Sysom
mosIn
nc. 


S alMediaa
Socia
BusinessIntelligence
efor  


SocialMedia
MeetsBu
M usiness
contact@
@sysomos.ccom Intelligen
nce
www.syysomos.com

(866)4833338 VueM
V Magazine& &Canaadian

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Marke Assocciation
120Baldw
winSt,Suitte3

Toro
onto,ON
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ReporrtonSSociallMed
dia
M5T1L6 A
Analyttics


Whiitepaper

April2009 Dr.NickKo
oudas


 2 

ABSTTRACT

Usergenerattedcontent(e.g.,webloggsorblogs,socialnetworkks,microͲbloggingsuchas
twitter,wikis
t s,collaborativvetagging,neews,musicsittes,podcastaandvideosharingsites)aree
proliferating at unpreced dented rates. The numbeers quantifying user partticipation aree
astonishing; more than half a billion individuals
i in
n social networking sites worldwide,
w in
n
excess of 10
00 million bloogs, millions of users utilizing microͲͲblogging serrvices, etc. In
n
aggregatesuchservicesggenerateveryylargeamoun ntsofdataonadailybasis.Commonlyy
thewordsoc
t cialmediaisuusedtorefer tothisinform mationcollecctive,primarilycontributed d
byindividualssonline.


Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ
Historicallyco orporatedataabaseshave beenaccumu ulatinginform mationabout anyaspecto of
a business frrom employm ment records to corporate supplies an nd sales reco
ords. Business
ussergeneratted s of technologies offerin
Intelligence is a mature set ng deeper un nderstanding of such dataa.
content: Forexamplesuchtechnologiesinformanalystsandexecutivesn notonlythattthevolumeo of
sales
s in a reggion is increaasing or decrreasing but also
a point to the reasonss behind such
h
o blogs changes.
o works
socialnetw

o wikis
o podcasts Inthisarticleeweargueth hatbusiness intelligencettechnologies andfunction nalitiescanbee
o microbloggs of great servvice to social media as well.
w This weaalth of inform
mation contaiins invaluablee
knowledgeandintelligencceformarketers,publicrrelationsagen ncies,advertisers,politicaal
o news
campaigns,laawenforcemeentagenciesamongmanyyothers.
o video
 

Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ



 3 

INTR
RODUCTION
N––FROMD ATATOINTTELLIGENCE 

Efficient collection, archiving and cleaningg of such colllective knowledge provides the found
dation for rob
bust analytics
from which busin ness intelligen
nce may be extracted.
e Su
uch analytics can enable one
o to contraast events accross multiplee
time periodss and identiffy when and d where, and
d most impoortantly for what
w reasonss,
perceptionsoracceptanceofbrandsaandproductsarechanging.

1Ͳ2 For exaample we cann identify thee target dem

mographic (e.gg., males in eastern
e US o
of
ages19Ͳ29)tthathaveexttremelyposittiveopinions aboutanew techgadget..Similarly,wee
may locate the target demographic with the moost negative opinions abo
out the samee
gadget and automatically discover the reasons behind su uch sentiment (a lot o of
disappointmentaroundthescreensizeeandgraphiccsinthenewgadget).

3Bytappinggintotheinfoormationcollectivegenerratedbyusersonadailybbasis,onecann
identify crisiis events forr brands, pro
oducts, indivviduals or thee general pu
ublic, as theyy
Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ happenandreacteffectivvely.

 4Onecaneeffectivelyideentifyhowideasorrumorrsspreadacrosstheglobeeandidentifyy
key influentiial sources th
hat primarily contribute to
o such spread (e.g., the crisis
c situation
n
AnalyticalCapacities forabrand startedwhen naparticularrpostingapp pearedonab blogwithwid dereadership p,
escalatedinttoseveralon nlineforumsaandsubsequentlymadeitttowidecircculationnews
1. Demographics
1 sources; the top 10 bloggs and forums actively wrriting about the
t crisis with the highesst
2 Sentimen
2. nt readershipcanbesubseq quentlyidentified).
3 Crisis
3.
Managem ment 5Gaininsighhtontheimppactofanadvvertisingcampaignarounddtheglobeassafunctionoof
4 Influenceer
4. time(positivvesentiment towardsabrrandincreaseedsteadilyin naparticular demographic
following a particular
p paign with the video ad reeceiving the most positivee
online ad camp
Identificaation
engagementtonline).
5 Measurem
5. ment
6 Comparisson
6. 6 Obtain feedback on how key comppetitive products and braands fare com mparatively at
7 Engagement
7. several locattions around the world or
o in aggregaate, across seelect demogrraphic groups
 (professional males in th A to B in the US, but the situation is
heir 30's preffer product A
differentinC
Canada).
Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ

7Identifykeeycommunittiesorindividdualsonlinettoengagewith(atechnollogycenteredd
communityw withspecificffocusonwifi enabledgadgets).Takingsuchdesired dfunctionalityy
one step fu urther, it is possible to contrast succh informatio on with key performancee
indicators (ee.g., volume of
o sales as a function of time)
t and un
nderstand corrrelations and
d
influenceofsocialmediaonthebottomline.

It is evident

e that the ability to
o make sensee of the inforrmation in so
ocial media  offers
o tremen
ndous value to marketingg,
publiic relations and
a brand co onscious corpporations as they are no ow able to obtain continuuous feedbacck from their


4 

customerss, understand issues, reaact to them as well as efficiently  engage with
h
Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ consumerrs.Suchabilityyisbecominggincreasinglyyimportant.

““N
Newmediaa,social
mediaandin nternet
coonnectivityyhas
beecomeincrreasingly
im
mportant...thishas
leddtofundamental
shhifts””
Ɣ Ɣ

A variety of studies point to changing trends in the ways people comm municate and d
exchange information,thewayspeeoplechoose tobeinform med,thetypessofpreferred d
mediafortheirentertaainment.New wmedia,socialmedia,and nnectivityhas
dinternetcon
become in ncreasingly immportant. Ass a result, thiis has led to fundamental shifts in thee
waypeopleresearchp productstoob btaininformaationandthewayinwhich hopinionsaree
expressed d.Giventhevvolumeofinfformationinvvolveditisevvidentthatan nyattemptto o
manually make sense of this info ormation collective is at best extremely slow and d
expensivee,andmorelikelydestined dtofail.
Technologgical advancees enable th
he effective processing of
o very largee volumes o of
Ɣ informatiooninrealtim
me.Henceweeoutlinethe challengesassociatedwitthanattemp pt
de business intelligence insights utilizing the soccial media collective
to provid c and
d
highlighth
howtechnolo ogycanaidtheabilityto collect,proceess,andmosstimportantlyy
interpretssocialmedia.

DAT ACOLLECTIION

Sociaal media, whiich consists of

o blogs, wikiis, message boards,
b social networks, podcasts,
p miccroblogging, bookmarkingg,
andoonlinevideos,isahighlydiverseandheeterogenousssetofdata.Collectingdataafromhetero ogeneoussou urcespresents
severralchallengess;especiallyrrelatedtodisssimilardatafformats,datatypesandno onstandardmmetaͲdatataggs.

Anad ngonhosted servicessuch

dditionalchallengeisrelatedtodatassourcediscovvery.Blogs(esspeciallythossenotresidin h
asbloogspotorliveejournal)needtobediscoveredthemo omenttheyarecreated.Iffthisdataisttobeusedefffectively,new
w
informationfromblogs(newb blogposts),so
ocialnetworkksandtheresstofthesociaalmediacolleective,should
dbecollected
d
them
momenttheyarepubliclyavailable.Collectively,mu ultiplemillionopinionsareepostedonlinnebyconsum mersonadailyy
basiss.Giventherrapidevolutio
onofsocialm
mediaservicessandtheeveerincreasing volumeofdaata,robustan ndexhaustivee
datacollectionisaafundamentalfirststepin
nenablingbusinessintelliggenceonsociialmedia.

DATTACLEANIN
NGANDSPA
AMREMOVA
AL

A laarge fraction of the information in usser generated d content is spam. According to somee
stattistics,moretthanhalfofth hecontentho ostedatblogsspot(ablogh hostingserviceprovidedbyy
Goo ogle)isspam..Spamisprim marilycreateedforsearch engineoptim mizationpurp posesbutalso o
formaliciousadvvertisingandphishingattaacks.Althoughtherearem manywaysto ocreatespamm,
theonethatism morepronoun ncedismalicio ouscontent.Spammersin njectcontenttunrelatedtoo,

say,, a blog post in order to cause
c the po
ost to be releevant to many possible seearch queriess.


5 
Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Then th
he actual (sp
pam) post commonly conttains links to
o several sites (advertisingg
malicio
ouscontent).
““Th
hepresenceofspam
Thepreesenceofspaamisharmfultoanyattem mpttounderrstandconten ntfromsociaal
ish
harmfultoany
media. Spam conteent introducees noise and d clutters any emerging discussion or
atteempttoun
nderstand themess around top pics of intereest. It is imp
perative to iddentify and remove
r spamm
conntentfromsocial before processing social
s media content. A variety
v of tecchniques to remove
r spamm
media”” exist. Such
S techniques aid to aa certain exttent further processing of o content to o
facilitatteautomated dcomprehenssion;asspam mfilteringtech hniquesevolvve,identifyingg
Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ and removing spam m is an ongoing battle for f providerss of business intelligencee
solution nsonsocialm
media.

ANA
ALYTICS

The key to unleashing the po ower of sociaal media is gaaining enhannced understaanding of its content. A starting
s point
woulldbetoobtaiinsimplemettricsonthevvolumeofmeentionsofenttitiesofintereestinonlinecontent.Havingspamfreee
conteent is imperaative in orderr for such co
ounts of mentions to be meaningful.
m T functionality will allo
This ow to observee
increeaseordecreaaseinthevolumeofmenttions(orbuzzz)aroundanentityofinteerestandindeeedbeingablletocomparee
severralentitiesoffinterestinteermsofmenttionsonline((beingrelated dproducts,co
ompetitors,eetc).Severalssolutionsexisst
alonggtheselinesiincludingsom mefreesolutions.

We arrgue that it iss possible to obtain undeerstanding off social mediaa far superior
than what
w is preseently available in the form of counts of mentionss and content
clippinngs. An increease or a deecrease to the volume of o mentions of an entityy
probably corresponds to somee event of intterest. Beingg able to und derstand such h
eventss requires significant
s efffort if the volume is high and/or if multiplee
attribuutes/featuress/propertiesaarecommonlyassociatedwiththeentityofinterestt.
The first powerful functionalityy is the abilitty to understtand discussio on topics andd
identiffythemaincconversationssaroundaneentityofinterest.Thiswillenableusto o
furtheer focus on what
w is actually important and refine our
o search fo or information n

(e.g., there
t is a lott of active discussion arouund the 'screeen size' of a
a specific tech
h
gadgetaswellasaadifferentdiiscussionthreeadarounditts'wifi'capab bilities;based
d
onthissinformation nwecanquicklyfocusoneeachdiscussio onseparatelyy).

In many cases th he volume off chatter/disccussion aroun nd a specific topic will be vast, easilyy surpassing thousands o
of
menttionsoftheb brandofinterest.Inthat casepowerfu ulsummarizaationfeaturesscanreadily distilwhatissimportantin n
the discussion,
d saaving time annd cost assocciated with reeading all thee content. Reecent advanccements in su ummarization n
technnology enablles very fast summaries of large document collecctions. The basic b idea beehind summaarization is too
transsformdocumentsintopointsintoahigghdimension nal'documentspace'and subsequentlyyreducethe dimensiono of
this space, by esssentially keeeping only suubspaces that contain thee most inforrmation. Com mmonly diverrse and polar
opiniions exist aboout topics, products and their featurees. The abilityy to understaand the sentiment of opin nions towards


6 

speciific topics or entities of interest is imperative. Thiis will enablee power grou
uping and sum
mmarization of discussion
n
aroundpositiveandnegativessentimentenaablingfurtherrtopicalanalysisacrossseentiments.

Sociaal media is a truly glob

Ɣ Ɣ
““TTheabilitytto
un nderstandtthe
sentimentoffopinions
towardsspecifictopicssor
en ntitiesofin
nterestis
im
mperative””””””
Ɣ Ɣ
bal phenomenon; content exists in alla languagess.
Ɣ Suppport for search as well as advanced analytics
a acro
oss all languages is a keyy
requ
uirement. Thee requiremen nt becomes a necessity for
f global co orporations to o
trackkissuesacrossstheplanet.
Giventhediversityofsocialm mediasources,theability toidentifyin nfluentialand
d
horitativeindiividualsineacchmediasou
auth urceisveryimmportant.Alth houghseveraal
simpple measures of authorityy exist today (e.g., numbeer of in links to
t a blog) wee
argue that the acccumulated history
h duals enables
of thee online activvity of individ
muchricherform msofauthorityyandinfluencetoemergee,especiallyw whentheyaree
couppled with specific busineess objectives. Availabilityy of technical tools with h
abilitty to understtand varied business objeectives in order to condu uct influencer
Ɣ searcchisthereforreofcriticalim
mportance.

Finallly, across social

s mediaa sources, several topiccal communiities emergee.
porting efficieent identification of such communitiess across topics as they em
Supp merge and evolve
e is an additional
a keyy
requirement. Givven the fragm mentation off social mediia today acro oss multiple heterogeneo ous sources the
t ability to o
undeerstandandassociatecommunitiestogetheracrosssourcesisap pressingneedd.

GEO GRAPHYAN
NDDEMOGR
RAPHICS

Socialmmediaconten ntiscontributtedbyusers,individualsrresidingindiffferentplaces
of the world
w as well as belongin
ng to differen
nt demographhic groups, having
h diversee
interestts,backgroun ndsandprofeessions.Captu uringinformaationaboutth helocationas
well ass demographic informatio on about thee individuals contributingg informationn
offersaawaytoobtaainunderstan ndingofsocialmediainvaariousgeographies,diversee
demogrraphicorinteerestgroups.

Such in
nformation offers
o enhancced understaanding of particular interrest to thosee


aiming to compreheend geographies or demo ographics. Co

oupled with the ability to
o
factor time
t in the analysis, it offers a powerful capabbility to und
derstand how w
percepttionsandopin nionschangeetemporally.


7 

CON
NCLUSION

Social
S media are empoweering individu uals and are redefining the
t media laandscape. Wee
argued
a that technology
t caan empower marketers anda public reelations speciialists to gain n
enhancedund
e derstandingoofsocialmedia,offeringfunctionalityfaarbeyondwh hatisavailablee
to
oday in the market
m placee.  The second generationn of social meedia analytics is here as aa
resultoftechnnologybreaktthroughsalignedtomeetbusinessneeeds.Thisnewgenerationo of
social media analysis platfforms offers a convergen nce of busineess intelligence and sociaal


media.
m