 Google Sidewiki Quick Reference Guide

It’s often the case that conversation revolves around the notion of brands coming to their agencies and saying, “We’ve got to be using Social Media!” The agency then calmly guides the brand through the steps. See, that was easy, wasn’t it?

But there are still many skeptics. Still many brands that aren’t sure they are ready to dip their toes in the water, let alone dive in headfirst. As a Social Media practitioner, what are you to do then? You know the value, but how do you make the case for Social Media? This issue was brought up by Radian6’s own Amber Naslund during a session at the Web 2.0 Expo in New York City in mid-November. The resulting dialogue brought the issue into sharp relief as many in the room shared the frustrations and challenges they experienced regarding this very issue.

Let me be very blunt. If the senior management isn’t interested in it, doesn’t get it and doesn’t support it, you can pretty much forget about. It will be about as smooth as riding a giant piece of sandpaper down a gravel driveway while wearing a burlap sack. Sure, you could do it, but by the time you get to the end you’ll wonder why you even attempted it in the first place.

I really can’t stress this enough. Senior management buy in is critical. Without it, every tweet will be scrutinized; every blog post will be measured by some form of ROI; and every status update will need to go through four rounds of legal counsel. Or, they’ll just decide that “Social Media doesn’t work” because they didn’t see a spike in Q3 sales.

Ok, let’s move up the dial a little bit. How do you make the case for Social Media to a senior management group who is skeptical, but willing to give it a try? You start small, you start guerrilla and you work against a goal that scratches where senior management has an itch.

Here’s what I mean: Before pitching senior management on a Social Media strategy, work the organization horizontally (if you are internal). Or you may have to do a pilot project on the (real) cheap if you are an agency. Find someone sympathetic to the cause and do a little something with them. It doesn’t have to be a full blown initiative, just a little something. A Facebook page, a Flickr stream. Something manageable. But also, something that will yield results that senior management will take notice of.  Are they freaked out about Customer Service costs? Then show them how you can solve via Twitter without those pricey call centers.

Now, when you are ready to speak with senior management you can show them the results of you inexpensive pilot program and the money it saved and / or revenue it generated. It won’t be a lot, but it will at least show them the potential. We have to remember that senior management has a different set of needs and challenges and we have to speak in a language that will resonate. Oftentimes that means a little less touchy feely and a little more bottom line.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year… (Hum along with me.) No, it is not wonderful just because the holiday season is upon us, but because The Engaged Brand is starting off another month with rockin’ content to help you make the case for social media.

Some think that making the case for social media is to engage and ask for forgiveness later. While this may work for some, it is not the best way to gain enterprise-wide buy-in or make the case for social media to be a program and not a mere campaign. Check out the content we are sharing with you to help you lay the foundations for a strong social media strategy that is aligned with your organization’s business goals and objectives:

• Introducing Social Media: The First Conversation With Your Boss
• The Anatomy of Engagement Guidelines Pt 1 – Social Media Policy
• The Anatomy of Engagement Guidelines Pt 2 – Rules of Engagement
• Fostering Social Media Success With Your Legal Team
• Why Measurement Makes the Case
• The Why and How of Social Media Participation
• Video: Bigger than TV?

Also, don’t forget to join us in December for two brand new twebinars. This is your chance to participate, ask questions and share your experiences. We are incredibly excited about the content this month and the conversations we hope it will spur.

Need more? Have we missed something? Got a topic you’d like us to tackle or a case study you’d like to see? A social media challenge you’re trying to solve. Let us know on The Engaged Brand.

The era of mass media introduced a lot of changes in how businesses communicate with customers.  It has also had a huge impact on society, as Marshall McLuhan noted: media such as TV and radio would shrink the globe into a “global village“, a term he coined in his book Understanding Media (1964), which I briefly reference in the video.

So what about social media?  Will its effect on society and, more specifically, on business communications be a passing fad or will it have a greater impact than the era of mass marketing?

Here is my riff on that question.  Please let me know your thoughts on the subject.

Today is World AIDS Day and (RED) would love you to help turn the web (RED). Imagine a world united – in red; united in purpose – to eliminate AIDS in Africa.

What is (RED)?

Remember the big splash Bono made in 2006 (with Oprah) for the launch of (RED), the brand he founded with Bobby Shriver to help eliminate AIDS in Africa? It’s a brand that brought iconic brands together to create (PRODUCT) ^RED™ items that generate contributions on each sale. (RED) has ten (PRODUCT)^RED partners that contribute as much as 50% of the profits from each (PRODUCT)^RED sale to the Global Fund, to help fight AIDS in Africa.

The Role for Social Media:

This year, Social Media has a big role to play during World AIDS Day through a new campaign. Chrysi Philalithes is (RED)’s Director of Digital Strategy & Marketing and she says there are lots of ways to participate: “For Facebook, we are asking people to share the Lazarus Effect video and change their profile picture to a (RED) one.  For Twitter we are asking people to use the hashtag #red”. She says this single day of turning Facebook and Twitter (RED) can “show the power of social media” to unite people around the globe to support people living with HIV and AIDS in Africa.

The reason to support (RED) this World AIDS Day:

3,800 men, women and children in sub-Saharan Africa die from AIDS every day. But AIDS doesn’t have to be a life sentence. Two pills/day costing about 40 cents can make the difference – enabling a person with HIV to live a healthy, full life with their families. This transformation is called “The Lazarus Effect.”

Chrysi says (RED)’s theme this year is “ONE COLOR UNITES US” and “cities, brands, organizations and people are all coming together to show their support” by turning the themselves (RED) on World AIDS Day.

What is Radian6 doing today?

Already blogs and other social media are spilling over with information about events for World AIDS Day. Radian6 is pleased to support (RED) today, along with one of its customers, DELL, which is a (RED) partner. Radian6 is conducting social media monitoring and analysis of conversations connecting communities around the globe who are doing their part to turn the world – and the web – (RED) today.

As business people, we’re becoming more and more inundated with the presence of social media and the real-time nature of the social web. Our interests range from skepticism to curiosity to rampant enthusiasm, but one thing remains clear: social media in a business context needs a business case to go along with it.

If you’re exploring how social media fits into a business context, you’ll need several strategies to build a strong case for it, and this month, we’re going to help you lay the foundations.

If social media is new to your business, we’ve got some ideas for framing out the first conversation you should have about social media. From laying a groundwork for social media understanding to broaching some of the key topics and questions like strategy, resources, and how to measure social media, we’ve got some succinct conversation starters to get you in the door.

To help keep the discussion focused, build your conversations with your team, your clients, or management around three key principles of social media: listening, engaging, and measuring.

Making the case for listening might start with seeing how your own company is faring on the web, but sound listening strategy goes well beyond brand monitoring. Learn how to mine the social web for critical business intelligence, understand how and where your strongest advocates are participating in social media, and discover how prospects identify themselves through social channels.

When you’re ready to make the leap to participation in social media, it’s important to consider all the important aspects to engagement. We’ve got a quick discussion guide for you for The Why and How of Social Media Participation that talks about some of the most consistent culture elements of social media and social networks, and why participation can hold for your business.

And to be sure you’ve planned ahead, check out Part 1 of the Anatomy of Engagement Guidelines that’ll walk you through considerations for drafting social media policies and guidelines in your organization. Part 2 takes you through the important pieces of guiding social media participation inside your company, including thoughts about what to moderate and how to manage information flow.

If you’re in a company where regulatory issues are in play, or you’re accustomed to legal review of communication materials, you’ll want to check out this ebook on Fostering Social Media Success with Your Legal Team, with ideas on how to bring you or your clients’ corporate counsel into the discussion about social media participation. The tough critics matter, too.

No conversation about justifying social media would be complete without a chat around measurement, so we’ve started the discussion here with Why Measurement Makes the Case, including some ideas for demonstrating the impact of your efforts. But never fear; if more discussion on measurement, ROI, and the new world of new media metrics has you hungry for more, we’ve got you covered. Stay tuned for a future month of The Engaged Brand dedicated to all things social media measurement.

This month is full of resources and ideas for how to get your company or client conversation started around social media. What else would you add? What ideas and approaches have been successful for you? Let us know, and happy reading.