Editorial Articles

Making online insight monitoring & analysis meaningful - 10 top tips from Onalytica by Flemming Madsen, Executive Chairman and Founder of Onalytica

The vast, expanding and diverse world of online communications gives companies a huge opportunity to keep a finger on a market’s pulse: what customers are saying; what the competition is doing; how is the corporate reputation fairing; what’s driving the market debate. But for many organisations, the challenge is where to start? How to monitor and analyse that huge online conversation? After all, there is so much noise that it can sometimes be hard to hear what really matters. Here are our top ten essentials:

1. Popularity and influence are not the same - Popularity is the volume of online noise and while it helps to raise awareness, it may not be a true indicator of what is really influencing market opinion. Jamie Oliver has been one of the most vocal commentators about child obesity, but the much lesser known National Obesity Forum has far more real influence.

2. There’s more than one flavour of influence – we could write a whole book on this topic, but suffice to say that influence is multi-layered. Influence is the capacity of a publication, an organisation or an individual to impact the viewpoints, actions or opinions of others over whom they do not hold power. Plus, it’s important to understand relative influence and topical influence, which are what really enable us to understand who is driving the debate, or each individual’s real punching weight. Relative influence - the influence-to-popularity ratio of a source - surfaces the stakeholders who are more influential than conventional wisdom might lead us to believe.

3. Topical influence - people do not have the same influence on every topic. For instance, an expert on computer software may not have the same influence in the automotive industry. It’s obvious, but most monitoring solutions do not take this into account.

4. Times change - the ‘top ten’ one month may be different the next or in a particularly fast-moving debate, could even change daily.

5. Test and test again - measurement and analyses should be regularly tested against market outcomes - including traditional market research reports or surveys – so that even the slightest movements off course can be detected early and more easily corrected.

6. Reliance on science - I believe that if it matters it can be measured and believe in using well-established scientific methodology to monitor and analyse key influencers. After all, it is human nature to over-rate that with which we are most familiar, so avoid subjective ‘gut feelings’ and instead, use continuous insight that stands up to scientific scrutiny.

7. Relate to real business outcomes – the impact on the business is, after all, what matters here, so focus on predicting a business outcome. For instance, will the increased commentary by the top ten influencers in a particular product area lead to increased sales in the next three months? Your online insight provider should be able to help you formulate hypotheses against which predicted outcomes can be tested.

8. Start with the known – measure what you are already measuring, such as existing KPIs (key performance indicators). This will give you a real test of whether it is working or not.

9. Get colleague buy-in – continuous online monitoring is good news for the whole company and a chance for you to showcase your good work, so spread the word! Some online monitoring solutions have easy-to-use online dashboards designed that need minimal expertise to navigate or understand.

10. Consider how it fits in with other research - online insight and traditional market research techniques each have their benefits and are natural complements. conventional survey techniques provide a more intimate dialogue, while continuous insight gives near real-time data that enables companies to respond to change in a more timely way .

Further information: To find out more about continuous insight and its potential impact on a business, click here.