Social Media Analytics Gain Popularity as Need to Gauge Consumer Sentiment Heats Up, Finds Frost & Sullivan
-- Analytic tools measure social-site traffic to empower businesses with timely, actionable insights
MOUNTAIN VIEW, California, Dec. 19, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Companies are recognizing the value of social media as a marketing and brand management tool, as well as customer service and support channel. Social media is also becoming a core consumer and business-user forum. Consequently, social media analytics emerged as a popular tool to measure social-site traffic, but more importantly, to obtain meaningful, actionable and timely insights.
New analysis from Frost & Sullivan's Analyzing Customers' Social Voices research finds the most important trend in social media analytics is cross-channel integration. Organizations are beginning to integrate social media analytics with speech, text and Web analytics to cover all customer touch points.
For more information on this research, please email Britni Myers, Corporate Communications, at britni.myers@frost.com.
"Social media analytics can uncover unique or otherwise difficult to obtain information on consumer behavior and the broader market," said Frost & Sullivan Information and Communication Technologies Industry Analyst Brendan Read (http://www.frost.com/brendanread). "It is gaining further acceptance as companies execute omni-channel strategies to provide a consistent, high quality, profitable customer experience across channels."
Social media analytics is also used by businesses to shape other corporate functions that impact marketing and customer services, such as network security. For instance, banking and insurance firms are listening for signs of fraud and hacking, such as when individuals brag on social media about duping a particular company or cracking their network security.
However, certain issues may prevent companies from employing social media analytics solutions. The most critical matters are whether and to what degree social media sentiment accurately reflects the broader customer base. Moreover, customers' stated sentiments can be swayed by the desire for explicit rewards and by competitors who want to negatively impact other brands.
In addition, social media budgets remain small as enterprises do not fully understand the value of social analytics. Some social analytics tools are too expensive, which deters uptake. Frost & Sullivan expects this to change as more firms realize the importance of using social media in marketing initiatives.
Another challenge is the small size and lack of training of the social media teams in companies. While social media managers are skilled in the art of social communication, few of them have the analysis skills to understand the vast amounts of social data generated or to connect that data to other channels.
"Social media analytics solutions must be intuitive to use and must generate reports rapidly to help companies detect, assess and act quickly on issues and opportunities," concluded Read. "The solution should present synthesized reports, encompassing summaries of key topics from all sources, but with the added ability to filter out each feedback channel."
Analyzing Customers' Social Voices is part of the Contact Center (http://contactcenters.frost.com) Growth Partnership Service program. Frost & Sullivan's related research services include: Integrating Social Media into CRM, Collaborating Socially to Enhance the Customer Experience, and Managing the Public Power of Social Media. All research services included in subscriptions provide detailed market opportunities and industry trends evaluated following extensive interviews with market participants.
Connect with Frost & Sullivan on social media, including Twitter, Facebook, SlideShare and LinkedIn, for the latest news and updates.
About Frost & Sullivan
Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, works in collaboration with clients to leverage visionary innovation that addresses the global challenges and related growth opportunities that will make or break today's market participants.
Our "Growth Partnership" supports clients by addressing these opportunities and incorporating two key elements driving visionary innovation: The Integrated Value Proposition and The Partnership Infrastructure.
- The Integrated Value Proposition provides support to our clients throughout all phases of their journey to visionary innovation including: research, analysis, strategy, vision, innovation and implementation.
- The Partnership Infrastructure is entirely unique as it constructs the foundation upon which visionary innovation becomes possible. This includes our 360 degree research, comprehensive industry coverage, career best practices as well as our global footprint of more than 40 offices.
For more than 50 years, we have been developing growth strategies for the global 1000, emerging businesses, the public sector and the investment community. Is your organization prepared for the next profound wave of industry convergence, disruptive technologies, increasing competitive intensity, Mega Trends, breakthrough best practices, changing customer dynamics and emerging economies?
Contact Us: Start the discussion
Subscribe: Newsletter on "the next big thing"
Register: Gain access to visionary innovation
Analyzing Customers' Social Voices
9857-64
Contact:
Britni Myers
Corporate Communications – North America
+1.210.477.8481
britni.myers@frost.com
Twitter: @FS_ITVision
LinkedIn: Future Growth Opportunities in ICT
Facebook: Frost & Sullivan
Share this article