Traditionally, marketers think of outcomes like they think of the weather – you sit back and see what happens.  Suffering from the lack of true and authentic knowledge of their audiences, or any provision for real-time data or analytics, they are consigned to a passive role: spend money and hope it creates the intended outcome. Well “hope” isn’t a strategy.

Not so with Social Media.  With Social, there is no passive tense.  Social media allows the marketer to jump into the fray and to CREATE outcomes instead of being a victim.

Take for instance the example of TV.  In the traditional model, media buyers would buy spots, ensure that the commercials ran, and then get feedback on their reception 3 months after the fact.  Furthermore, the feedback they got was not particularly nuanced.  So if change was in order, they had to employ their best guesswork based on 3 months of retroactive data to tweak and hone.  Then, another “Hail Mary” pass resulting in hope becoming the marketer’s best friend.

Today, the opportunity to make the switch from hope to strategy abounds.  With over a billion people offering opinions and discussing their likes and dislikes on the social web, marketers have an incredible opportunity to understand their audiences in real-time and to use this data to make instantaneous data-driven decisions across a host of areas from; new product development, creative messaging, campaign development, TV buying, digital media buying, keyword buying, content creation and the list goes on and on.  With the data, smart marketers can make mid-stream changes to the expressed interests and attitudes of their target audience.  At the heart of this is technology and an interpretation methodology that offers deep insights and takes the guesswork out of marketing.

Passivity is anathema to today’s marketer, brand manager, media buyer/planner, advertiser, and content creator.  Real time-data-driven decisions allow for the industry to get on its front foot and create more engagement and dynamic outcomes.

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.

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.

As fans of the movie Talladega Nights would know, stock car racing in the United States has its origins in bootlegging during Prohibition, when drivers ran bootleg whiskey made primarily in the Appalachian region of the United States. Bootleggers needed to distribute their illicit products, and they typically used small, fast vehicles to better evade the police. Many of the drivers would modify their cars for speed and handling, as well as increased cargo capacity, and some of them came to love the fast-paced driving down twisty mountain roads.

The repeal of Prohibition in 1933 largely dried up their business and today NASCAR is the largest sanctioning body of stock car racing in the United States.

The audience that follows NASCAR racing is a very loyal bunch of followers that average over 30 Million, which is on par with many sporting events such as the Stanley Cup, the World Series, and the NBA Championship.

But when we think about the advertisers to that audience its mostly CPG brands: Skoal, Budweiser, MillerCoors and M&Ms or more Retailer brands such as: Home Depot, DuPont, Caterpillar, BF Goodwrench and Lowes.

So we thought it would be interesting to track and analyze the social data surrounding NASCAR over the last 30 days in order to reveal audiences segments that are under loved by brands. And then we took it a step further to suggest brands that should be advertising that aren’t on NASCAR by looking at what else that exact audience talks about.

As expected what we found in the social data was quite interesting. The audience beyond the NASCAR sports fans actually ranked well with one of our audiences that we call “Fashionistas” this audience has a great interest in fashion and they love finding ways to get fashionable brands for less. Next most popular audience was the TV Fanatics, which seems reasonable to us, perhaps MTV or USA Networks could have their own car. Home Owners was obvious since may home owner brands already advertise on NASCAR. However the Consumer Electronics audience was a bit of a surprise to us. Our thoughts ran wild thinking of the Samsung Galaxy II car or an Apple iPhone car. And then Millenials and Gamers were the next most popular audiences. And brands like Monster headphones and World of Warcraft we big with those audiences.

The point being for a brand like NASCAR that has such broad appeal – using a stereotype for an audience description can be inaccurate. Pockets of highly engaged fans that could make great targets for some brands will be overlooked. For NASCAR this is a lost revenue opportunity and for brands this is a lost awareness opportunity.

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 >>

A major network engaged Networked Insights to help it use social media to grow an audience before a television series premiere. The network quickly discovered that its measurement tools and perception of community management in social media extended only to its owned web properties. This self-focused point of view is not uncommon because it’s shaped by the technology an organization can access and control. However, this limitation has to be overcome to truly understand an audience across the social web.

As the show premiered and entered its first few weeks, our project to maximize the network’s social media audience quickly became a real-time feedback loop that informed many decisions. Two significant examples – one related to content creation and the other to marketing – demonstrate the power of a network in sync with its audience. First, the insights gathered from social data allowed show producers to instantly understand the reactions of viewers and alter postproduction techniques to eliminate dissonant moments that were impeding the audience’s suspension of disbelief. Second, social data took the guesswork out of show marketing by revealing the characters and plotlines that were resonating with viewers.

Staying in sync with your audience has never been more vital for entertainment marketers, who frequently operate in condensed marketing cycles. Using analytics and technology to tap into audience trends can enhance the preproduction process and improve critical marketing decisions concerning a TV show’s launch.

Real-time data changes the mission for companies that embrace agile marketing techniques. Companies no longer need to ask how they can gather quality audience data. Instead, they can channel the voice of the consumer across social media and integrate that data into their TV marketing decision-making process.

Download our Media Optimization Guide >>
Make Every Ad Perform Like a Super Bowl Ad

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.

With a son about to go to college next year the answer is – I do! But as my close friends know I like to call myself “sports dyslexic” especially when it comes to classic American sports like basketball or even baseball (sailing is another story).

But lets face it – Sports is a form of entertainment that many brands look to connect themselves with. And the audiences that follow each sport or even each team could be looked at as a prime target for some marketers. But it’s often hard to know if that audience is right for your brand.

So how do you know if a certain sports audience is right for your brand? Often its gut feeling – I remember at BearingPoint the CEO telling me we needed to sponsor a golfer named Phil Mickelson. Did we ask around, did we do research, did we poll our clients – no. We saw an opportunity and let our gut drive the decision.

So I did a little experiment with my analyst team here at Networked Insights to determine what College Football team are the most popular by audience type and the results may surprise you! The results were so good we also produced a report called – The Most Social College Football Fans, I hope you enjoy it!

For most people, Black Friday kicks off the holiday shopping season. It’s a time of year to relish terrific savings and wonderful retail experiences. Others find all the activity too frenzied to participate, saving their dollars and time for Cyber Monday. No matter where you stand on the spectrum of holiday consumerism, it’s undeniably the most important time of year for most brands and retailers.

Download the Retail Brands Report and see how consumers speak about the five largest retail brands in social media and discover how and why brands relate to their customers. Networked Insights’s analysts examined real-time consumer data to reveal trending topics and brand conversations, as well as insights on consumer behavior/preference, all segmented by five different consumer types.

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.

A 2011 MarketingSherpa study confirmed this with 62% of CMO’s believing that social media will pay off for them … eventually. Well that day was yesterday for many of the folks at Pivotcon where I debuted a presentation on the 12 Ways to Monitize Social Media which documents many approaches to ROI in social media more importantly half of them are ways to use social data to get a great return.

A different study by IBM announced that, “than 1,700 CMOs, 82% still rely on traditional market research to shape marketing strategy, while only 40% of chief marketing officers track any online communications.” Yet, there is an answer. And the answer is harnessing unstructured consumer data and finding insights into audiences is more valuable than waiting for the market research of tomorrow!

The fear in many marketers’ minds is based on breaking out of traditional modes of analysis as well as perhaps uncovering insights that a brand isn’t prepared to manage. But there is urgency in getting this data is that the consumer mindset is constantly changing, and to be competitive you need to move with them and not against them.

In other words, social media isn’t something you simply measure it is something you harness consumer insights from to be better at everything else in the business including product development, message/positioning, content development and being more efficient with overall media and marketing spends.  This is how the feedback loop becomes more in-sync with consumers and brands versus constantly guessing at what they need, what they are reading and watching and how they are living. You can amplify your message, because it is closer to the mindset of the consumer. You can improve awareness, because you aren’t just anywhere but aligned to your consumer.

You shouldn’t be “coping” with social media you should be diving into all of the vast consumer data in social media for discoveries about who your customers are today and not relying on survey data from six months ago.

Apple

Apple has had a busy 30 days of discussions and conversation volume increased 51% in response. Topics had included the passing of Steve Jobs, the launch of the iPhone 4S and the patent disputes happening worldwide.  Apple has experienced a small dip in positive sentiment from 24% down to 22% due in large part to screen issues with the newly launched iPhone 4S and the ongoing patent issues with Samsung and its Galaxy devices.  With a wide variety of topics being discussed Apple noticed a 4% increase in share of major electronic brand conversation giving it a nearly 48% share.

iPhone

The iPhone may have had the largest increase in consumer electronics conversation, growing a whopping 132% with conversations surrounding the newly released iPhone 4S and the price reductions associated to older models.  iPhone had also shown a massive increase in share of mobile phone conversation swelling from a 38% share up to 49%over the past 30 days. While there is much positive conversation surrounding the device, many consumers had been expecting a newly redesigned iPhone 5 and were disappointed with the limited changes to the 4S.  On top of having their expectations left unmet, there is a small amount of conversation surrounding a screen issue facing the newly released device.  Despite those issues positive sentiment still increased 1% in the wake of record activation numbers of the new iPhone 4S.

Kindle

The sheer volume of Kindle conversations has shown incredible growth over the past 30 days, increasing 97%.  The attributed increase is largely in part to the introduction of the Kindle Fire.  This tablet style e-reader seems to satisfy the needs of many consumers and with its lower price point can potentially compete with the likes of the Apple iPad.  Positive sentiment increased to 29% from 25% in the past 30 days as comparisons to tablets and e-readers alike seem favorable.  Set to release on November 15th, the impact on 2011 holiday sales will be a good representation of whether one can consider this device a success.

Nikon

Nikon conversations ballooned 115% over the last 30 days due to conversations of recent awards and news of a technology movement within their digital cameras. Although only showing a 1% increase in positive sentiment, the new Nikon N1 mirrorless technology is a movement supported by many who want a combination of a SLR and point and shoot style digital camera.  Currently Nikon holds the second largest share of conversation amongst digital cameras behind only Canon.

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.

“If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.” – General Eric Shinseki, former U.S. Army Chief of Staff

The media landscape has evolved tremendously over the last quarter century. Consumers have evolved even faster with the advent of high-speed Internet-enabled mobile devices and social media. Have your marketing efforts evolved with them?

Marketing at the peak of the television era was relatively simple. There were broadcast shows that could give brands tremendous reach. There were also a growing number of cable channels that allowed smaller brands to afford broadcast advertising that could be delivered to more precise audience segments. It was easy for media agencies to find your target, and almost as simple to measure the response.

Now we’re in an era of continuous messaging that ultimately is tremendously fragmenting. Everyone is clamoring for consumers’ attention, from TV and Web content they’re genuinely interested in, to an onslaught of thoughts and activities of friends and relatives, posted via every social media channel. Additionally, consumers are smarter and savvier in their use of the extensive toolset that the Internet provides to make more informed decisions.

As a marketer, how do you possibly compete for attention within this constant stream of information? The answer: You don’t.

How do you speak to consumers who don’t want to hear traditional marketing messages? The answer: Give them what they want to hear, not what you want to tell them.

Competing for attention is simply no longer sustainable. It worked when you were basically interrupting what your target audience was doing—watching TV. Marketers can no longer program consumers with advertising; instead, now your imperative is to attract people through unique content and authentic brand experiences.

As a marketer, you need to identify the various vehicles for conveying messages to consumers, and then constantly measure engagement, as defined by each brand, at multiple touch points. Are you delivering value at this point of contact? Are you establishing a connection with the customer? Are consumers entering conversion pathways that lead to sales opportunities?

To succeed, you’ll need to understand where your brand fits into your customers’ lifestyles, become a member of those conversations and/or communities, and continually evolve your advertising efforts into opportunities to engage and connect.

There’s certainly no silver bullet approach. Content will be different for every brand. But this can be quite liberating, as you’ll have to become more comfortable with who you are as a brand and how you define success for your business—standing for what you believe in and developing content that’s consistent with the product and values that will attract others.

Everything is pointing to digital technologies and social media, even in offline experiences. The next generation of retail is a blended in-store experience enhanced by digital technologies. Is your business making the necessary steps to advance to the next stage of this marketing evolution? Are you working to get in sync with your consumers?

Sound daunting? It shouldn’t. Remember: There was a time when no one was email-marketing. And it’s hard to remember when selling products online used to be a foreign idea.

Consumers led the way then, as they’re leading into mobility and Internet-enabled devices now. Wherever they’re taking these devices, that’s where you’ll need to be—learning more about your customers preferences, and using that data to inform marketing decisions. It will be survival of the fittest—you just need to get in shape a different way.

Honda

The Honda brand is an Insight on the Move, as post volume has increased 33% since mid-September.  Positive sentiment for Honda has decreased to 40%, and words such as love, great, good, awesome and fine were common.  While discussing Honda, Moms are talking about the seats, the drive, and Toyota.  Honda conversations contributed to 24.6% of all automotive posts.  Toyota and Ford mentions were also common in this place, accounting for 16.7% and 14.3% respectively.

Breastfeeding

Breastfeeding is the second most talked about theme amongst Baby & Parenting Topics, contributing to 31.8% of the online chatter since mid-September.  While positive sentiment for breastfeeding has hovered above 25% for the past two-months, overall chatter about this theme has decreased by 23%.  Conversations are split almost evenly between formula discussions and the time necessary to breastfeed.

Olive Garden

Based on social media, Olive Garden continues to be popular casual dining restaurant, commanding 24.2% of the conversation since mid-September.  While overall post volume has dropped 6% in the past 30 days, positive sentiment remains high at 25%.  Moms frequently use words such as love, good, happy, enjoy and nice to describe the Olive Garden. Together, Olive Garden, Applebee’s (12.9%) and Chuck E. Cheese’s (12.1%) made up just under half of the casual dining chatter.

Whole Foods

Whole Foods has controlled grocery store conversations with 38.1% of the chatter since mid-September.  Positive sentiment for the brand has remained constant at 27% while negative sentiment has dropped from 15% to 8%.  Overall post volume has increased 3% in the past 30 days, and words such as love and good were common.  Trader Joe’s held 19.6% of the conversation, followed by Kroger with 13.5%.

Aveeno

Since mid-September, Aveeno conversations have increased 26%, making it an Insight on the Move.  Currently, Aveeno makes up 46.5% of the online chatter regarding Skin & Hair Care products.  Positive sentiment for Aveeno is currently 26% and words such as good and great were common in recent conversations.

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.