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

And, in fact, it may be one. That clever E*TRADE baby. Nike’s “Just do it.” “It’s Miller time.” True big ideas can spawn campaigns that tap the power of every marketing channel.

But what happens if it’s not the right idea? What if it’s so misaligned, so out of tune with the audiences you’re trying to reach that everything – advertising, PR, the digital campaign – falls on its face?

Marketers are increasingly using social media analysis to uncover the top-of-mind topics within their target audiences to optimize media spending. Why not gather the same types of insights when your campaign is still in the creative stage?

Insights gained through social media analysis can guide the development of your creative product. It can help you understand what tone to strike in your campaigns – playful, exciting, interactive? It can indicate whether to use pure storytelling, or be a bit more abstract. And, it can signal whether an idea will play across all the channels where your consumers are talking, and whether it makes sense.

Social media analysis can provide a 360-degree view of your audiences, what they like, feel, and want from your brand. It can provide insights into how your audiences view your competitors. And by continuously mining social data, you can identify trends you can ride to help propel your brand message.
If your campaign messaging is wrong out of the gate, it will diminish the potential value of all your media channels. Social data can help prevent a messaging gap between you and your consumers that you perhaps didn’t even know existed.

Some marketers may hesitate to suggest that social media data can contribute as much to the big idea as the gray matter between their creative director’s ears. I’d suggest getting over it. You can be sure your competitors are.

This post is the third installment of a three part blog series. Click to read the first and second post.

Many companies are increasing their focus on content creation and marketing, often funding such programs by shifting advertising dollars. But are they really getting maximum bang for their bucks? Is what they are creating going to get the attention and deliver what customers want?

A 2011 emarketer.com survey found that the use of dynamic content to increase the relevancy of a company’s products or services has become a top priority for U.S. marketers. Improving segmentation and targeting and better integrating social channels and data are other key objectives. In fact, consumers in the same emarketer.com survey noted that they are going to social channels expecting exclusive content.

The content development process typically starts by determining the audiences the company wants to reach and setting an editorial calendar for content creation. Content, both internally generated and from other sources, is then aggregated, curated and deployed. Next, the company listens to what’s being said about the content, and perhaps engages with its audience (although many companies are missing engagement opportunities, too, as we discussed in a recent blog). This feedback is then evaluated, and the lessons learned are applied to the next round of content creation. This seems simple, right?

Where this process can fall short is in failing to truly know what your audience cares about. What celebrities do they like? What entertainers have their ear? What TV shows do they like? If market research has determined your audiences, social media analysis can provide the foundation for discovering who really makes up those audiences and synchronizing content to their interests and tastes. Social intelligence guides investments in various forms of content. It can tell you the style of the content, whether it’s video or written words to use in videos. It can reveal whether an audience likes games. Social data can also tell you how the consumer wants to engage you on product releases, promotions and contests.

Social intelligence can help you decide on the optimal “canvases” or distribution channels for reaching your audience. It can tell you whether to paint your message as a blog, as a video or in another branded content form. If you listen to your audiences and know where they’re engaging on topics you want to have influence on, you can distribute content properly and cost-effectively instead of building it and hoping they will come. Think of it as an ongoing series of content masterpieces.

Your customers and prospects are talking about you more than you know. To understand what these audiences truly want, it’s important to continually evaluate what they’re saying – weekly, daily or even in near real time. This evaluation helps you identify trends, go deeper into the psychographic profile of your audiences and ensure your content dollars are going to the right investments.

This blog post is the second in a three part series. Click here to read the first post.

Imagine a company that has upscale retail locations around the United States receiving tens of thousands of customer visits. Now imagine not having anyone there to greet and interact with those customers. What’s the point of the storefront?

Facebook fan pages are much the same thing. But only 0.2 to 2 percent of fans go back to a page. Why? Because there is nothing going on that interests them.

Fan pages are a unique marketing canvas to connect with avid consumers. Yet some brands are terribly underutilizing these pages, making them basically brochureware repositories — essentially inviting customers in but not engaging them or giving them an incentive to return. More so, they don’t understand what their customers want from them. Fans may “like” the page, but what good is it really doing the company or its customers?

Other brands are working harder to tap their pages’ potential, inviting fans to post on the page, using brand-generated posts to ask them questions, and offering promotions that capitalize on the fan base’s affinity. The fan page becomes a focus group that can be mined for consumer insights, which can feed back to content creation, stage gate development and campaign tracking. It isn’t the “like” that matters; what matters is creating conversations to understand the consumer.

A two-prong approach of audience discovery and competitive analysis can help uncover what motivates and energizes your consumers.

Audience discovery is the use of social data to segment those who talk about your brand into their affinities. When you understand your audience, you can tailor the message and campaign to generate more fan attention. And if you understand what to do with your fan page, you can give it a new place in your owned media platforms. Rather than investing in media properties that become more expensive as they become successful, you’re now on your way to developing owned media that increases in value the more it’s used.

What do your consumers want from you – coupons, product updates, cutting-edge video, exclusive deals or contests? What are they interested in – sports, music, TV? Do they care about your brand affiliations or sponsorships? A “like” is a passive response to content, while a comment is engagement.

Brands need to mine competitors’ fan pages for insights. Competitive analysis provides insight into what your fans and their friends find engaging on other brands’ sites. What do your fans like on the competitor sites? Are your competitors treating your fans in ways that provide an edge over your company?

If you were running a bricks and mortar store, you’d expect your floor people to find out what customers want when they come in the door. In the same way, audience discovery and competitive analysis can help you be in sync with your Facebook fans. Knowing their interests can help you establish a road map to effective fan engagement. You can then repeat the analysis periodically to capture nuances and shifts in fan interests. Now that’s something you and your customers will really love.

I love the holidays, and not because of all the family, gifts, and home-cooked food, but because it’s one of the few times of the year you know that you’re going to get some exciting action-packed blockbuster films. This year we’ve got an exciting mix of original content, remakes, sequels, and scarily enough a “quad-quel”. For this post I’ve singled out The Adventures of Tintin, The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo, Sherlock Holmes 2, and Mission Impossible 4. So in the same vein as our annual TV predictions report we bring you our 2011 holiday blockbuster picks:

The chart below compares the social conversation of these films from Nov 6^th through Dec 14^th:

From a quick analysis it’s clear that Mission Impossible 4 and The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo quickly surpass the other two films in the number of conversations across social. This is really a testament to how amped film buffs are to see The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo because it managed to overcome the buzz that Mission Impossible 4 was generating by premiering a 6-minute prologue of The Dark Knight Rises before the film starts. In fact viewing that prologue was discussed in 6% of all Mission Impossible 4 conversations as one the main points of intent to see the film.

To provide a deeper context within these conversations, and to go beyond just the impressions in the chart that measured the approximate number of exposures a visitor had to a product or brand on blogs, forums, twitter, and other social channels, I also performed a full thematic and semantic analysis on these films using primarily our Topic Discovery Engine and other analytic tools. The semantic analysis is presented within this report as “net sentiment”, which is the sum of the positive and negative sentiment, and informs us of where consumers’ emotions lay.

In general these additional layers of context are what make social data a great predictor of blockbuster films, because through the measurement and contextualization of social conversations we are able to understand which films are driving the most interest, and what the intent is behind wanting to see these films. This data also exists before a film has premiered and allows brands, marketers, and content producers to use this pre-inform data to better direct their marketing, mitigate risk, and make more informed data-driven decisions.

Now on to the predictions:

One of the things I uncovered was that even though Sherlock Holmes 2 had the smallest volume of conversation out of the films analyzed, it looks like it’ll still have a relatively successful premiere since there were almost no negative conversations about it (+17% net sentiment). Online commenters also seemed to have genuinely enjoyed the last one. Film buffs also thought it was funny that Naomi Rapace, the love interest of Sherlock Holmes 2 who starred in the original version of The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo, is competing in the box office against the remake of her own film.

The Adventures of Tintin however looks like it might have a rockier start. While this film appeals to the fans of the original comics, animation junkies, and is powered by an all-star production team, people approach it in social with more of a tentative viewpoint and worry that it’ll end up being kind of boring. Tintin ended up with the lowest amount of emotionally charged conversations at +8% net sentiment.

As far as sentiment goes Mission Impossible 4 really didn’t do much better than Tintin. While promising a big blockbuster weekend when measuring the number of impressions, there are a lot of fans that were still unimpressed by Mission Impossible 2 and 3. This resulted in Mission Impossible 4 having the highest percentage of negative conversations (-4%, but +10% net sentiment) out of all the analyzed films. Although there was still enough excitement in fan conversations to believe that Mission Impossible 4 will still receive really solid premiere weekend numbers. Some of the themes that indicated that it would be successful was the casting of fan-favorite actor Simon Pegg, the direction of the film looking to be better than its predecessors, and the opportunity to catch The Dark Knight Rises prologue.

Finally The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo looks to be the most anticipated of these four films. The enthusiasm in the voice of these fans is almost contagious. From the 8-minute trailer, to Trent Reznor of NIN producing most of the soundtrack, to how well liked Daniel Craig is as an actor at the moment. There were even rumors that a special trailer for The Hobbit will air beforehand, which would certainly seal the deal with fans if that was to become a reality.  At +15% net sentiment (there were a few naysayers questioning the need for an American remake of the film), and the highest volume of impressions, it looks like The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo will have the largest box office premiere of the four films.

In the day and age where producers of digital shorts like College Humor, Channel101, and Funny or Die have become known for imbedding recognizable celebrities and comedians into their productions, it is no longer a surprise to see your friends link you to new celebrity videos on occasion. The latest example of this was a series of ads Will Ferrell produced for the beer renowned with value conscious college students across North America, Old Milwaukee.

Old Milwaukee is having a bit of a resurgence now that its brand is part of the Pabst Brewing Company, whom have been busy filling their portfolio with previously defunct, but highly nostalgic, American lagers like PBR, Old Style, and Schlitz. Over the next few years I bet we’ll continue to see the conversation around these beers continue to grow even in the face of the expanding small batch micro-brew market.

The ads being measured here today were reported to have originally aired only in a small local market. They of course somehow managed to find themselves catching fire with the digerati thanks to Will Ferrell’s involvement. As a media analyst here at Networked Insights I of course enjoyed watching Will Ferrell channel his old character “Frank the Tank” from the film Old School into these videos, but I was really more interested to see which brand (Will or “Old Mil”) really benefited from this collaboration.

The chart below compares the social conversations of Old Milwaukee and Will Ferrell  from November 1^st through December 14^th:

Looking at the presented data there are two key takeaways. The first is that media exposure is the key to generating a lot of social conversations. That’s illustrated here when we compare the minor bump in conversation from where the ads first appeared to the major spike in conversation once AdWeek, and a few other sources, started blogging about the story and kicked off a flurry of tweets. The second takeaway from this data is the direct relationship between a celebrity and a brand. This of course is not the first time we’ve explored this topic, and I’d highly recommend checking out both our recent report on Kim Kardashian and our Lady Gaga Social Intelligence Report to see more examples of social Lift.

Social Lift can be considered online word-of-mouth and helps us measure and understand an object’s impact in media after it has been shared in social. In this particular case Social Lift is being measured in impressions which are the approximation of the number of exposures a visitor had to a product or brand on blogs, forums, twitter, and other social channels. We also use our Topical Discovery Engine, and other analytic tools, to provide the context and consumer sentiment behind the data.

All of this data helps our clients to understand who’s in sync with their brand, and with that knowledge they are able to make more informed data-driven decisions that help them mitigate risk and produce more direct marketing. To find out more on how Networked Insights can help you choose the perfect celebrity check out our Mountain Dew Audience Sync report.

Choosing the right celebrity for your brand shouldn’t be a challenge, because like what Frank the Tank said: “once it hits your lips, it’s so good!”

The folks at Chrysler Group have high hopes for the Fiat 500, the throwback small car they’ve tossed into the cute competition against the Beetle, the Mini and the Smart. The fortunes of the 500 ride in part on the celebrity shoulders of singer Jennifer Lopez, who’s featured driving one in the TV campaign for the car.

The campaign has generated a healthy amount of social media attention, earning a top 10 spot in a recent ranking of 2011 viral ad campaigns. As it turns out, though, much of that buzz is probably not making the automaker happy. Networked Insights’s analysis of the social conversation bubbling around the campaign found that much of it has nothing to do with the car. Instead, online bombers have delighted in pointing out production goofs, such as a change in camera angles that puts the singer in a different pair of shoes. The revelation that a body double, not JLO, tooled the car through her Bronx ‘hood has challenged the pop star’s street cred. And, some ask, why were the ads in heavy rotation on college and pro football broadcasts, where the typical viewer might want more muscle than 74 horsepower (and not be much of a JLO fan)?

How can you avoid such mistakes? Don’t assume you’re meeting your marketing objectives because social impressions indicate you’re attracting an audience. Audience Sync is essential to knowing who your audience really is, what they care about, and what they’re discussing. And, Media Sync can provide the other piece of the puzzle – where your target audience is consuming content. These tools can help you design or refine your campaign to reach the audience you want with the right message, and prevent a fusillade of flamer potshots.

Interested in reading more about how to find the right celebrity for your brand? Click here to see more blog post on celebrity endorsement.

The Belly Band, an ingenious device to help pregnant women with their pants, was the most talked about pregnancy brand since early November, commanding over half (50.7%) of the online chatter. The number of sites where Bell Band conversations occur has grown 20% during the same time period. Unfortunately, negative sentiment is slightly higher than positive sentiment, 19% and 17% respectively.

Canon is an Insight on the Move, as conversation increased 67% since early November. Currently, Canon is the second most discussed electronic brand, with 6.5% of the conversation, beating out industry giants such as LG (4.4%), Samsung (3.5%) and GE (3.4%). Positive sentiment for Canon was strong, and words such as love, good, great and nice were used frequently. During the last month, the Rebel line was most talked about, and the T2i was the most mentioned device.

With a 64% increase in conversation since early November, Kmart is an Insight on the Move. While Kmart was both the 4th most discussed department store and discount store retailer, it was most frequently compared to Target and Walmart. Positive sentiment for Kmart is high at 31%, and words such as good, great, happy, awesome, nice and love were frequent.

Within the Moms Category, Honda was the most discussed automotive brand since mid-November, with 27.5% of the overall car conversation. While Honda’s vehicle sales fell 6.4% in November, their online presence is beating Ford (19.3%), Jeep (14.6%), and Chevrolet (14.%). Positive sentiment for Honda dropped slightly, from 53% to 49%, and words such as good, love and loved were common.

Moms care about clean clothes. Amongst laundry detergent conversations, Tide was the clear leader in the social media realm, with 53.8% of the conversation during the past 30 days. Rounding out the top three places are Gain and Method, each with 10.9% of the chatter. Overall post volume for Tide has increased 8%. Positive sentiment is currently 22%, while negative sentiment has shrunk to 3% during the past month.

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.

Google TV

One insight on the move over the past 30 days was Google TV whose conversation increased 85%. The conversation growth was due in large part to the nearing Google TV 2.0 update and LG’s announcement of a Google TV launching in early 2012. The negativity around Google TV seems to have dropped off as negative sentiment went from 23% down to only 9%. With a 1% growth in TV technology conversation share, Google TV may be becoming a more serious Apple TV competitor.

Kinect

Kinect for Microsoft’s XBOX 360 game console has demonstrated conversation growth over the past 30 days as consumers begin discussing holiday shopping. Its 75% conversation growth is supported as it is a top gift option this year and has maintained consistently positive sentiment between 27% and 31% as of late.

Asus Transformer

Asus Transformer conversation increased 66% over the past 30 days as Asus prepares to release the Transformer Prime Android Tablet in December. Consumers are excited to see a popular tablet with a quad-core processor, and that excitement is demonstrated with 42% positive conversation. Even with the strong positive sentiment it gained less than a 1% share of tablet conversation in a market dominated with Apple iPad conversation.

PSP/Vita

PlayStation Vita conversation grew over 80% over the last 30 days since details of its release and some associated game and accessory bundles were announced. While consumers seemed to be excited about the new portable console, negativity about it not hitting the market until after the holidays has bumped negative conversation up to 16% overall. Although fueled by some negativity, the PlayStation Vita gained nearly 2% of the share of conversation for video game consoles.

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.

Safeway

Safeway rose to the top of grocery store conversations within the Moms category, capturing 25.9% of the chatter since mid-October. Safeway beat out Whole Foods (23.5%) to become the most talked about grocery store. When looking at Safeway conversations, the post volume, number of contributors and number of sites all increased during the past 30 days. Unfortunately, while overall activity increased, negative sentiment for Safeway also increased dramatically from 4% to 17%, correlating to a slight decrease in positive sentiment from 21% to 19% during the same period. Building up to the holiday season, price, was the most discussed topic.

Kohl’s

Kohl’s conversations among moms represented 28.4% of online department store chatter since mid-October. Kohl’s chatter slightly beat out number two retailer Target (27.1%) and had more than twice the volume of conversations as Macy’s (12.2%). Both post volume as well as the number of contributors increased, 26% and 28% respectively, while the number of websites where Kohl’s conversations were mentioned decreased 9%. Amongst the top three department store brands, Kohl’s had the lowest negative sentiment, of 6%, for the past thirty days. Coupons was one of the most talked about themes, and positive sentiment included words like love, great, good, cute and nice.

Disney

Disney conversations have increased 46% since early October, with online chatter appearing on 29% more websites over the past 30 days. Positive sentiment for Disney has dropped slightly from 41% to 35%. Words such as love, great, fun, awesome and fun were common. Disney World and princess conversations drove chatter for the past month.

Ford

Ford is an Insight on the Move, as conversation has increased 55% since early October, and Ford conversation within Moms accounted for 22.9% of online automotive chatter, followed by Honda (18.7%) and Toyota (13.7%). Positive sentiment for Ford has been over 50% for the past 30 days, and words such as love, good and great were common. Negative sentiment remained relatively low, at 12%. Gas conversations were frequent when talking about Ford products. Competitor mentions that appeared with Ford conversation included: Chevy, Hyundai, Jeep, Mazda and VW.

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.

We then wanted to uncover who the fans wanted to see. Rather than doing a global search we looked at three different audiences – Moms, Film Buffs, and Millenials – to see what host recommendations each audience had in common to find the optimal host for the 85th Academy Awards.

No matter who the Oscars choose to host the event this year we know social media engagement will be greater than it’s ever been.

Updated

Billy Crystal has been brought back to host the Oscars. I’m for one am happy to have the funnyman back in a tux.

Justyn hits an interesting point here. While on one hand he’s joking about how he can’t believe that Jersey Shore would be so loved, he’s really hitting a more important issue: unusually high positive sentiment. I’ve talked about this before in regards to BlueFin Labs  and their own unusually high sentiment results. To recap quickly what’s wrong with this, on average 80% of all posts are typically neutral. This means they’re devoid of emotionally charged language, but not necessarily failing to engage with the original content. So when I see these kinds of numbers I, like Justyn, also question the results which are most likely derived from misrepresenting the full TV audience. This can be done easily though choosing to only score sentiment from particular channels that are more emotional (thus excluding the opinion of other channels), or from ignoring neutral posts when scoring sentiment (which then leaves you not knowing the whole picture).

Well this is either an astute post or an advertisement for SocialVibe. Nonetheless “engagement marketing” services like SocialVibe are things you have to be aware of when you measure the social value of a TV show. The only way to reduce the impact of these kinds of marketing tactics is to measure conversation across the entire social landscape and weight each channel individually based upon their own performance. What this does is dilute the channels that are more likely to be influenced, e.g. Twitter and GetGlue, which also happen to comprise the majority of TrendrrTV’s data sources.

As long as it looks great who needs to care about the content, right?

The Walking Dead is a pretty rocking show, not much to say here.

While I’m sure Anya’s controversial win did generate some good conversations across social, and while I enjoyed this season (minus Josh’s constant attitude), I too question whether this show deserved this rank. That’s because this season of Project Runway they did a full on Twitter integration; every designer, judge, and probably production crew member had their own account to encourage and initiate conversations on Twitter. So depending on what kind of authors and conversations you include when you measure a show’s value can vastly affect a show’s ranking. Examples of this would be comparing reality shows like The X Factor and Project Runway, with massive casts to shows with significantly smaller casts, like The New Girl. Currently the combined social value of Zooey Deschanel and The New Girl, is no insignificant matter, but it just can’t compare to the sheer volume of over a dozen cast members tweeting. Once again, the only way out of this pitfall would be to measure the entire social eco-system and weight their performances appropriately, which is exactly what we do when we measure TV shows.

At last we reach the final comment where Kate complains that Baby Boomers are missing from this chart, and I would have to agree that for the most part they are certainly being marginalized by those who dominate Twitter, GetGlue, and Miso… Millennials. Now while all the programs and networks that Kate mentioned are not all exceptionally popular in social (hint: DIY), they are many that are being poorly represented here (NCIS for example).  Also once again like I’ve re-iterated twice now, the only way to navigate this trap is to analyze across the entire social landscape instead of focusing only on measuring sources that you know are intentionally skewing your results.
In conclusion, I think Adam Hirsh’s tweet (the COO of Mashable) had it right – these are nice looking charts, but after that I fail to see how these are actionable for anyone. Frankly I wouldn’t know how to use this data; it’s just nice eye candy for the reasons I cited above. If you are a brand and really need to know what TV shows to advertise on then I suggest you start by mapping out your audience across all forms of social data to find what media your audience really cares about. If you’re instead a media seller or content producer you need to know the real social value of a show in order to better market it. Social data that comes from all media channels (not just the flavor of the month ) is there to help inform your marketing decision-making, it’s there as leverage in negotiations, and above all it will help you mitigate risk. If you’re more interested in how Networked Insights can help you, check out our update on 2011 New Fall TV Shows.

Chief Marketing Officers take pride in being the trendsetters around the corporate corral – the arbiters of hip, the sharpest dressers, the consummate gadgeteers. But when it comes to using data to support decision making, the CMO is likely not to be the smoothest operator.

Each year the Marketing team works hard to distill consumer insights into planning documents that will guide its programs in the months ahead. Meanwhile, there are already other departments within corporations that are continually refining their budgets and plans using the latest business intelligence data from enterprise resource systems.

Good creative will always be important in marketing. But when customers can abandon you for a competitor in a mouse click, it’s simply not enough. You have to be ready to act in a heartbeat. And to make the right moves, you need the ability to acquire consumer data, interpret it and apply it to your marketing programs – all in near real-time.

Winning companies are defined today not by their product and service offerings but by the manner in which they respond to the needs of their consumer. Social media data analysis opens windows into consumer conversations, producing real- or near-real-time data that can guide key decisions in marketing and across the value chain including product development, production, sales and customer support.

Better data can lead to better decisions and, ultimately, better outcomes. Now that’s cool.

Social Lift can be considered online word-of-mouth. It’s a way to measure the ripple effect in media after an event either in conversations or the sharing of content. Download the Social Intelligence Report – Kim Kardashian Wedding to learn if brands like Vera Wang, People Magazine and Perrier-Jouet received social lift from their association with Kim Kardashian.

In this report you will discover:

• The earned brand value from celebrity endorsement
• Why branded conversations in social media are important
• Which brand received the most ROI for their sponsorship

While brands may still be uncertain about their optimal balance of paid, owned and earned media, the value of celebrity endorsement and how it impacts branded conversations is clear. All that is left to uncover for marketers is the right celebrity for your brand and target audience as explored in our Lady Gaga Social Intelligence Report.

What do you think about celebrities and their role in branded conversations online? Submit your comments and let us know if you’d associate your brand with a reality TV star.