Social Media Analytics Podcast Availalbe

January 9, 2012

Text Analytics News has posted the podcast of their insightful Social Media Analytics Panel. Check it out for a taste of what you can expect at April’s inaugural Social Media Analytics Summit.

The panel brings together Bill Touhig of J.D. Power & Associates, Robin Seidner of Radian6, and Beyond the Arc’s Steven J. Ramirez. The social media analytics experts share their insights in the 55 minute podcast. The description describes the discussion content:

Analytic technologies and techniques being used to make business sense of the flood of user-generated content
The cutting edges of social media and sentiment analysis – what works, where improvements are being made, and which platforms are leading the way
The comparison between proprietary and do-it-yourself tools for social media analysis
Effective ways for leveraging social media information to get a leg up on your competition

The most memorable points from this podcast for me hinge on the unexpected. Social media is still a very new field that continues to supply surprises. For example, Touhig shared a discovery his company made for a major cosmetics company: trying to stay ahead of the curve, generation Y women were using skin care products made for older women. The company then had to find a way to communicate that using products for their skin type will actually be more effective for these customers.

Another surprise—Ramirez pointed out that, with social media data, more is not better. This may seem obvious to some, but it is not the case with other data types, where more volume produces more accurate results. Instead, analysts find that they need to narrow the data to exclude the vast amounts of irrelevant input that social media provides. As Ramirez commented, “people will say anything!”

It may be no surprise that text analytics is experiencing a talent gap. As Ramirez quipped, if you know young people just starting out, advise them to go into this young field. Yes, general business users are usually capable of analyzing data, but they need a leg-up. It is best to develop a program and invest in tools and training before expecting results from non-specialized employees.

There is much more to this podcast than I can fit here, so be sure to check it out for yourself. Then, plan to attend the Social Media Analytics Summit next spring.

Cynthia Murrell, January 9, 2012

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.