Want to start winning with social media? Start listening. When I say listening I don’t mean reading the posts on your Facebook wall. I mean start monitoring and measuring the social web to see what people are saying about your TV show, advertising, brand, or products. Today, top companies are using social media for more than broadcasting brand messages. They’re beginning to incorporate the predictive capabilities inherent to “big data” by putting the voice of the consumer as expressed in social data, at the center of their decision making. Why? Social data allows marketing professionals to collect real-time intelligence on their audience – be that viewers or consumers – and make less data-free decisions.

Social Data Makes Media Buying Decisions a No Brainer
The power of social data as applied to marketing decisions is perhaps most impressive in the areas of media planning and buying. During the advertising sales season known as the Upfronts, Networked Insights advises broadcasters, brands, and media agencies on how to best align audiences and media. We explore this in greater detail in the eBook: New Audience Insights from SocialTV.

Conversations viewers are having across the social web about TV shows, advertising, brands, and products can be segmented and mined to uncover some remarkable insights. For networks that are announcing new television shows and securing advertisers we help:

• Identify brand affinity by TV Show
• Uncover hidden audience segments
• Isolate risky advertising decisions before brands buy
•  Understand program rankings and maximize the value of all dayparts

Media fragmentation and targeting technologies are changing how companies are growing audiences. Creating scalable hyper-segmented strategies is becoming increasingly challenging if you’re not tapped into real-time data. The good news is analytic tools are catching up to meet the demands of consumers and brands in today’s demand economy. SocialSense is Networked Insights analytic platform that allows companies to stay in-sync with their audiences through a dashboard view of the real-time data that matters most.

Read more in the eBook: New Audience Insights from SocialTV to see just how Networked Insights works to make broadcasters more efficient and brands more effective with their advertising investments.

Let’s be clear.  Most people who write on social media outlets don’t do so just for the sake of doing it.  Some might, but the vast majority of people who share content, post comments, or offer sentiments and opinions online do so because they are in what Andrew Jeavons of Survey Analytics calls “the point of emotion.”  In other words, they are emotionally invested in the product, service or experience about which they are opining.

As Jeavons points out, most feedback is conducted via traditional methods that suffer from huge structural deficits.

1. Surveys – break-down for four reasons:  they are episodic, have limited sample-sizes, the answers are effected by the way the questions are posed, and because they rely on the concept of “recall.”  And recall is imperfect because it asks a person to offer information on a past event outside of the context and situation in which he or she experienced it.
2. Focus Groups – are skewed in three ways:  small sample sizes, self-selection population, and the dreaded “decibel rule’ – the loudest person in the room wins.  They are not real-time or data driven and they don’t parse their findings with the objective use of technology.

It appears to us that companies that make million-dollar decisions on this kind of “static” data are doing themselves a disservice.  We believe they should be using more authentic and real-time data in order to make data-driven decisions.

That is exactly why Social Media is so special, so different.  Because with Social Media, people become “micro-authors” when and where it matters.  Instead of a laborious production process, Social Media reduces the distance between the production and consumption of opinions; in fact, it even obliterates it.

In some contexts emotions are considered bad.  But if you truly want to know what consumers really think and want to be able to predict how they might behave, find them at the point of emotion.  Very likely that means you’ll find them on Social Media.

The opportunity is yours for the taking!  What you really need is real-time data, gathered and interpreted by smart technology and then put into practice by a team who now understands your customers’ REAL attitudes and interests.

No doubt about it. If you want to use the Internet to find something very specific, keyword search is a great place to start. But if you want to learn what you don’t know about customers and use that newfound customer intelligence to improve your company’s marketing efforts, I can promise you that keyword search falls flat. Why?

In Networked Insights latest report, “Thematic discovery: What every marketer — and marketing technologist — should know,” we explore three key reasons (pun intended) why search isn’t all things to all marketers. Then we introduce an alternative: thematic discovery.

Thematic discovery is an exciting new approach to social media data analysis — a marketer’s dream. It provides a highly accurate, authentic view of topics that people are engaged in through social media. It helps identify relationships between themes that may not have an obvious connection, how the themes correlate, and where people are likely to be talking about them simultaneously.

Learn more about how this information can help you develop media plans, choose celebrities to endorse products, and tap into the diverse interests of their target markets. Take a look at our report for a revolutionary new approach to social media data analysis.

Quarterly and annual reviews provide some idea of how the money is being spent, and frequency, reach, target rating points, media impressions and clip counting are among the longstanding measures of marketing effectiveness. But these are becoming less and less informative as the world moves at Internet speed.

Now CMOs can create the same level of visibility into their marketing spend that other operational areas have done for years. The efficiency of marketing – especially spending on advertising – can be improved by analyzing customer “conversations” carried out across social networks and other channels. Advanced techniques and capabilities are available now to capture the pulse of the marketplace as never before.

Armed with this information, CMOs can work with their CFOs more closely to identify — really, for the first time — the minimal effective amount of spending needed to drive the greatest market awareness. This new form of “marketing intelligence” can dramatically reduce “spray and pray” spending and contribute more effectively to earnings per share improvement. In this way, both CMOs and CFOs will understand and track — with far greater accuracy — marketing’s accretive value to the enterprise and shareholders.

Download our new report to learn about the emerging role of social media analysis.

Food lovers everywhere are drooling with delight that Hidden Valley Ranch, America’s best-selling salad dressing, has released a “new thicker, creamier version” of its popular dressing. In an attempt to dominate our tables and take market share away from Heinz Tomato Ketchup, Hidden Valley has launched a new campaign calling the condiment “the new ketchup”, a topping and dip for everything.

With 15% of ranch dressing used on foods other than salad and vegetables we thought we’d take a deeper dive and examine the expressions of ranch dressing lovers from across the social web. We put our conclusions together in two fun lists, 10 food items people like to dip in ranch dressing, and five ranch flavored foods people love.

Top 10 Foods to use Ranch Dressing

1. Pizza
2. Buffalo Wings
3. Salad
4. Fried Chicken and Chicken Fingers
5. Hot Dogs
6. Chicken Wraps
7. Carrots
8. Pizza Rolls
9. Celery Stick
10. Broccoli

Top 5 Ranch Flavored Foods

1. Doritos Cool Ranch
2. Baked Lays
3. Ranch Sunflower Seeds
4. Pringles
5. Corn Nuts

Finally, we can’t talk about Ranch Dressing without thinking about Melissa McCarthy’s Saturday Night Live skit where she plays a disturbingly obsessive fan of Hidden Valley products.

Returning in ABC’s latest comedy, Don’t Trust the B— in Apt. 23, James Van Der Beek is finally returning to TV as a meta version of himself – a post-modern Dawson to be exact, one who is challenged at actually being James. Confusing? Yes, but no less confusing than the title of the show that has undergone several transformations and successfully shares its Twitter handle “@Apt23” with frequent  instructions of where to find a house party.

However with that aside, Apartment 23 represents the last of the new shows promised at the 2011 Upfronts. It also represents the latest socialTV experiment, having released the first two episodes of the series early online. While there have been numerous shows this season (Awake, Smash, and Once Upon a Time to name a few) that have premiered early online, they have all performed with mixed results. As we saw with these other shows (namely Awake), early pilot releases garner lots of positive buzz, new Facebook Fans, and Twitter followers for the show, but rarely guarantee long-term success. This is partially due to the lack of sync between the live-TV consumer and the digital-consumer which is often apparent when using traditional GRPs as a performance metric instead of social alternatives (like the Social Index, # of Twitter followers, etc.). Still according to pre-premiere conversations, Apartment 23 seems doomed to being marginally successful with social viewers, due to its placement at the end of a lackluster TV season, and right before the summer, it’s going to struggle with GRPs regardless of fans.

This struggle, however life threatening to the show’s renewal, still offers many opportunities for brands and networks to unlock the hidden value within this program. As noted in the image below, we can see that the show’s audience skews older, female, and more affluent. This aligns a bit with the fact that it has been over 10 years since Dawson’s Creek was first on the air and those original fans have aged and matured in their lifestyles.

Another thing to note in this slide is that while all social channels are active when new episodes premiere, Twitter is the real connective tissue that keeps conversations flowing from one episode to the next. While some reports may have you believe that this is a normal behavior, Twitter conversations don’t always flow between episodes. Tweeters demand constant stimuli to keep them interested in a particular topic so more often than not slow-burning forums and blogs tend to be the connective tissue. If we’re seeing Twitter as the dominant consistent channel, then that means there is somebody stoking the fires on Twitter between episodes. As far as the overall conversation goes, the discussions trend positively and in favor of the show in general:

What is more fascinating are the visualizations of these conversations:

The illustration above identifies that James Van Der Beek has the largest single cluster of conversation. It also indicates that within the Apartment 23 conversations there are those who watched the episodes online early and enjoyed them (top right hand corner), and those who are just mentioning the show’s name within a larger discussion of ABC’s show lineup (bottom left hand corner). Minus the Krysten Ritter conversations that are helping to connect the two conversation clusters together, it appears at this point there are still more conversations originating from people that have yet to watch the pilot.

From all of this information (the demographics, the location of where these conversations are occurring and the level of interest behind them) we are able to craft a unique image of the Apartment 23 audience. Through this image we are then able to analyze and ascertain what content (outside of Dawson clearly) that they engage with and what kind of content they resonate with. Examples of this content can range from celebrities, to musicians, brands, and even other TV shows. For this particular audience we discovered that over the last 30 days, some of the top content that resonated with them included actor James Franco, listening to the new The Black Keys album, shopping at Target, and being  fans of Modern Family.

Yesterday was a rough day for the avid supporters of Rick Santorum as he officially announced the end of his presidential campaign. While he certainly had his fair share of social supporters, the majority of conversations involving Santorum, particularly on Twitter, skewed negatively and sarcastically (mind you this is of course not a new observation). So even though political topics are not our primary interest here at Networked Insights, since a lot of our clients don’t build political campaigns into their media plans, we can’t say no when asked to use our tools and expertise to present some real-time insights behind cultural events and social trends.

Below is a quick summary of Twitter’s reaction to Santorum’s announcement:

One of the more interesting insights to take away from this is that while the conversation built up and then directly collapsed following the official televised speech, the majority of tweeters did not indicate any interest in actually watching the presentation.

To read more about these social reactions check out Emily Steel’s article at the Wall Street Journal.

Marketers inspired by the movie Moneyball are looking for ways to leverage trends, mitigate risk, and drive marketing programs that perform. As the cost of mass marketing techniques focused on reach continues to grow, finding an advantage when evaluating your media spend is more important than ever.

On Thursday, April 5, 2012, Elizabeth Shaw, Social & Emerging Media Analyst at Forrester Research, and Paul Dunay, Chief Marketing Officer at Networked Insights, hosted a live online presentation on the growing role of social data as a source of consumer information and how brands are leveraging it to make smarter media decisions.

For many brands, finding the right balance between paid, owned, and earned media is difficult. Savvy marketers have discovered how to blend in social data to guide these major advertising investments and align their choices with their target consumers’ digital behavior. Attending this live event will help you better understand how marketers can identify and track emerging consumer trends through real-time data, and, by staying in-sync with your audiences, how you can make the right media choices based on data instead of agency recommendations or gut feelings.

If you can no longer afford wasteful media choices (and let’s face it, who can?), we encourage you to watch the on-demand webinar for How to Use Social Data to Make Smarter Media Decisions. Discover how you can ensure your broadcast and digital advertising decisions are aligned with your audience for the minimal effective investment.

Click here to watch the on-demand webinar and download the presentation slides.

For marketers, developers, designers and entrepreneurs, the annual pilgrimage to Austin, Texas for SXSW Interactive is a highlight in the digital world and this year didn’t disappoint. With surprise visits from Jay-Z, to well hyped app launches and star studded panel conversations, the week amongst the world’s best and brightest was inspiring so I thought I’d share my takeaways for those who didn’t participate.

Marketing Trends

Celebrities draw crowds
In today’s increasingly fragmented media world, with short attention spans and diminishing brand timbre, it’s kind of refreshing to see that some things never change. This was illustrated by the many high profile speakers who were both keynote speakers and panelists.

Launching an app at SXSW is hard
Highlight, a mobile networking app, seemed to grab everyone’s attention well before SXSW even started. It may have fizzled once users experienced the battery drain it caused while running in the background. Win or lose, what’s clear is the competition for new companies is fierce and the breakout apps of years past are proving tough acts to follow.

Seamless integrated brand experiences are critical
With the growth rate of mobile devices and tablets, we’ve entered a time where the consumer’s expectations for consistent experiences with brands and networks are higher than they’ve ever been. Maintaining a constant high quality presence is quickly becoming the standard.

In an always-on world, everything is old news in digital marketing
The thirst for knowledge, answers, tips and insights remains high amongst marketers at SXSW. I often wonder if in today’s hyper connected world, when information finds me at every digital touch point, if one can really learn anything new at a conference. While I still believe you can learn from unique perspectives, what’s clear is the rate at which we consume media and information has changed us and made us smarter. Perhaps it’s time to reevaluate how we interact at these conferences and look for new ways to connect, discover and explore.

Technology Trends

Marketers are talking more than ever
Digital professionals are connecting offline unlike ever before and I believe this is due to the powerful combination of social networking tools, the rate of change/evolution, and the need to stay on top of trends to uncover what’s working and what’s not.

The future is small screen experiences
Next generation products will be mainly on tablets and mobile phones. That’s the world to design apps and technologies for if you’re building tomorrow’s next big thing. For now, marketers are faced with asking themselves how long they can afford to not look at a 360 degree digital experience. The clock is ticking.

Leverage technology to keep today’s real-time consumer at the center
Social media listen, monitoring, and analytics is a game changer for marketers who need to track the pulse of the modern consumer. While a brand’s audience might be armed with social media and mobile devices, today brands are building bridges and accelerating business processes with social data and real-time analytics.

Consumer Trends

Social accelerates pop culture trends
Social media is proving to be an incredible cultural engine driving trends, memes, and messages further and faster than ever imagined. We’re just beginning to see the impact and understand how it happens. We’re establishing new rules and new norms as we adapt to a more connected and digital world.

Engaging more than ever before with TV and brands
Consumers want to talk back. They want to interact. And they want to share. Next generation winners and losers for both brands and networks will be defined not by quality of experience or branding alone, but how well you engage your audience. Making your brand the signal in the noise for consumers is the new mission in media.

Using social media tools to share, broadcast, and curate
Much of what marketers are experimenting with is about enabling advocates to carry your message for you. While lots of lip service is paid to the concept of influencers, the truth is a brand can’t know who and how to spread their marketing most effectively without a lot of cost. It’s cheaper to build an army of fanatics through inspiration, content and platforms that make viral possible.

Event Highlights

HBO’s Girls – Incredible launch and presence with blended offline and online marketing activities. Clearly stood out despite the noise.

American Express – Bold, daring, and dominant marketing. Innovative team that’s pushing technology to redefine the brand and company positioning.

Samsung – Well executed events and marketing campaigns for their target consumer. If your challenge is to take on the coolest brand in the world, these guys are quickly becoming formidable.

February has been a stellar month for Networked Insights. Our success has only been achievable through the support of marketers who are uncovering the value of social media data analytics. This month’s highlights include:

• Networked Insights named one of The World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies by Fast Company
• CEO Dan Neely spoke at Social Media Week 2012 >> Watch it now!
  
• Unprecedented media coverage of our brand analysis of Super Bowl XLVI commercials

This week Jason Kapler and Sean Reckwerdt are representing Networked Insights at the Gravity Summit and TV Goes Social Conference in Los Angeles. Our resident social TV team is excited to share how networks and content creators are using social data to open a real-time window into audiences. The voice of the viewer as expressed in social media is informing development, production, and marketing around long-form content for broadcast.

Before they headed to the airport, we asked Jason and Sean to each share a shortlist of thought leaders they’re most excited to connect with at this year’s event.

Sean Reckwerdt’s Top 5 at Gravity Summit

1. Ann Glenn, Social Media Manager, Sony Imageworks

2. Matt Meeks, VP Audience Engagement, Warner Bros Television

3. Derek I. Smith, VP Operations, Fox Filmed Entertainment

4. Shira Lazar, Creator and Host of What’s Trending

5. Joel Price, Social Media Manager, San Diego Chargers

Jason Kapler’s Top 5 at TV Goes Social

1. Jacob Shwirtz, Social Viewing, MTV Networks

2. Hardie Tankersley, Vice President, Online Content, Fox Broadcasting

3. Rick Liebling, Creative Culturalist, Young & Rubicam

4. Nick Demartino, Nick Demartino Consulting

5. Andrew Wallenstein, TV Editor, Variety

Want to see more of Networked Insights talking Social TV?

Watch CEO Dan Neely’s presentation at this year’s Social Media Week.

Dan Neely at SMW12

Last week Networked Insights CEO Dan Neely spoke at KIT Digital’s “My Social TV App Thinks I’m My Dad: Privacy Issues In The Age of Convergence” during February’s Social Media Week in New York. Moderated by Digiday writer Jack Marshall, the panel also included Alan Wolk from KIT Digital, Mike Sommers of Viggle, Jim Spare represented GoMiso and Mike Monello of Campfire.

The lively conversation covered topics such as social TV, second screen apps, content creation, and social data. With strong points of view expressed on behalf of networks, advertisers, and audience no clear consensus was expressed which underscores the exciting ambiguity that comes with disruptive technologies and consumer behaviors.

Watch the Social Media Week panel on-demand now >>

Social Media Week New York is back, and I’m excited to connect with some of the sharpest minds in marketing, advertising and social media. Networked Insights CEO Dan Neely will participate in a social TV panel where he’ll discuss how networks and brands are leveraging social data to improve decisions related to audiences, content and marketing..

Take a look at the marketing and advertising presentations and panels that I can’t wait to check out during 2012 Social Media Week:

Keynote: John Bell, Global Managing Director at Ogilvy, on The Insidious Plot to Socialize the Enterprise

Looking forward to seeing: John Bell

My question for the presenter(s): Business intelligence provides corporations visibility into business performance through data. With the number of social data and analytics providers growing, what factors will accelerate adoption of social intelligence, allowing brands to better understand the world outside their business and the data they own?

Keynote: Jeff Dachis, CEO, Chairman & Founder of Dachis Group followed by Panel: Big Data and Bigger Conversations: Measuring Your Brand’s Social Performance

Looking forward to seeing: Jeff Dachis

My question for the presenter(s): Awareness, advocacy and mindshare are great, but they are values you measure after a campaign is launched. How are you seeing brands use social data to pre-inform decisions, uncover trends and enable predictions related to marketing and advertising?

What Real Time Marketing Really Takes

Looking forward to seeing: Emily Steel

My question for the presenter(s): At Networked Insights we frequently tell people real-time is relative to the decision cycles of the business and marketing activity. I’m curious to hear how Beth Waxman-Arteta see’s marketers adapting pushed by interactive marketing and social media. Social media data allows marketers to get feedback about marketing and advertising in real-time. Is this making marketers more agile or are more traditional mass marketing tactics winning?

State Your Case: Research vs. Social Analytics

Looking forward to seeing: Craig Hepburn

My question for the presenter(s): How does Nokia leverage social data to improve product development, marketing and customer service? What are the obstacles to social media marketers evolving from tactical to strategic roles?

Keynote: Gabe Zichermann on The Business of Fun: How Gamification Will Change Your Organization followed by The Future Of Gaming, hosted by PSFK

Looking forward to seeing: Gabe Zichermann

My question for the presenter(s): What industries, products or marketing programs best lend themselves to gammification marketing techniques?

Socializing the News

Looking forward to seeing: Anthony De Rosa & Elizabeth Heron

My question for the presenter(s): For Anthony – Where can someone get good Chinese takeout in SoHo? For the panel – Is social media changing what news and topics get covered? Are hybrid media outlets influencing traditional news coverage?

I’m looking forward to my first Social Media Week New York, where I’ll hear from the best and brightest in entertainment, media and social technology. I’m also excited that Networked Insights CEO Dan Neely will participate in a social TV panel. Dan will discuss how networks and brands are leveraging social data to improve decisions related to audiences, content and marketing.

Checkout my list of Social TV panels I’m most looking forward to attending at Social Media Week 2012.

The Mobile-Social Living Room: How Emerging Media is Reviving the Live Television Experience

Looking forward to see: Jesse Redniss & David Berkowitz

If I can ask the panel anything, I’d like to know: Are communities limited to owned media only? If not, how do Bravo and USA Network find and participate in fan conversations in environments they don’t control, such as fan sites and forums?

The Dawn of Companion TV

Looking forward to see: Sabrina Caluori, Scott Rosenberg & Natan Edelsburg

If I can ask the panel anything, I’d like to know: Co-viewing and check-in TV apps are increasing engagement and bringing brands and fans closer together. How do networks leverage viewer data to improve content and marketing? Are social technologies changing how companies communicate, or are they just new one-way communication methods?

Social Television: Opportunities for Broadcasters & Advertisers

Looking forward to see: Patrick Albano

If I can ask the panel anything, I’d like to know: Second screens give networks and brands the opportunity to create more engaging content by creating better performing ads and programs. How do marketers and broadcasters measure the appeal of content on second screens or in social media experiences on second screens?

How Television Will Take Over the Web: From Disruption to Integration

Looking forward to see: Guy Slattery

If I can ask the panel anything, I’d like to know: Consumers are using technology to drive conversations around entertainment. How do networks start to understand trends within those conversations more quickly to improve decision making around programming and advertising?

Second Screen and Social TV: Which Way From Here?

Looking forward to see: Jesse Redniss & Lou Paskalis

If I can ask the panel anything, I’d like to know: Do social TV trends increase the opportunities for branded content and product placement? How will social technologies and second screens draw viewers to brands in the future?

Ford was the most talked about automotive brand in the Moms Audience, during the month of January, with just under a quarter of the conversation (24.4%). Since the beginning of January, posts increased 11%.  Positive sentiment for Ford has decreased noticeably during the past thirty days, dropping to 38% positive, from 51%. Even with the decrease in positive sentiment, words such as love, great, good and nice were still common.  Honda (22.8%) and Chevrolet (14.4%) finished up the Top 3.

January’s Insight on the Move was Britax, the car seat and stroller manufacturer, with an increase in conversation of 75%.  Positive sentiment for the brand remains high, at 35%, dropping slightly from 38% in December.  Consumers readily used words such as love, good, great and easy to describe their Britax products. Britax edged out other children’s brands Graco (22.4%) and Gerber (20.9%), to be the most talked about children’s brand in January.

The most talked about homes store during the month of January in the moms audience was IKEA with almost half of the conversation (46.5%). Lowe’s and Home Depot rounded up the top three stores in this space, with 22.2% and 14.8% of the conversation respectively. Overall, IKEA conversations have increased 45% during the past month. Positive sentiment for the brand has remained high at 32%, and words such as love, great, good and awesome were common, often used to describe various pieces of furniture purchased.

Tide was the most talked about laundry detergent within the moms audience since the beginning of January, with 47.2% of the conversation. The two nearest competitors were Dreft and Method, each with 11% of the conversation. While Tide chatter has dropped 13% the past month, positive chatter has held constant at 30%, and words such as great, good and safe were common. The single most talked about clothing item associated with Tide was diapers.

Grocery store Kroger is an Insight on the Move with a 53% increase in conversation during the month of January.  Currently Kroger is the second most talked about grocery store with 23.5% of the conversation, following organic favorite Whole Foods with 32.3% of the chatter.  For the past 30 days, Kroger conversations focused on coupons, mostly for formula and organic items. At the same time Kroger was most frequently compared to Wal-Mart, Walgreens and Target.

This data was collected using our SocialSense Audiences product. SocialSense Audiences is an analytical platform designed to deliver fast, high-quality insights around specific vertical markets and audiences.

This week on “#SocialTV goes to Washington” we’re finally seeing some reprieve from the nearly non-stop Republican debates and caucuses with some TV action from the Dems and Obama with this year’s State of the Union. They went big this year on social integrations with not only an official hashtag (#SOTU), but with some additional live tweeting from the official White House account, conversation-starter hashtags like (#40Dollars) and some more generic predefined “theme hashtags” (e.g. #education, #energy, etc.). While there weren’t any world records broken for the number of tweets-per-second, this ability to share and participate in a real-time global discussion is an amazing feat considering that our education system is still teaching kids the impact of broadcast media via the first televised debate between JFK and Nixon.

The ability to participate in events like these creates situations that allow viewers to project their natural behaviors into the social space. Behaviors such as negatively analyzing the appearance and actions of the individuals that appear (like when tweeters called Speaker of the House, John Boehner a member of the Jersey Shore because of his orange-looking tan), or admitting to being positively affected by emotional performances (like when Obama hugged Gabby Gilford), and debating the validity of the announced accomplishments (like pulling the troops out of Iraq). The concentrated format in which these conversations stem from (basically an hour long speech) also influences the ways in which these behaviors are expressed in social because each topic only lasts marginally longer than they are being talked about on screen as viewers attempt to keep up in real-time with the speech. Thus the top topics discovered tend to be ones that viewers had the highest emotional attachment to, or the longest on-screen exposure.

Overall Obama’s performance was well received by viewers [+28% positive and -10% negative sentiment], but for those interested in what our real-time analytical tools and top discovery engine identified as the top themes of this year’s State of the Union collected from conversations all across social (blogs, forums, Twitter, etc.) then make sure to check out the following chart and detailed data below:

• 2.7% – John Boehner (All the conversation related to Boehner was very negative [-25%], it ranged from discussing how bored he looked to how he appeared to have gotten a fake tan and subsequently belonged on Jersey Shore)
• 2.1% – Osama Bin Laden (While some people were hoping that Obama had more accomplishments in 2011 to talk about, they still felt very proud that Osama had been dealt with)
• 2.1% – Steve jobs (After Obama acknowledged Steve Jobs for his innovation the conversation moved around between how much people agreed with that sentiment to how attractive looking Steve Jobs’s widow was [+14% sentiment]. Others though felt like Obama was just name dropping [-6% sentiment].)
• 1.9% – Iraq (This topic was a very sore point with viewers, because while many were happy that there were no more troops in Iraq [+16%], others were still unhappy about the war and felt like we should have maintained a presence there [-11%])
• 1.3% – General Motors (The sentiment around this topic was very mixed [+11%, -9%], and this was mostly because many felt like it was a giant advertisement for GM)
• 1.1% – Hillary Clinton (The majority of viewers felt positively towards Clinton’s appearance and role, but a few did comment towards her appearance being a little haggard-looking [+11%, -5%])
• .86% – Eric Cantor (Similar to Boehner, conversation related to Cantor was about unhappy he looked to be listening to Obama [-14%], Mitch McConnell was another person that viewers felt negatively towards for similar reasons [-7%])
• .85% – Gabby Gilford (Sentiment  around Gilford and Obama giving her a hug was very positive [+22%], and a number of viewers noted how it made them tear up a little)
• .64% – “Spilled Milk” Joke (The majority of viewers considered this joke to be a success [+31%, -7%])

For years I have kept tabs on the Edelman Trust barometer report, which comes out every January in Davos.  And this year was no exception. After last year I figured this years report could make an excellent gauge of the economy worldwide!

Simply put the report states: Trust is down in every industry and every country across the board by an average of 6%. So what does this mean for marketers and for major brands in an era of social media?

Well 2 things …

Hidden in the data is the fact that CEOs and Government officials are at the very bottom of the totem pole when it comes to delivering a message that people trust. So welcome to the era where the average “Joe” employee is considered the most trustworthy corporate spokesperson. This is clearly a boon for the all of us who have been clamoring for our in house engineers to be out there blogging and tweeting with the public. Effectively they are now the only ones that the general public will trust to speak about your brand.

But to me that’s a quick fix on how you get information out of the company that the general public would believe. To really change the tide of this era of declining trust you need to consider what I’m calling “hyper-transparency.” For example look what Apple is going through with its overseas vendors. How can you company do the same or even take it to the next level. And be vigilant with those vendors that aren’t in compliance. You would need to say “here is where we are and are not compliant with our overseas vendors and here is what we are doing to fix it.” This would send a clear message that the corporate message can be trusted.

But where do you start?

There is obviously a clear need to understand what the general public perceives as your biggest issues and to have a feedback loop to measure your progress on these key issues. Which to me clearly underscores a need for trend analysis around your brand (think Google Trends for your Brand) to understand what to attack first to raise trust in your own company. This can’t be solved with typical social media software. You need to analyze trends of what’s being said across the issues that are important to your company. This doesn’t come from reading tweets everyday about your brand it comes from analytics of all forms of social media – blogs, microblogs, social networks and forums.

With the right technology and the right partner in place you can rebuild that trust that so few (if any) companies have these days.

National Football League broadcasts deliver a premium audience and provide an opportunity to reach many people at one time. But a downside for advertisers is the cost associated with adhering to mass-marketing techniques. As media has evolved, so too have the behaviors of the audience. How can brands and agencies keep up with target consumers who appear to have better technology than the marketers trying to connect with them?

TV analysts from Networked Insights examined shows that NFL fans discuss across the social web to identify more economical alternatives for reaching the big game’s audience. Shows like “Fringe,” “The Office,” “Community,” “The Simpsons” and “Family Guy” were among the most mentioned. For brands and media buyers, this discovery supports more informed decision making. The result is a more efficient media plan that maximizes the effectiveness of your spend.

Staying in sync with the media choices of your target audience enables you to know with certainty that your message is being delivered. Networked Insights’ Media Sync enables networks, brands and agencies to leverage real-time data to uncover where their audience is consuming media. Pairing Media Sync with our Content Sync, which taps real-time data to better understand target audiences, eliminates much of the marketing guesswork, enabling you to deliver relevant content to target audiences where they’re consuming media.

As companies adapt to more agile marketing techniques, real-time consumer data will be the compass that guides decision making from launch into the “always-on” marketing world where more and more brands live. The ability to leverage social data to improve decisions across the enterprise will distinguish elite companies in the 21st century.

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The Asus Transformer surged in conversation over the past 30 days, increasing 69%, due in large part to Asus recently introducing the Transformer Prime tablet, equipped with the highly anticipated Tegra 3 quad-core processor. While considered a top device due its size and advanced specifications, many consumers were disappointed with the Transformer Prime missing its announced launch date prior to the holiday season. On top of its delay, when it finally arrived in stores Androidtablet fans were angered with its locked software, a perceived major flaw in a widely deemed “open” Android environment. This was clear as its positive sentiment dropped from 27% down to only 18%.

The Sony PlayStation Vita demonstrated considerablegrowth in conversation over the past 30 days at 54%, led by strong launch sales in Japan. While sales tapered off after the a quick start, new features like a Sega Genesis gaming emulator sparked a large growth in positive sentiment from 28% up to 45%. With a US and EU release approaching in February, the conversation continues to grow, as it has been for the last 90 days.

The Kobo eReader conversation had shown strong growth over the past 90 days, and the trend continued recently as the conversation grew 24% over the past 30. The Kobo eReader launched as a lower price option to the popular Kindle and Nook devices, and was initially reviewed very positively. As of late consumers have been discussing issues occurring with the device and that fueled a negative sentiment increase from 19% to 26%. Even with some recent negativity it was considered a solid eReader gift option for the holidays.

Following news of record activation numbers on multiple carriers, one would expect iPhone conversations to notice a sizable increase, but even with the good news iPhone noticed a 23% decrease in conversation over the past 30 days, and even more surprising, it lost over a 10% share of conversation amongst the top mobile brands. Samsung mobile phones noticed the largest growth at nearly 3% with the introduction of the Galaxy Nexus and various Galaxy S II models. The Galaxy devices are commonly considered two of the top competitors to the iPhone.

This data was collected using our SocialSense Audiences product. SocialSense Audiences is an analytical platform designed to deliver fast, high-quality insights around specific vertical markets and audiences.

Last night we saw over 700k Tweets that had mentioned the Golden Globes, but this was just a drop in the hat for the overall social conversation related to these awards.

Using Networked Insights’s advanced topic discover engine we are to organically take everyone who discussed or commented on the Golden Globes last night and collect all the posts, tweets, and comments they’ve made over the last month and cluster them in order to understand in real-time what kind of topics, products, and content is interesting to fans of the Golden Globes. Listed below are the top themes and products for this audience as well as their demographic make-up:

Golden Globes Thematic Analysis:

• 62% of the conversation was about who won/the winners
• 48% of the conversation was about the Red Carpet
• 12% were about the upsets – Viola Davis not winning best actress, Damien Lewis losing to Kelsey Grammer
• 9% of the conversation was about Ricky Gervais being the host
• 4% of the conversation was related to Madonna

Ricky Gervais Thematic Analysis:

• Last night Gervais was set-up in a position where there was very little middle-ground – he would either succeed at being entertaining, or fail to be funny. Leading up to the Golden Globes 24% of his conversation was about people being excited to watch him host.
• His opening monologue was only 4% of the conversation, but was very well received with +20% positive sentiment
• However after that the pacing of the show and the direction made many feel like he was absent from the stage for long periods of time and that when he was on he wasn’t nearly tossing out as many jokes as he should have been (32%)
• 9% of his conversation was about his jokes with Madonna
• His Kim Kardashian joke (2%) and his Jodie Foster/Beaver  joke (5%) were also fan favorites

Red Carpet Analysis

Top 5 brands:

1. Prada – 42% (Zooey Deschanel’s dress represented 20% of the overall Prada-related conversation)
2. Dior – 22% (Charlize Theron contributed the largest share of the discussion at 34%, but Milla Kunis was close at 29%)
3. Gucci – 15% (Jessica Alba [23%] and Selma Hayek [36%] contributed the largest shares to the overall brand conversation)
4. Vera Wang – 4% (Sofia Vergara was discussed 55% of Vera Wang’s brand conversations while Naya Rivera was only discussed 36% of the time)
5. Marchesa – 3% (Lea Michele’s outfit represented 62% of the overall brand conversation)

What Received the Most Attention on the Red Carpet:

1. The Dresses – 71%
2. The Hair-dos – 25%
3. The Tuxes and Suits – 4%

Top 10 Celebrities – Share of Voice

1. Madonna – 10.5% (While Madonna did win an award for best original song – the social conversation around her was largely not in her favor. Many commenters were first off surprised by her victory (32%), then how inconsistent her accent was between being British or not (21%), how long-winded her conversation was (12%), and finally her tiff with fellow nominee Elton John (42%)
2. Meryl Streep – 5.3% (While Meryl did clinch an award for herself her night was up and down between forgetting to wear her glasses (22%), to talking too long (9%), and getting censored for her language (15%))
3. George Clooney – 5.1% (People enjoyed the fact that he made a lewd joke (39%), but questioned why Meryl was bleeped, and he was ok)
4. Octavia Spencer – 4.7% (“Pretty in pink” was used to describe Octavia several times (12%), but when she won the award for her role in The Help the online conversation exploded in celebration for her (72%))
5. Michelle Williams – 3.8% (while not everyone was a fan of My Week with Marilyn (14%), people were still mostly congratulated her for winning (57%))
6. Angelina Jolie – 3.4% (Angelina was the only celebrity in the top 10 that did not win, or was even nominated for an award, people just loved gossiping about her, Brad (22%), and what she wore (60%))
7. Claire Danes – 3.2% (Won for her role in Homeland – which lately has been one of the most positively discussed shows in social media. Claire also received additional attention for this being her 5^th Golden Globe win (28%))
8. Jessica Lange – 2.9% (Won for her role in American Horror Story, a show she’s no longer a part of (23%), but she was she was considered the highlight by many (10%))
9. Kate Winslet – 2.7% (Won for her role in Mildred Pierce, and the response was largely congratulatory (65%))
10. And a special award goes to Matt Leblanc (2.6%) for winning an award for playing “Matt Leblanc”. In fact after it was announced that he won “Yay Joey” started trending on Twitter