General Social Media Information Archives

Why You are Missing Data in Your Social Media Monitoring Program

Social media moves fast, and users’ posts are getting shorter and shorter, more often just images without much text. Consider the following:

69% of social media posts about a brand, product, service or event do NOT contain the name of the subject being posted

More and more images are being posted without text at all

Abbreviations and/or “nicknames” for brands and products are being used more often in social media posts

If you’re using a traditional social media monitoring program, you may be able to capture some of the content that is included in the above statistics; for example, if you are aware of hashtags or “nicknames” for your brand, you will be able to include these in your search parameters. However, it is likely that you will be missing out on the other content.

This is one of several reasons for including a location based monitoring program in your social media research efforts. By essentially creating a virtual fence around you locations or events, you can capture much of the content that does not contain text directly related to your brand.

Why is this important?

In the case of event hosting, using a virtual fence to monitor posts coming from the event area can alert administrators to real time content. In some cases, this could help with pinpointing issues as they arise for quick assessment and resolution.

It’s a great way to engage with visitors and customers while they are in the middle of an experience with your brand, service, or event. Reach out to those customers with a simple “thank you” or, better yet, reward them with a coupon for future (or current) use.

Event planning and building a contact list can be difficult; using location based monitoring will give you more insight into who attends the event. Find out who attended through location based monitoring, connect with them on social sites, and encourage them to sign up for an email list so they can stay connected.

Location based monitoring can give better insight into general consumer sentiment and can enhance your social media monitoring efforts. It can also give insight into your competitor’s customers as a new form of competitive intelligence.

As social media users become more and more brief in the content they post, it will become more difficult for businesses to capture this data. Enhancing the program with a location based tool will likely improve results and open up new ways to capture sentiment and engage with customers.

A College Student’s Guide To LinkedIn

As the parent of an incoming college student, it’s time to start thinking about the future. Whether you’re in your last year of college or your first, thinking about graduate school or starting a career after four years, it’s important for students to start building their professional online presence.

I’m not the only one thinking this. At my daughter’s college orientation, the school was big on the fact that the students need to start building their resume from the moment they step on campus, whether that’s through looking forward a year or so to internships, obtaining employment while in school, or even paying a visit to the College Career Center. They stressed the importance of this to parents, though I think it fell on deaf ears among the students.

However, this is important and should not be overlooked. Just as these students were told (over and over again I’m sure) that their online represents them while in school, this will become even more important as they enter the workforce.

If you’re a college student or the parent of one, these are some of the questions you may have – they seem to be the most common ones:

First, what is LinkedIn? The best way to explain it to the college group is by telling them it’s as though Facebook and a resume had a baby – a social site for your professional side.

Why start one now? Many recruiters and hiring managers use LinkedIn to find new hires. It’s easier to start a profile now and build on it over the years rather than panicking senior year and trying to remember to add everything you’ve done that will be important for employers to know.

What if I don’t have time to update it? No worries, it’s not like Facebook, Twitter, or even Instagram – no one needs to know what you ate for breakfast or that you were late to class. This site is for professional updates, like updating your work history, sharing articles that are relevant to your future industry (and you), etc.

LinkedIn provides a great basic how to guide on starting a LinkedIn profile – it’s worth taking a look at. If you’re nearing the end of your college career, they also provide an app to help you with your resume building and job search. Below are some other helpful tips on getting started:

Profile picture: this is important. Add a picture so you don’t have the default shadow person picture. As the LinkedIn guide (and everyone else) will tell you, make sure it is a picture that has a basic background and looks professional. You may look great on the beach or with your best friend, but save those pictures for the other sites.

No one wants to know what you did in 8th grade: start the LinkedIn profile with the start of your college career. There is no need to add high school information (unless you want to display that to make connections with those who attended your high school) or awards you won in junior high. Think of this new chapter as the start of your professional life and document events and work from college on. That being said, DO include work history from your high school years, at least for now.

Everyone likes a well rounded person: colleges will tell you that employers prefer well rounded candidates over those who only have one focus. Make sure you detail any volunteer work you do, events you help with, or organizations you join. A description of what they entail will go a long way in helping others understand who you are and what you’ve accomplished.

Slowly make connections: LinkedIn is not like your other social sites where you want to connect with everyone and their mother; start slowly and make good connections. A great place to start is your parents, if they have profiles. Look for teachers you had in high school that you worked closely with (and perhaps can or have written a recommendation for you) – now that you’re out of school, it’s okay to connect with them on social networks. Also look for your bosses from high school jobs. Be wary of accepting some invitations – those that seem to be spammy, don’t have a lot of information on their profile and have a generic shadow person profile pic, or those who you do not know and you wouldn’t have much in common with professionally. Just like any other sites, there are spammers out there, so choose cautiously.

Include your LinkedIn URL on your resume: as you build your profile, you’ll be able to add so much more to it than what is on a resume – use this to your advantage! If you created a great project or presentation related to your field, add it to your profile. Think of it as a resume on speed – you can add much more content and add your URL to your resume so future employers can take a look at it too.

Starting to build up your profile and connections is a good first step. Once you have that in place, take some time to look at other people’s profiles and check out some of the groups – there’s something for everyone. As you get further into your college career it will be time well spent for both. Learning now how to make the most of the site will serve you well as you finish up college studies and prepare for your future.

Any questions? Need help or suggestions? Feel free to contact us any time!

Would You Give Up Your Passwords For Your Dream Home?

I’m a fan of those in the UK, especially when it comes to social media….they are usually a step or two ahead of us here in the US. However, I came across a new start up that I believe will never get off the ground floor.

Tenant Assured is a UK startup that is yet to launch. While they start off on a good premise – using social media data for potential tenants of homes and other housing as a screening tool – they take it one step too far. Take a look at their promotional video:

The Washington Post recently discussed this new service and explained how it works. “After your would-be landlord sends you a request through the service, you’re required to grant it full access to your Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and/or Instagram profiles. From there, Tenant Assured scrapes your site activity, including entire conversation threads and private messages; runs it through natural language processing and other analytic software; and finally, spits out a report that catalogues everything from your personality to your “financial stress level.”

I just don’t see this happening or gaining traction. As a big fan of using social media data to learn more about people, whether it’s for employment purposes, insurance coverage, or even potential jurors for an upcoming trial, asking for full access, including private facing content, will not fly. Remember how employers in the US tried to request passwords for social sites on job applications a few years ago? I envision this new service to go much the same way – it ended as quickly as it started.

Privacy settings are created for a reason; some people want to keep all or part of their social interactions private. And that’s just fine. There is enough public facing social data out there to help companies who want to use that content for decision making on individuals, for whatever reason – a company dedicated to finding people who so badly want to live somewhere in particular that they will give up their social media privacy will be hard to come by.

According to the Washington Times article, this service became live last week; however, after visiting the company’s website, it looks like the launch may not have happened. It is still a fairly blank page that will display a “coming soon” message if you stick around long enough.

This will be one to watch; if it gains popularity among users, I’ll really be surprised. It’ll be interesting to monitor over the next few months to see if it picks up steam.

Do You Look At a Job Candidate’s Product Reviews?

Hiring managers and HR departments use social media content as part of their employment screening, at least the majority seem to these days. When you think of social media monitoring for a potential new hire, it’s instinctive to first think of looking at a candidate’s LinkedIn and Facebook profiles. But what about product reviews?

A social media monitoring program for the hiring process is all inclusive – it doesn’t just focus on the “big three” social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook) but goes deeper into message boards and forums, blog post comments, etc. Essentially it can pick up all content generated by a user’s online footprint. This includes product reviews on sites such as Yelp and Amazon.

Why would a hiring manager be interested in these sites?

Product reviews have been around forever. Before social media sites became insanely popular, review sites were a go to for consumers. A lot can be revealed by a person’s product reviews that may not be captured on other social sites or during the interview process, including:

Purchasing habits: while this may not exactly be relevant, things such as frequent posts on clubs and/or restaurants that reference a potential issue with frequent alcohol consumption may be of interest to a potential employer.

General attitude: this is a great place to get some insight into a person’s general attitude. Some people are simply “negative Nelly’s” – no matter what happens, they are never satisfied. Typically when I see a poor review on Yelp, for example, that seems out of sorts with the other reviews, I tend to look at the person’s profile to see if they’ve left other reviews. If they have, I take a look – are they all negative, or do they seem to be fair? Someone with consistently negative reviews may signal someone that is overly negative or has the potential for a bad attitude at the workplace.

Level of potential professionalism: while review sites are informal, what a person writes (and how they write it) could give insight into their level of professionalism. When writing negative reviews, do they refrain from using vulgar or insulting language? Do they clearly state why they had a poor experience with the service/product? Are they excessively wordy, or on the flip side, do they not fully explain what happened to warrant the less than stellar review?

Hiring the right people is paramount to a successful company – using any and all tools available will help find the right people for the job. While social media monitoring seems to be categorized at looking at the “main” social sites people visit, taking a look at the lesser viewed content can be extremely helpful in the decision making process.

Did Social Media Kill Foursquare?

As recently as a year ago, FourSquare was THE thing….people were checking in when they were shopping, dining out, and everything in between. Marketers saw this as a great tool to learn more about their customers and reward them for their business.

It seems as though social media is slowly killing off Foursquare – in fact, as I prepared to write this blog post, it took me several minutes to recall the name of the site. That’s how long it’s been since I thought about it. I’m not alone – thanks to tagging, hashtags, and other social media cues, people can easily share their location and activities directly on any social site they choose without needing to visit Foursquare.

What does this mean for your business? Well, things got a whole lot simpler when it comes to marketing directly to your customers. It’s one less site to focus on, meaning more time for the sites that are most active for you and your customers.

Even if you’re not directly connected to your customers, there are ways to find them and engage directly, even while they’re in your place of business.

Social media monitoring: if you are using such a program, you know the benefits of monitoring for your brand and/or products. It’s a great way to easily find out who is talking about your brand. It’s also easy to connect with them once you’ve found them.

Take advantage of those who are tagging: when someone “checks in” by including your company’s user name in their post on social sites, respond. It can be something as simple as thanking them for visiting, ask them what they’re eating/shopping for, or, better yet, reward them if you catch the post in time – send them a coupon to use during their current visit. You can bet this will get their attention and the attention of others who follow their site.

What to do when there’s no text? Sometimes people will simply post a picture of their meal and comment on it, but not state where they are. Enhanced, location based social media monitoring can help you identify these customers while they are in your place of business so you can reach out and engage with them, similar to what you would do with those who directly tag your business in their post.

While I don’t think Foursquare is completely dead, I do think its time is limited. It was a great tool at the time, but one that was short lived as social media sites upped their game quickly and rolled out tools to encourage users to stay on their sites longer. Two years from now we will be referring to Foursquare like we now do with MySpace…it was good while it lasted, but met its fate too soon.