Embracing Socialytics
By · Comments
Socialytics. I love this word – it perfectly captures what it is — analysis of social media. I’ve only heard it used a couple times but when Michael Fauscette of IDC wrote his post, Socialytics, I decided to investigate it further.
I wondered who plays in this space today. Though there aren’t many, there are more and more social media analysis vendors with solid offerings. In his e-book, The Social Web Analytics eBook 2008, author Phil Sheldrake details 16 of them that responded to his request for interviews.
I then wanted to know more about the types of analytics that might be looked at. I liked the way David Bakken broke down social media data in his post, Social Networking, As Seen by the Economist. He looks at these three dimensions as a way to stratify the levels:
Content: Just what is it that is being talked about. Could be brand or product mentions, could be sentiment. What are people saying?
Source: Who is generating the content? How does the content vary by characteristics of the source. He mentions the difficulty of knowing more about the “who” and suggests companies like Facebook might sell that information as a new source of revenue.
Connectivity: Who is talking to whom? This is probably most about influence and the value of networks — something that has proven very difficult to measure prior to social networking.
(…some time passed, and then…..)
I had this thought: With many of the social networking companies looking for a viable way to make a sustainable income, why not sell socialytics from their platform to interested parties? They hold the valuable key – the data.
BI vendors would do well to partner with social media analysis companies and call on the likes of Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook to provide this new service as a joint partnership. Not only will all these social conversations create a wealth of data to be managed, they will also require a powerful analysis tool and a presentation layer that is easy to use and understand — something BI vendors are masters at.
Note to BI vendors – socialytics is here. Are you ready?
P.S. As I finish this post I found one vendor already moving forward. Ron Swift from Teradata just put out a timely post, Social Media Marketers Should Get Ahead of the Curve, where he talks about Teradata’s partnership with social media analysis vendors and creating integrated web intelligence (IWI) that combines socialytics with data from the data warehouse creating extremely valuable insight.
Does Your Company Have Energy Intelligence?
By · Comments
The Copenhagen Climate Summit has come and gone. World leaders have returned to their respective countries with their pressing priorities. You would think the low rumble of the Summit has gone dormant again, but look behind you. Consumers are not only thinking green, but beginning to take “green” actions. President Obama has pledged to help utilities install 40 million smart energy meters so that consumers can take real-time actions to reduce unnecessary energy usage. Consumers, like you and me, will soon have “energy intelligence” (a term coined by Information Management’s Robert Farris). So how do businesses get energy intelligence?
Businesses are being asked not only to cut costs, but to do so especially in the area of energy usage, demonstrating they are doing their part to reduce their carbon footprint and take advantage of PR benefits of being “green.” Stakeholders, including customers, investors, and regulators, are now expecting it.
Energy costs in business average around 10% of the operating expense budget. It’s a number that the Dept. of Energy says could be reduced as much as 27% with the right techniques—decision support and operational efficiencies. It’s the classic performance management scenario: getting visibility so you can take action.
Sure, you can review your energy bills, but those are as much as 30 days old and don’t usually give you the level of detail needed to make appropriate changes. Even better, you could monitor the facility management systems used to track the usage and health of your heating/cooling, lighting, and water systems. Still not enough to make the right decisions. Were there one or 100 employees in the building that day? That information may be in another system like HR or security.
This is where Robert Farris’s post on Energy Intelligence suggests a business intelligence approach. He states it so eloquently in his post:
An energy intelligence system can integrate data from islands of energy usage information (building management systems, building sensors, utilities, etc.) and combine it with other operational data from your enterprise applications (supply chain, manufacturing, HR, finance, customer relationship management, asset management, etc.) to provide visibility to trends in usage, costs and efficiencies – across all locations, sub-locations, and building systems.
By bringing this information together in one place and providing BI capabilities – trending graphs, dashboards, near real-time monitors, exception alerts, location-comparison reports and detailed analysis capabilities – an Energy Intelligence system can help company leaders understand where efficiencies are and help them make informed decisions about what actions will provide the most return.
With more and more companies creating a career path and C-level positions for sustainability leadership, business intelligence vendors and corporate BI teams need to step up and educate organizations about the use of performance management for energy intelligence.
Networking Your Social Media
By · Comments
Social media is still fairly new and understanding how to connect the various social media tools is not easy. Yet, that’s where the power lies, especially when it comes to dynamic content like blog posts. I’m often asked how to get more exposure leveraging social media, so I thought I’d give you the “101” on connecting, specifically your blog with Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
First, this help assumes you have a hosted blog, particularly Wordpress. You can get Wordpress for free and install it on your own domain or site, as long as your site accepts PHP (hosted on unix or linux servers and not Microsoft servers) and you have the ability to create databases. It’s a little tricky to set up and configure unless you have a geek-streak like me. Let me know and I can help.
So, you have a hosted blog and you’re putting out regular posts. How do you let the universe know?
Twitter – Grab your Twitter handle and make sure you fill out your profile, adding your website URL. The rest involves plugins to Wordpress, though Typepad probably has similar functionality.
Post blog to Twitter – Grab and install the Twitter Tools plugin. It not only notifies Twitter when you add a new post, it can create a blogpost from your tweets. It comes with additional features such as Hashtag, Exclude, and bit.ly URL shortener. You’ll need to get a bit.ly API code so that the plugin will push out your shortened URL.
Retweet this blogpost – Grab and install the Tweet Meme plugin. It lets readers retweet your posts and also keeps track of how many times your post has been retweeted.
Show my tweets – If you are successful with the Twitter Tools plugin (above), you will also have a widget that shows your tweets in your sidebar.
Follow my tweets – I like the Follow Me plugin, used on this site. Stays off to the side and isn’t too obtrusive.
LinkedIn – First create a company page for your business. As you are setting up your company profile, you’ll see “Company Blog” in the box on the left side. Make sure you add your blog’s RSS URL. Now check your personal profile. Be sure you have your company blog and Twitter handle listed there too. As Wordpress notifies Twitter with a tweet announcing your post, that same tweet will show up in LinkedIn as a status update.
Facebook – First, create a personal profile. Then add the Twitter application and fill out the settings with your Twitter handle. Now all your tweets will show up in the live feed, including the tweets containing your blogpost announcements. To automatically post from Wordpress to Facebook without going through Twitter, use the post-to-facebook plugin.
Facebook’s company fan pages are still coming along. For the life of me, I can’t find an automated way to push blogpost notifications. I still recommend you create a company fan page and for now, manually add blogpost notifications.
One last suggestion, add social links to your posts with the Sociable plugin. This gives your readers several options to share your posts for you.
Feel free to add your suggestions. Would love to know what’s working for you. If you’re struggling with this or have any questions, just ask. Together, we can figure it out.
