Recently, Radian6 teamed up with MTV, Twitter and Stamen on a twitter visualization application that was used during the pre and post-show roundups of the MTV Video Music Awards. Bringing context-aware/relevant interactivity (eg. TV viewing and Twitter), while not a new activity, combined with the end user device of choice, is where a broad range of opportunities could present themselves. Enter Mariner and their newest Buzz TV application fusing traditional media with the future of now.

Mariner sees their role as helping Service Providers grapple with the social media learning curve and its role relative to the TV, understanding it and exploiting it to drive new revenues, retain and attract customers and even lower operating costs. Newer products like Buzz TV are efforts to take advantage of the convergence of old and new media.

Buzz TV was created in response to a Mediaroom application developers contest. Mariner attended an invitation only conference hosted by Microsoft for their Mediaroom application developers back in July. Part of the event was a challenge put to the attendees-within 30 days submit a concept that uses the Mediaroom middleware for a TV-based application; and deliver a working prototype in 60 days. No small task.

How It Works

Mariner set themselves apart from the competition and put the “buzz” in Buzz TV by integrating the Radian6 tool to to scan hundreds of thousands of blogs, microblogs, websites and social networks.

The Buzz TV application:

• Provides keywords to be searched, (i.e. the TV shows)
• Polls Radian6 periodically to retrieve data
• Formats for TV display
• Calculates the Buzz factors based on the references for each specific show against the total
• Enables re-tweeting from the TV

Don’t Touch that Channel

The team at Mariner believes products like Buzz TV have the potential to keep TV relevant to a very large youth demographic that is drifting away from the Cable/Broadcast medium and makes social media less intimidating to the overall TV-demographic. “We at Mariner think it is not a question of… either/or, we think there is promise in the blending of applications and devices in the new media world. The TV still has a role to play. The “lean back” viewing experience is still popular; now blend this with content-relevant dialogue and interactivity and we may have something,” explains Mike MacNeil, director of marketing at Mariner.

TV is a passive medium, but as the audience changes and adopts interactive media, TV is evolving beyond the “couch potato.” Stay tuned for more on how this application gains traction in both traditional and social media…

Traditional media is not definitely not dead; we are just experiencing the media differently. The possibilities of how to integrate traditional and social media are endless. We are incredibly eager to see what is on the horizon and what role Radian6 could play in powering cool applications to bring online conversations to traditional media.

Social media is not staying confined to the communications department, but stretching its wings in other areas of the enterprise media channels. Interested in finding out how to partner with Radian6 and breaking through communication barriers to introduce new and innovative media consumption? We are all ears.

Fredericton, NB (June 24, 2009) – The social web is touching more and more business processes inside the enterprise. Marketing, customer support, sales, and community professionals increasingly need to understand how the conversations happening in social media impact and drive their customer relationships.

Radian6 helps companies listen to what people are saying about them online and engage in those conversations across the social web. From blogs and comments to multimedia, boards and forums and communities like Twitter, Radian6 gathers the discussions happening online and gives businesses the ability to analyze, manage, track, and report on their social media monitoring and engagement efforts.

Radian6 has now extended its platform to equip team members with deep social media listening and measurement capabilities within the tools they already use. With features developed on their platform API and Social Metrics Framework for integrating third-party data, Radian6 now supports the integration of social customer relationship management (CRM), web analytics, and other enterprise systems.

Social CRM
Customer expectations are shifting, and companies must address the changing needs of the new social customer.  With the proliferation of social networks and other online communities, customers are now more accessible than ever before, and companies are able to connect and provide a remarkable customer experience by listening to their customers and reaching out to them online.

Based on tremendous market demand from its existing and prospective enterprise customers, Radian6 has developed, and is today announcing the availability of the Radian6 and Salesforce.com Social CRM integration.

These new Social CRM integrated capabilities empower your teams across the enterprise, with the following:

•    Sales teams are now equipped with significantly more relevant information about their customers through an integrated view of their customers’ online conversations combined with existing CRM activity history

•    Marketing teams can now meet prospects at their point of need, connecting much earlier in the buying process with real-time listening of online conversations, and reduce the overall cost of qualified leads

•    Customer service teams are now empowered to provide remarkable service by proactively responding to customers on their terms, equipped with an integrated view of their entire case and conversation history.

•    Community and social media teams are provided with context for their outreach and engagement efforts

Radian6 has worked with a variety of its valued enterprise customers, including Comcast, to help define its Social CRM strategy and product capabilities.

“Comcast has always viewed social media as an important communications channel for customers, similar to phone or email,” explains Frank Eliason, Comcast’s Director of Digital Care. “We’re excited to see tools that share this vision of customer service, and are looking forward to tapping Radian6′s integrated social CRM capabilities.”

Web Analytics Integration
Radian6 now brings together web and social media analytics, providing the richest combination of social and online metrics available to determine and articulate social media ROI.

Marketing, community, and social media teams can now map their word-of-mouth or social media initiatives directly to click-throughs and purchases on the website, and view their web activity and performance through the lens of social media. By integrating with Webtrends, Radian6 will enable users to leverage conversational web analytics and:

•    Calculate the ROI of content marketing and outreach efforts by connecting associated social media conversations to website traffic, downloads, conversions or sales

•    Measure the direct benefits of customer advocacy and quantify the value of engaging customers and influencers online

•    Compare which types of social media and communities are most effective in generating positive word-of-mouth, resulting in the desired actions on your website

“The announcement of today’s integration is an ideal example of how our partners are leveraging the Webtrends Open Exchange to benefit customers,” said Jascha Kaykas-Wolff, vice president, marketing, Webtrends. “The social web requires marketers to integrate web analytics with social media monitoring in order to extract ROI from all their online initiatives. The ability to drill down into and analyze social data is here and easy to use.”

“The Radian6 platform can now help businesses understand, on a global level, what kind of impact and resonance their social media content has online, how it’s driving website traffic and sales, and how their customer and prospect base behaves and grows as a result of social media,” says Marcel Lebrun, CEO of Radian6. “Connecting the dots between web analytics, CRM, and social media measurement brings significant clarity and insight to an enterprise’s social media ROI equation.”

For more information about Radian6′s new capabilities and integrations or to request a demo, visit the Radian6 website at http://www.radian6.com.

About Radian6 Technologies

Radian6 provides the social media monitoring platform for marketing, communications and customer support professionals. The company’s flexible dashboard enables monitoring all forms of social media with results appearing in real-time, as discovered. Analysis widgets, streamlined reporting, and integrated workflow capabilities give users the ability to uncover influencers, track and measure engagement and determine which conversations are having an impact online. Integrated social media, CRM, and web analytics also help companies define their social media ROI. For more information, please visit http://www.radian6.com.