As the world in which you do business moves faster than ever, decisions need to be made quicker. Information is required with ever increasing frequency so that risks can be mitigated and opportunities taken. This is breaking the models upon which global businesses have built their strategic insights and determined their future direction.
OUT WITH THE OLD...
The traditional method of analysing markets is well understood. It works well and provides trustworthy data. It also suited the traditional top-down communication of the pre-internet years, where managers would instruct their employees to carry out tasks in a certain order and manner. But it’s slow. And while it still has its place, market research and media monitoring won’t cut it in today’s fast-paced business world.
...IN WITH THE NEW
With consumers continuing to create meaningful data about brands and products in real-time online, new tools are required for tracking market share, brand reputation or customer feedback, which can then be used as the foundation for insightful decision-making undertaken at board level. Understanding how to harness the power of observed online, real-time conversations is driving the connected, responsive and informed brands of the future.
CUT THROUGH THE NOISE.
Data on its own may hold knowledge, but effectively measuring influence requires isolating and extracting valuable opinions and audience insights. Download our latest white paper to find out how brands such as Samsung, Coca-Cola and Microsoft are driving meaningful insight out of the online debate.
Onalytica has been named by Gartner as one of its Cool Vendors for 2013. We are one of just five companies to be featured within its Consumer Dynamics report, which recognises innovative consumer research techniques. Our flagship solutions - Onalytica Voice of the Market (VoM) and Onalytica Influencer Relationship Management (IRM) – have been highlighted for their novel approaches to real-time insight and influencer marketing.
We are very proud to be identified as a Gartner Cool Vendor as it really is validation of our expertise in helping marketing professionals navigate the challenges of an evolving digital landscape and deliver impactful influencer engagement to give brands a competitive edge.
Influencer marketing delivers improved 1:1 marketing and communication results within the following disciplines: Corporate Communications, PR (Corporate and Product), Investor Relations, Content Marketing, Software and Platform Evangelism, Analyst Relations, Public Affairs and Blogger Relations.
For more information you can read the full press release or get in touch with tim [dot] williams [at] onalytica.com.
The Gartner report can be viewed here.
Content has become an essential currency for marketers. Though companies have been producing informative content such as white papers, case studies, webinars, research and videos for many years, until recently there has been no single term to describe these marketing efforts.
Now these tactics have been gaining significant traction as content marketing, an umbrella term for a wide range or interactions with specific audiences - from thought leadership research aimed at an influential blogger, to a video aimed at a potential customer. As the content marketing industry continues to expand (the UK Content Marketing Association estimates that in 2012 the UK content marketing industry alone was worth around £1 billion), it is becoming more and more essential for companies to have an effective content marketing strategy.
However, creating such a strategy represents a huge challenge for many companies. Who should you be speaking to, and when? What should you be saying? Which types of content marketing tactics are most effective? Finally, how can you measure the effectiveness of your content marketing in financial terms?
Our white paper explores how companies and content marketers can optimise their content marketing strategy to get relevant content in front of the right influencers at the right time - and to measure and improve the ROI of content marketing activities.
The white paper is available here, as a free download. You may also be interested reading more about Onalytica IRM, our new influencer relationship management platform designed to scale your influence and improve the ROI on your content marketing activity.
From PR to investor relations, corporate communications is increasingly important in this hyper-connected world, as one-to-one communications between companies and the people they seek to influence become more personalised. However, one of the challenges with this approach has always been scalability – until now.
Enter Big Data
Corp Comms may not be the first thing that comes to mind when it comes to big data. However, big data represents a fantastic opportunity for companies from all industries to gain a competitive edge – especially for those involved with one-to-one communications.
Opportunities…
More data points means that communications programmes can be increasingly targeted and structured, as there are more real-time signals about an individual’s areas of interest than ever before. Big data analytics also make it possible to gauge an individual’s influence as well as what or who they are influenced by – vital knowledge in a world where customers are increasingly influenced by a wide variety of stakeholders.
…and Challenges
At the same time, as data volumes continue to grow exponentially (IBM estimates that around 2.5 quintillion bytes of data were being produced every day last year), one of the challenges is simply keeping pace with this growth. After all, data is only useful if you know what to measure, and what to do with that information once you have it – and this is the challenge facing many companies today.
Harnessing Big Data for Communications
To find out more about how big data can be used to scale corp comms activity and drive ROI (as well as how to overcome the challenges), download our free white paper.
For a tool which will allow you to automate and scale your influencing activity, you may also be interested in Onalytica IRM.
Whether its PR, Corp Comms, Content Marketing or otherwise, chances are you're already running an influencer program. However, while influencing activity is becoming increasingly critical to businesses, traditional programs are difficult to scale, and it's hard to demonstrate their value - here are some tips to get some real results out of your influencer program.
From London landmarks to moody skyscapes, we get a great view from the Onalytica offices (apart from when it's foggy).
Here are a few shots we've taken from the office recently....
Global investment bank Jefferies has used Onalytica data and insight to inform their latest piece of equity research into brands whose business models leverage the “many-to-many” network of the Internet.
The research explores the growth dynamics and business models of UK comparison sites MoneySuperMarket and Rightmove, as examples of businesses which exploit the many-to-many dynamic in different ways. Our previous work with Jefferies includes research analysing the global Fashion debate and retail markets, which eventually led to a buy recommendation on ASOS based on our insights.
Using our InfluenceMonitor platform, we draw out brand insights from the online debate to see how these sites’ share of influence has developed over the quarters in comparison to their market competitors. As David Reynolds states, our method of analysing brands through the online debate is “The Onalytica Way”!
This article has more information about the importance of weighting for influence when using online analysis as both a reflection and predictor of movements in brand perception and other areas. Copies of our recent co-presentation with Samsung at the WARC Next Generation Research are also available if you would like more information about how our platform can help inform brand strategy.
With the global obesity epidemic becoming an increasingly critical issue for brands, we took a look at the US and UK obesity debates over the past 12 months to analyse the impact of obesity-related issues on businesses across a range of industries. Here are a few of our findings:
What is driving the debate?
The US and UK obesity debates are generally reactive, with spikes in the debate driven by events such as the Olympics, which led to criticism for McDonald’s, Cadbury and Coca-Cola over their sponsorship of the games, or campaigns such as the supersize soda ban in the US.
The primary issues currently driving the obesity debate in the UK are hot topics such as childhood obesity and the recently-proposed sugary cereal ban, while weight-loss reality TV show The Biggest Loser is currently the top debate driver in the US.
Largest brands attract most negative perception
McDonald’s and Coca-Cola are synonymous with fast food and sugary drinks within the global debate, receiving significantly more negative attention than competitors such as Subway and PepsiCo.
However, PepsiCo saw a spike in negative attention in December and January, driven by criticism surrounding the appropriateness of Beyonce’s sponsorship deal with Pepsi.
Cereals - US vs. UK perception
When it comes to cereal brands, Nestle dominates the share of negative attention within US debate in comparison with Kellogg’s. However, the reverse is true within the UK debate, giving the companies different reputation profiles across these regions.
However, the recently-proposed sugary cereal ban has driven additional negative sentiment towards Kellogg’s cereal products in the UK, with Frosties singled out by shadow health secretary Andy Burnham for its high sugar content. General Mills’ Sugar Puffs product and Kellogg’s Special K are also strongly associated with obesity, receiving high levels of negative attention.
UK supermarket brands
Over the past 12 months, Tesco is the supermarket most associated with obesity in the UK. However, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and ASDA received a positive sentiment boost between November and December 2012 as the result of research suggesting that supermarket ready meals are more healthy than recipes from celebrity chefs such as Jamie Oliver Nigella Lawson.
Please get in touch if you would like a more detailed breakdown of the key issues, brands, sentiment and emerging trends within the obesity debate.
While Social Media programmes are widespread, opinion is polarised as to whether these programmes reflect the marketplace as a whole. When implementing an online listening programme, it is important to know that your programme offers an accurate overview of the market. Taking influence into account ensures that your programme is a true reflection of the market, and that outcomes can be accurately measured.
THESE ARE INFLUENTIAL TIMES
Influence can be defined as the capacity of an individual, organisation or publication to impact upon the actions, views or opinions of others over whom they do not hold power. Influence is topical – that is to say, the amount of influence a stakeholder has will vary by subject matter, whether this be smartphones, fashion or finance. For example, an article in the FT about the performance of a major public company is likely to have a larger impact upon the firm’s corporate reputation and stock price than a similar piece by a private blogger. However, the FT probably has less influence than many blogs when it comes to subjects such as climate change or wildlife.
WEIGHT A MINUTE
Scoring stakeholders by topical influence shows how much “punching weight” they have in any given debate. This has important implications for brands, as influence is a reflection of how much a stakeholder can move the markets through their opinions. In the battle between competing brands within a marketplace, an influencer’s voice can lend additional firepower to a brand’s share of the debate, which in turn can translate into market share.
TESTING, TESTING
Ok, so we’ve established that influence weighting is important. But how can we be sure that this scoring is accurate? Firstly, the methodology behind influence scoring should be sound. At Onalytica for example, we use an influence-measurement technique developed by Nobel prize winner Wassilly Leontief. Secondly, it must lead to results. We have tested our methodology to predict outcomes such as market share movements and have found our results to be very accurate. One example includes our recent work with investment bank Jefferies.
Weighting for influence as well as analysing all types of online media means that your online listening programme has a better chance of providing a good return on investment. Get in touch if you would like more information on our influence methodology, or would like to build your own real-time online listening programme.
