A challenge for the way sentiment is measured

It occurred to me when watching my twitter stream fly by (I follow close to 3000 people) that I rarely see anyone share that they have been at an 'unawesome' event - or had the bad fortune to spend time with really dull people.

When we say we've had a good experience we are showing off a bit - "look at me - aren't I good at making the right decisions". We don't like to be seen to be making the wrong decisions. It's part of us retro-fitting a model of rationality on to our more likely Herd behaviour.

Which I think is one of the reasons we tend to be more positive about the choices we make compared to those imposed upon us. No need to post-rationalise when the decision wasn't ours. (image courtesy niznoz)

Of course, my friend Mark Earls would argue most decisions aren't ours, they are more driven by physical context and those around us than we'd like to admit. But the kind of 'not my choice' I'm thinking of is more in line with being negative about the train service you have little choice about taking, the utility or bank etc where the cost of switching appears high (in effort terms at least).

Which is all a long way of saying we big-up what we choose for ourselves and more easily criticise what we don't. There's a lesson in there for building positive sentiment about brands and products and change for the better. And also a challenge for the way sentiment is measured and valued.

Sentiment isn't a standalone value or a necessary consequence of product, positioning or recommendation alone. Good product does not (always) = good sentiment. Good product + 'I chose it myself' may ampifly the positive. Good product - 'someone chose it for me' may dampen it.

For me this is another example of the questionable value of sentiment analysis in and of itself. It cannot be a stand alone value, it has to be measured in the context of a number of complex factors - the purchase cycle, the relationship of 'peers' in the distribution of recommendation. And then its measurement must be put in the context of what a shift in sentiment here or there results in elsewhere. Folk being a bit happier about your product means nothing on its own. That playing out in rising sales, more engagement in co-creative processes (both active and passive) etc (in other words things that deliver real value) is where the bang for the buck resides.

And I haven't seen a tool yet which does even half of that.

The world is full of data. Always has been. We get access to more of it than ever before - thanks to digitisation of thought, emotion and opinion through the likes of blogs, forums, texts, emails, twitter and facebook.

Making useful, innovative efficiency driving sense of it is the key. And that remains a very human art.

Related articles

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• Twitter moods match money moves (geeksaresexy.net)
• What are the most challenging issues in Sentiment Analysis(opinion mining)? (consultramy.wordpress.com)
• Measuring Social Sentiment: Part Art, Part Science (visibletechnologies.com)
• Are You a Happy Tweeter or a Gloomy One? (billives.typepad.com)
• Twitter & DataSift launch live social data services for under £1 (useful) (onlinejournalismblog.com)
• #Firestarters At Google (neilperkin.typepad.com)
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Privacy, permission and concern for the individual versus concern for the network

Data, published conversations, recordings of what we say to each other, call it what you will, ownership of what you publish online has long been fraught with complexity.

Traditional media companies kept it simple when they went online. They got you to agree that everything you publish on their site is theirs to reuse as they wish. They did it at sign up.

They've got a little greedy about this if most print news publications are anything to go by. From their repeated sourcing of quotes and stories from the likes of Twitter it appears they feel they can reuse pretty much anything you publish online.

They haven't sought your permission.

Neither do those companies who spider the web to gather and index what you say. Google, for example. And, of course the wide range of alternative search and social media monitoring tools.

Publish to the web and your default state is that your data is discoverable and can be reused for profit and gain by, well, anyone.

That's a truth. And it's one rarely considered.

Now, if you don't like that truth, you can opt out. You could set twitter to locked, Facebook to absolute private, tell google not to index your blog etc. Or just publish nothing online at all.

These are all options. And they are all actually more about permissions than privacy.

For example, let's imagine that when you sign up to use the web (at all, anywhere) you get the option to set your permissions.

Would you set yours at 'allow my data to be used by companies for gain'? That's effectively the default in the age of social media monitoring. If your data is discoverable it is discoverable by all. On or off.

If you're 'on' monitoring technologies can pick up what you say. There's nothing CIA about that. You can do exactly the same with some patience and a search engine. They can only track open conversations.

Then nice people like my company (90:10group) will slice, dice, analyse and interpret. And if the nice people we work with take the appropriate action and make change based on what they hear then you get better things, things that you cared enough about to want to publish to the web about. (This, by the way, is just part of what 90:10Group does, but it's the part that is relevant in this conversation).

Four groups just gained from your data:

The monitoring tool makers.

Companies like mine: which turn the data (your conversations) into something that can drive change - one to the benefit of both producer and customer.

The producer: Who gets to make a more efficient fit with the expressed needs of their customer.

You. You just improved something you care about.

But should we have asked your permission before we began the search?

My good friend Jonathan Macdonald believes so. And he makes his case very well himself so I will simply link to that here.

I don't object to the provision of an opt-in to this kind of data collection. Many people do make choices already to opt out via the methods I described earlier. The concern is the current internet-wide default that you are opted in.
We could tackle this through a big new 'opt out' button, or education, or by the insight industries opting themselves out.

But for myself I won't be opting out.

When I choose to express my metadata in public (ie publish online) I do so with the intention of connecting with others who care about the same thing I do.

I do so to join with others who may be trying to solve the same issue as I am right now. I do so because together we make things better.

The problem is more important than the individual.

One extra connection (node) doubles the number of connections in a network. It doubles the value of the network.

Which means when I limit the spread of my metadata I'm limiting the connections all of us can make and the value of the network to all of us.

And I'm all for the network over the node.

So maybe what all this does come down to is concern for the individual vs concern for the network.

Tough choices to make. But these are the realities of the networked world.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone so I may have to tidy it up later ;-)

Related articles

• The Web Overreacted to Facebook's Latest Privacy Issue (programmableweb.com)
• Privacy Furor on Facebook (foxnews.com)
• With Schmidt Out at Google, Will Privacy Change? (socialtimes.com)
• Privacy Protection Pricelists: $10 to Delete Your Facebook Account; Message and Photo Encryption Free (blogs.forbes.com)

The case for ignoring your customer

I quite often hear of organisations which take the quite deliberate action of ignoring what their customers say about them online.

They reason that either:
1) They tried engaging and a group of antis came to dominate the conversation, (many brands gather themselves some long-term enemies)

2) There are only ever negative comments - and they 'already know' what customers don't like (think utilities - stuff that you take for granted until something goes wrong).

Both of the above represent a door closed on innovation.

Imagine, if you will, that all those complaining about your org or brand are in reception at HQ. In their hundreds or thousands. Would you ignore them, their feedback and their ideas?

Why then, when they have taken the time and trouble to tell you (and their peers) what they think of your products and services, would you ignore this crowd at your online door?

If thousands of newspapers and magazines had published negative comments, would you ignore them? Why ignore all those published online - collectively delivering huge reach and much greater trust.

And if a cohort of angry antis seek to dominate the conversation, think again about their concerns. Why are they so angry? How has your connection with your customer broken down so badly? Could you fix the damage of decades of mass broadcast comms with some human-scale peer to peer conversation? Could you show a brand is just a representation of the activities of people? Good interactions with people shift perceptions about brands.

It may be tempting to ignore the lone-but-noisey anti-fan - but something makes that person do what they do. No one sets up websites, twitter accounts etc and keeps building them over sustained periods without a pretty strong set of reasons. Are they reasons that matter? You'd best find out.

Further - disengaging with all your online customers as a result harms you, not them. All you leave behind is anger and a record revealing your ignorance which remains unchallenged and which stays on record for ever.

3) The third group who ignore are those who believe they know better than their customers. Some luxury brands take this view.

It comes from the belief that super premium brands are there to lead, not follow.

Those that believe this should take a look at their company history and ask themselves if they haven't at any point changed their products, servicing or marketing in response to customer usage, perception or complaint. Social media monitoring just writes that process fast and large.

In short I don't see a case for ignoring your customer. When you do so you are saying:

We know better than our customers - all of them, always.

And not even Steve Jobs would claim that.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone so I may have to tidy it up later ;-)

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Quora: My answer's better than your answer

I got myself involved in answering a question on Quora: What is the best social media monitoring product?

Here's the answer I gave:

No single tool does it all or suits (every and all) business need.

This becomes even clearer when you add the global, multilingual dimension.

Being technology neutral is important if you are serious about delivering the best results for clients. No vendor (tool) supplies an all-language function.

It's also key to have local language experts in place in both the gathering-the-data and in the interpretation-and-analysis phases. Social media use and dominant sites vary massively from culture to culture.

Then it's all about who gets (delivered) that analysis, in which depts, with what responsibility.

No tool can deliver on creating strategic response from data. No tool makes the data actionable.
Without these the data has little value.

I'd respectfully suggest therefore that it's not a tool you are looking for, but a consultancy.

I would say that wouldn't I? So why have I copied my answer to paste it here? (image courtesy Caro's Lines)

Because, I guess, the drive to lowest common denominator on Quora is too great and the room for niche interest too little, at present.

Those who care about the criteria I value will judge my answer good. They are also the same folk who are likely to come by this blog - brought here by the kind of terms you'll find scattered through it.

Put at its simplest and rawest - my answer's better than your answer (I'm bound to think that because that's the reason I'm offering the answer - I think it's a damn good one). And that's likely the case for all of us driven to answer anything on Quora. We answer because we feel we have the experience and knowledge to answer it better than most. Otherwise we're risking our reputational necks. Or having a laugh.

Is this a problem or a strength for Quora? Time will tell. But the idea that a vote will reveal the best answer is clearly wrong when judged against the measure of the niche needs the internet can serve. The highest ranking is simply the one that gets the single largest group of support. But that does not mean it is the right answer for you.

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Open Pro-active Customer Service: A Social Media trend for 2011

2011 is going to be the year when making/creating/doing with social media begins to gain the ascendency over messaging/using people as a channel.
And it will be customer service that leads the way.

It's increasingly high on the agenda of many orgs - and many are starting to see the value of engaging in social media to ramp up their levels of service.

Open Pro-active Customer Service delivers both ROI and a powerful reminder of the convergence required. In reality customers don't neatly sort their intended interactions with brands or orgs to fit into your existing silos (eg customer service, PR, direct sales etc).

They never did.

Now that customers have the easy ability to publish their needs, complaints and intentions in real time (not always at you, but always available to you) you can identify the areas of critical convergence, surface issues and act to build better products and services in response.

Open Pro-active Customer Service means:

• Doing you customer service in public - Good service should be seen to be done. And it's harder to do bad service with an audience (which can always include the boss).
• Actively seeking out customer feedback eg searching all open conversations.
• Wikifixing: Creating dataflows to ensure when issues are surfaced they are flowed to the key part of the org for solution.
• Being Prepared for organisational change as the requirement for new roles and shared cross-departmental responsibilities become clear.

Related articles

• infographic by Get Satisfaction - The Fastest Way to Lose Customers (socialwayne.com)
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Monitoring Social Media 09 and Everything Faster updates

Pleased to say Luke has now fixed (a very nice) venue for Monitoring Social Media and released earlybird tickets (£100 off) which will be available during September. The event is on November 17 at Lewis Media Centre, Millbank, London.

And in other speaky bits news, my own seminar (Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Social Media But Were Afraid To Ask...), on the morning of October 2 in Huntingdon, Cambs, has just five earlybird tickets left. Which I'm personally blown away about - so thanks very much to everyone who has helped to spread the word on that (please don't stop now!).

Here's the official blurb on Luke's Monitoring Social Media 09:

With the phenomenal growth of social networks, blogging, video & image-sharing and micro-blogging, Social Media Monitoring (SMM) is becoming one of the hottest areas of marketing and PR innovation. Enabling companies to listen to conversations, track trends, engage with consumers and monitor the effects of their interventions is a highly competitive and fast-moving industry.

MSM 09 will bring together global Social Media Monitoring experts, suppliers, PR & marketing professionals for a one-day conference in London on 17th November 2009.The first event of its kind in Europe, MSM 09 offers attendees a series of high-value talks, panel sessions and demo’s, featuring some of the worlds leading social media monitoring companies.

 Speakers so far include:

• Marshall Madson - Director for Digital Strategy, Edelman UK
  
• Neville Hobson - blogger and podcaster, The Hobson & Holtz Report
• Alan Moore - Author, Communities Dominate Brands, Social Media Marketing
  
• Giles Palmer - CEO, BrandWatch
• Paul Alexander - CEO, Beyond Analysis
  
• David Cushman, Director of Social Media, Brando Social  

 Nice to be sharing a stage with Alan again - and for the first time with Neville (who I know from Tuttle etc). 

• The rest of my speaky bits in the next few months.

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