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With the motto, “rather fuse that fight”, Stefan Kupferberg from Yukka GmbH and Kristoffer J. Lassen, Co-founder of Imooty, announced a strategic partnership at the Multimedia Congress 2010 in Berlin last Wednesday.
The announcement came during a workshop session called “From Start-up to sustainable Business” where a panel of entrepreneurs, investors and coaches discussed the challenges faced by young businesses. In this setting, the Imooty and Yukka co-founders had the opportunity to pitch the development of their common service.
Stefan Kupferberg, Yukka GmbH & Kristoffer J. Lassen, Imooty.eu GmbH & Co. KG
On stage, Stefan gave some insight to how the collaboration came about; “We met by chance here at the Multimedia Congress exactly one year ago. At that time we were surprised to discover that Imooty already offered the end-user tool that we wanted to develop. Imooty on its part seemed exited to learn that Yukka was in the process of developing semantic tools it needed to improve its service…”
Aided by Yukka’s software, Imooty will add a more efficient and qualitative superior data management system to its media monitoring tool. In brief, the Imooty data index will be processed by Yukka’s semantic text recognition technology. This includes automatic language recognition and consolidation of duplicate- and topic related entires, ultimately improving the end user experience.
Imooty.eu GmbH & Co KG, founded at the outset of 2009 offers online media monitoring tools, scanning real time opinion makers from main stream- and social media sources. The company was awarded the German Ministry of Economics and Technology Multimediaprize 2008 and a Ruban d’Honneur as Business Innovation of the Year, at the European Business Awards 2009.
Yukka GmbH was also founded at the outset of 2009 and offers analysis of unstructured data. The company combines best practices from artificial intelligence with computer linguistic methods, delivering a service that facilitates organization of content in a accurate and time efficient format.
Moderated by Ulrich Walter and Uwe Seidel from VDI/VDE-IT, the entrepreneurs, investors and coaches joined in a lively discussion to exchange practical knowledge on how to cope with lack of experience, finance- and growth issues.
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From time to time, we get the question “what’s the risk of not having a social media monitoring tool?” The question reveals a perception that “social media is just an add-on to other media outlets”. It’s not. Social media has a different set of rules and is reshaping entire markets.
With social media, people are engaging and interacting around context, not necessarily personal relationships. Whereas we used to connect around place (neighborhood, community, schools, associations, etc.) we now link to online personas that share our intellectual interest and emotions. For many, traditional media is no longer the main source of information. Increasingly people turn to social media looking for “someone just like like me” and consequently, many blogs and forums discussions are more important in shaping opinions and perceptions than traditional media outlets.
Likewise, PR and marketing campaigns are no longer about one-to-many communication by distributing press releases and pushing “call to action”. Via social media monitoring tools, companies connect and interact with people that have expressed interest in a particular topic.
Still, the strategy of reaching out to people of influence has not changed. PR and marketing efforts still try to connect with “trust agents” that are likely to pass on a particular message to their networks. In effect, successful campaign management is engaged in one-to-one-to-many communications. The PR or marketing message gets forwarded from one-to-one-to-many if it connects with the interests of the person receiving it, AND if it provides value to his/her network.
The main challenge for companies using social media is therefore the blurring between marketing and communication. Marketers want to use it to sell, communicators to build relationships. Of course, social media is very much about being a real member of a community and providing value, rather than just chasing the next sale. That increases the number of people a company has to deal with, requiring more time and investment in building relationships.
The effect of social media monitoring and interaction will have a profound effect on the PR and marketing industry as we know it. PR and marketing efforts is increasingly about connecting with real people and because everyone is involved in a network, it’s not just up to the people working in the PR and marketing departments. A well thought out strategy will leverage the connections of the entire organization, leaving a more profound, valuable and documentable impact than any traditional campaign could ever hope for.
Want to start listening in on social media conversations? Sign up for the free trial of the Imooty social media monitoring tool today.
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Why monitor social media keywords?
First, because search engines have turned into reputation engines. Today, people use search engines to “shop around” and check a brand’s reputation before making a purchasing decision. Locating discussions around your brand and identifying important opinion makers can avert brand attacks before the reputation is affected.
For example, media mointoring can lead you to spot negative comments in a blog or forum discussion, putting you in a position to interact directly with the dissatisfied customer. A proactive PR effort is the best medicine against crowdsourced social media complaint movements and on the other hand, locating positive mention is equally important. It too can be crowdsourced and distributed via social media, generating a number of back-links from fans or supporters of your brand. In turn, back-links and bookmarks will increase the visibility of positive brand mention in search engines.
Second, keeping an eye on what your competitors are up to, is always a good idea. Monitoring how they invest in media exposure will give you clues about their overall market strategy: By looking at where their brands show up (industry journals, newspapers, blogs, social media forums, portals, bookmarking sites etc.), you can assess their investment size and which market segment is being addressed.
Also, by measuring media exposure for different products / services you may establish what their strategy is for each line of business. Systematic media monitoring of your competitors social media keywords will enrich both short- and long-term knowledge of their commercial intent. That is valuable market intelligence when you fine tune your own social media marketing strategy.
Third, defining keywords that generically describes your products or services will enable you follow industry news and trends in social media. Whereas it normally takes several hours to collect and categorize data, a media monitoring dashboard will dramatically reduce the time required for locating valuable information…
In locating social media keywords, you first need to define your monitoring goals. Is it measuring ROI on online PR and marketing efforts? Online reputation management and locating competitive intelligence? Tracking industry trends and buzz? All of them? In which languages? The classic phrase is “garbage in, garbage out”. You are only as good as your data, and your data is only as good as your algorithm for getting clear about what your social media keywords are going to be.
Looking for a media monitoring dashboard? Try Imooty’s free media monitoring trial today!
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Interest in Imooty’s online monitoring tool has picked up significantly over the past few weeks. As we launched the BASIC service in October, we were targeting the small and medium sized enterprise segment, however, we were soon approached by large companies looking for a user friendly environment to collect media intelligence.
Over the next few weeks we will test our online monitoring PRO features in a private Beta. The new version is scheduled to launch commercially in March of 2010. Imooty PRO will include a online monitoring team platform, semantic search and a information categorization tool. Please drop us a line if you’d like to participate in the Beta!
Looking back at 2009 we collected a wealth of practical experience from which we will benefit (hopefully) in 2010. In terms of theoretical knowledge, the most valuable read was without a doubt “Getting Real” by 37 Signals, mandatory reading for anyone developing an IT tool…
Want to start with online monitoring and don’t know how? Go to Imooty.eu and register for our free trial!
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An important element of Online Reputation Management is developing a social media policy for your employees. Social media behavior can certainly influence how your brand or company is being perceived.
Traditionally, creating a “policy” focuses on restricting action, i.e. outlining things that cannot be done. However, the whole point with social media is engaging your customer! Therefore, in the interest of promoting engagement, focus on what contributors CAN do.
First, make sure that the idea of community is well understood. The idea is to participate in a network where you can support others that in turn will support you. It should be a place where people will be comfortable with connecting, sharing experiences and asking for advice.
Transparency will play a major role in establishing trust and finding the balance between personal and professional information will be the main challenge. Still, transparency does not mean unrestricted sharing of company trade secrets for example. Employee’s are obliged to protect confidential information.
Also, make sure your employees understand that they will bear full responsibility for what’s being contributed. There’s no implied right to say stupid things under a disguise of “self expression”. Sure, it’s all good to share your opinions online, however, contributors need to consider each audience and ensure that statements will not be misunderstood as narrow minded or discriminating.
Specifically, contributors need to understand that what their social media activities will be part of the company’s overall online reputation management. Their actions will influence how they are being viewed within the organization, as well as how external parties will perceive company culture. Make it clear that their activities will be part of your company’s overall social media monitoring efforts.
Finally, provide value to your community! Many companies seem to have a hard time speaking about anything else than their products and services… Find topics that connect to the bigger picture, such as general industry news, developments and FAQ’s.
Want to try Imooty’s Online Reputation Management tool? Sign up for a 4 week FREE trial at Imooty.eu!
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In a recent survey of over 2000 German media intelligence professionals, respondents answered questions centering on three topics; impact felt from the financial meltdown, gender issues and professional ethics.
Not surprisingly, it is the media intelligence professionals from the automotive and metalworking industry that are hardest hit by financial crisis. Particularly challenging is a rising communication need (45%) combined with a decrease in available resources (30%). The average yearly income has furthermore decreased with €6500 compared to 2007. Challenges are a further focus on added value communication aspects (36%), concentration on legitimation over image related aspects (35%), intensified internal communication (21%) and increased efficiency control (29%).
The media intelligence profession furthermore see an increase in female practitioners. In 2007 53% were men, whereas in 2009 we see a 50/50 split. For professionals under 30, 78% are female and between 30-39, 55%. As the professionals come of age, over 40, we see increasing male dominance. For those over 50 there is a 2:1 ratio between male/female practitioners. On average women earn ca. €22.500 less per year than men (€75.876 vs. €53.301). This discrepancy can in part be attributed to the fact that on average women practitioners are younger than men.
In recent years, corporate transparency has become a top-, front- and center issue for the media intelligence profession and 88% of the respondents agree that it is a condition for communicating trustworthiness of their organization. Only 4% of the professionals work in a department subordinate to another department. Consequently, about half of the professionals see their strategic influence on the media intelligence policy of the company as high or very high (and thereby presumably also on corporate transparency). Still, many of the respondents also criticize senior management’s understanding of the strategic importance of a consistent media intelligence policy.
Check out Imooty’s next generation media monitoring and media intelligence tool at Imooty.eu
Proactive social media monitoring deals with minor social media flames before they turn into forest fires. When spotting a negative comment on your brand in a discussion forum the question quickly becomes, “how big is this”?
You don’t want to engage a diper rash personality who is using social media to symptomatically complain. However, DO pay attention if the comment resonates with other forum participants.
Next, find out who placed the comment. Is it a real person with a social media following? Is his/her audience likely to have resonance with your target group? In short, in doing social media monitoring, try to establish what level of influence the person posting the comment has.
It’s time to pay particular attention when social media monitoring shows that members of your core audience are posting negative comments. If some of your evangelist users are unhappy now, more are likely feel the same way in the near future.
When you find that comments and forum posts spread to a blog post, you need to take a closer look. The fact that a message makes a channel shift, from a forum discussion to blog post, is a red flag.
The blog may at that point be a good place to actively respond to criticism and do some active online reputation management. Start by getting in touch with the author and establish rapport. Explain your side of the story and ask to contribute with a comment.
With some luck, the blogger may issue an update on the previous post and report your solution to the problem. Proactive social media monitoring could prevent the issue from making another channel shift, for example to other blogs, online news sites, video and/or picture sharing sites.
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