HootSuite CEO: Four ways to harness big data

Author: Leine Hermos (Ryan Holmes), CEO of HootSuite, a management systems company, was originally posted on LinkedIn.

"Big data is like Teen sex: Everyone is talking, but no one really knows how." Everyone thinks the others are doing it, so everyone says they're doing it ...

Last year, the best-selling author, Duke University professor Ariely Dan Ariely, updated the status on his Facebook page. Since then, the message has been shared more than 800, with more than 1700 points, and is being cited by many blogs, forums and news sites.

Big data is actually the torrent of digital interaction between business and customers, and has been fired as the "crude oil" of the new century--there is great value on the surface, if not refined, nothing. However, many companies still do not know how to exploit this rich resource and convert it into "fuel". A recent survey found that 64% of companies were deploying or planning to deploy large data projects, while 56% of companies were unable to derive value from their data. A big part of the problem is that advanced software and analytics experts have to make sense of the vast amount of raw information they collect every day. Social media are constantly providing tickets for ordinary companies to enter the mysterious world of big data. With user-friendly new analytical tools, the enterprise finally found practical, once only a few companies have mastered the method.

For companies that want to make social media data their own advantage, applying these analytics techniques will be a good start.

Separates important information from background noise. Dell collects 25,000 information about them in social media channels in 11 languages each day. From a practical point of view, the vast majority of information is irrelevant. But by using social media analytics tools, Dell can automatically filter out truly useful information: information from Twitter users with a large number of fans, messages posted on High-profile blogs and forums, and information about customer needs that can quickly be adversely affected if they are not addressed quickly.

These tools use special algorithms to determine the most urgent information in real time and consider keywords, viewpoints, and other customization areas. The end result is that social media data floods are reduced to manageable small currents. Companies are now responding positively to bad news, helping to spread good news and sending concise information to marketers, sales, customer service or other departments to follow.

Track changes in the amount of information. On the evening of September 2, 2013, the number of tweets about British Airways soared, and the message itself was negatively coloured. A passenger, after discovering that his baggage was lost by the airline, angrily released a message, "Don't take the @ British Airways, their customer service is terrible." "Instead of distributing Weibo to fans, he spread to 50,000 other users in New York and the UK, all two of which are major British Airways markets," he said.

Incredibly, British Airways employees only saw information 10 hours later and tried to use apologies to eliminate the impact. The story has escalated, spreading across the Atlantic.

If you use some very simple analysis tools, a lot of trouble can be avoided. Changes in social media information often imply that something significant happens--either good or bad. When any abnormal activity occurs, you can set up alerts to monitor company names and other keywords, and send email alerts for unusual activities. This will prevent the problem from fermenting out of control before the PR disaster.

Tracking Mood: 2009, a small booger to Domino Pizza brought a big trouble. The shop staff took a video of picking up their noses while working and uploading YouTube. The video has been viewed at least 1 million times. In the "New York Times" and other media rendering, the story is finally fixed as "nose excrement door", the already very low customer rating and pull down a lot.

In response, Danone changed the formula to provide a refund guarantee and set up a website where diners could upload the food they really enjoyed. During this period, they accurately adjusted the focus of the marketing campaign by tracking changes in the public opinion of social media. In the end, sales in the US region rose 14% in the first quarter after the promotion, while shares surged 75% in the following year.

This subtle emotional tracking can be achieved instantly. Social analytics software scans for tens of thousands of messages and digs out shared content that expresses positive emotions, negative emotions, and neutral emotions. Companies can see how customers feel about their products, brands, competitors, etc. through a real-time window. By constantly monitoring the expression of emotional vocabulary, companies can understand how public opinion response changes, and change the strategy accordingly.

Impressed the boss. Cold weather is not the only PR challenge that Southwest Airlines has faced in recent years. One time a pilot forgot to turn off the radio, and the abuse of the flight attendant's voice stunned the passengers. The event was mentioned 10,000 times in social media, with passengers using free Wi-Fi to live on the entire event via Weibo.

Even so, Southwest Airlines has avoided much more pain. In fact, the company ranked first in the 2013 air quality rating. These results are largely related to their social media community. The entire community has 1.6 million Twitter followers and 4.2 million of Facebook users. Southwest has spent years nurturing and expanding the community, increasing the airline's exposure, increasing its loyalty, and helping it grow, and occasional PR lapses can be resolved quickly.

However, it is not easy to instill the value of social media in corporate executives who focus only on results. Of the Fortune 500 CEOs, 3/4 do not use social networking sites. For many executives, they think Twitter and Facebook represent uninteresting pet videos or, at best, social "soft" tools.

Analytical tools are the antidote to the problem. Current analytical tools include complex reporting capabilities, charting the board's needs, tracking brand exposure and user sentiment changes, and comparing growth with competitors. Using these visual help tools, marketing and community teams demonstrate to executives that social media does make a difference to the business. (Ice dust compilation)

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)