BOSTON, MA--(Marketwire - November 11, 2009) - As control of a company's marketing messages --
and, indeed, its very brand image -- continues to migrate from traditional
media to social media, companies need to pay close attention to how they're
being perceived in online conversations. They also need to take appropriate
action, based on the insights they glean.
That's precisely what a growing number of companies are doing, according to
a new benchmark report published by the
Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company
(
NYSE:
HHS), entitled
Social Media
Monitoring: Why It Pays to Listen to Online Conversation. In fact, the
research found that, despite the substantial cutbacks that most companies
have been forced to make in light of the global economic recession, 50% of
all companies are increasing their investment level in social media
monitoring initiatives. The research also found that the insights derived
from social media monitoring and analysis can benefit multiple parts of the
organization, including marketing, sales, public relations, customer
service, market research and product management.
Aberdeen research reveals a number of striking performance disparities
between Best-in-Class, Industry Average and Laggard companies. For example,
Best-in-Class organizations are 2.6-times more likely than Industry Average
companies, and 93-times more likely than Laggards, to improve their ability
to generate consumer insights that drive new product/service development.
They are also 3.3-times more likely than Industry Average companies, and
82-times more likely than Laggards, to improve their ability to identify
and reduce risk to the brand. Best-in-Class organizations also outperformed
Laggards when it comes to improving customer advocacy and decreasing
customer service costs.
In addition to deploying the right set of enabling technologies, success in
social media monitoring requires a combination of strategic actions and
organizational capabilities. To that point, Best-in-Class companies are 42%
more likely than Laggards to have a process for disseminating insights
gleaned from consumer-generated content to key decision-makers and also
twice as likely to have a process for applying the insights in the context
of specific needs. Best-in-Class companies are 1.9-times more likely than
Laggards to have dedicated operations resources devoted to social media
monitoring, analysis and reporting.
The report includes a number of recommendations to help spur performance
improvements. In addition to hiring resources that have social media
monitoring as part of their job description, recommended actions include
conducting online consumer sentiment analysis at a granular level,
identifying and measuring the value of key influencers, and implementing
time-sensitive performance metrics.
"A growing number of companies are systematically analyzing the endless
flow of unstructured data that resides in online conversations to generate
actionable insights," said Jeff Zabin, Research Fellow at Aberdeen Group.
"They are working to ensure that the insights reach the right
decision-makers, wherever in the organization they may reside, in a timely
and contextualized manner. And, importantly, they are tracking and
measuring the results to drive continuous performance improvement."
A complimentary copy of this report is made available due, in part, to the
following underwriters: Converseon and Visible Technologies. To access a
copy, visit:
http://www.aberdeen.com/link/sponsor.asp?cid=5971.
For additional access to complimentary
Customer
Management Research, please visit:
http://research.aberdeen.com/index.php/-customer-management
About Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company
Aberdeen is a leading provider of fact-based research and market
intelligence that delivers demonstrable results. Having benchmarked more
than 30,000 companies in the past two years, Aberdeen is uniquely
positioned to educate users to action: driving market awareness, creating
demand, enabling sales, and delivering meaningful return-on-investment
analysis. As the trusted advisor to the global technology markets,
corporations turn to AberdeenTM for insights that drive decisions.
As a Harte-Hanks Company, Aberdeen plays a key role of putting content in
context for the global direct and targeted marketing company. Aberdeen's
analytical and independent view of the "customer optimization" process of
Harte-Hanks (Information - Opportunity - Insight - Engagement -
Interaction) extends the client value and accentuates the strategic role
Harte-Hanks brings to the market. For additional information, visit
Aberdeen
http://www.aberdeen.com or call (617) 723-7890, or to learn more
about Harte-Hanks, call (800) 456-9748 or go to
http://www.harte-hanks.com.
© 2009 Aberdeen Group, Inc., a Harte-Hanks Company
451 D Street, Suite 710
Boston, Massachusetts 02210-1928
Telephone: (617) 854-5200
Fax: (617) 723-7897
www.aberdeen.com
Contact Information: Media Contact:
Jeff Zabin
Aberdeen Harte-Hanks
(847) 328-4795
jeff.zabin@aberdeen.com