Not a week passes where we fail to hear about the challenge big data poses, how it can be effectively managed and what organisations can do to leverage it to make more insightful decisions.

Big data was traditionally thought of in the context of areas, such as sensor networks, call records, military surveillance, complex scientific research and the like. However, in recent years its definition has been broadened to include data arising from social networks, Internet search and large-scale e-commerce, which are the focus of this post.

McKinsey, Forrester, HBR and the Economist have offered expert commentary on the wealth of big data in this new, social context, as well as thought leadership on how it can be mined and analysed to create strategies that  touch upon a range of business functions. The salient point all make is that big data impacts not only the usual players in social, such as marketing, PR, sales and customer service, but areas as diverse as supply chain, R&D, HR and much more besides.

We have been forced to broaden the definition of big data thanks to the growth of User Generated Content (UGC), the impact of which means we now create as much information every two days as we did from the dawn of man through to 2003. The unstoppable surge of content and data has contributed to what we are now calling ‘information obesity’ and led Edelman’s Steve Rubel to coin the term ‘Attentionomics’; focusing on the difficulty of cutting through the noise to captivate people’s attention, amid infinite content and finite time in the big data age.

But how do you go about using big data to make better business decisions?

Listening tools like Radian6, Sysomos and Synthesio are fantastic for reporting and evaluating external, digital marketing activity. However, there’s an unrealised opportunity for organisations to utilise these tools to mine data and extract meaning from online conversations to support their internal, operational and strategic decisions which can help them evolve from a social brand to a social business.

Navigating the complexity of big data and formulating social business insights is not easy though. It’s an emerging area that requires a broad and changing skill-set, meaning that all too often organisations can be data rich, but insight poor from their listening efforts.

Amongst all the discussion about big data there are already some fantastic examples of organisations leading the way and utilising it to make enhanced decisions for themselves or their clients.

Recorded Future is a software company with CIA and Google funding that specialise in web intelligence and predictive analytics. They have developed something called a ‘temporal analytics engine’ that scours the web to find relationships between people, organisations, actions and incidents so they can more accurately predict events, such as outbreaks of disease, terrorist threats and economic swings.

Another good example of tapping into social data to make better business decisions is that of Derwent Capital Markets. Using listening technology they compares fluctuations in the online national mood with stock market movements, the results of which help guide investments.

Thirdly, some major supermarkets are already using data mined from social media to enhance their supply chain. By studying local online conversation they are able predict demand and determine new products they should stock.

This trio of examples show how organisations are beginning to use big data to make better decisions and offers an exciting look into how online conversations may be used to predict offline behaviour in the future.

Although, we are only at the beginning of this journey, the potential uses of big data are wide, varied and exciting. For me, this is where things get interesting and it’s great to see big data rightly used beyond its traditional application in communications strategy to now guide the business one too.

From 30 March 2012 there’s going to be some significant changes; most notably to the front-end, with the new template enhancing the position of images and posts, which will dramatically alter the look and feel of pages. Essentially, Facebook is now giving brands a greater opportunity ‘to tell their story’ and engage with fans via much richer content.

In terms of the back-end and from a community management perspective, there’s been some tweaks which enable you to draft future content and more easily moderate posts, as well as the introduction of premiun ads and reach generator for larger pages.

I see the introduction of Timeline as Facebook once again laying down the gauntlet to challenge brands to do more and to do better. But, it’s not only a challenge. With more online media vying for our attention, Timeline presents a fantastic opportunity for brands to create a better, more visual and ultimately more engaging experience for their fans.

Check out the infographic for a more detailed look at what Facebook Timeline means for Brand pages.

Facebook Timeline [INFOGRAPHIC]

Coca Cola are a great example of a company adopting a content led approach to adapt, grow and ultimately thrive in the digital age. To mark this change they released two videos showing their point of view at the turn of the year called Coca Cola Content 2020 - and they were (of course) outstanding pieces of content.

Meanwhile, Eloqua and JESS3 have emerged as content marketing leaders during this period, having created the Blog Tree: New Growth Infographic and Social Media ProBook, whilst nimble start-ups like XYDO have spotted the opportunity to tap into this trend and curate existing content to businesses seeking to better engage their audiences.

XYDO’s approach currently focuses on content in emails and it has been hugely successful; recently I was lucky enough to catch up with Eric Roach, CEO of XYDO to hear more about the company, as well as the opportunities, benefits and challenges of content marketing.

Initially conceived in May of 2011 as a news-based social network, XYDO’s broad range of curated news feeds quickly gained traction among businesses and non-profits.

You can find out more about XYDO from its website, blog, YouTube Channel, Facebook Page and Twitter stream.

1. What is XYDO and your USP?
XYDO is a content marketing platform that gives businesses the ability make every interaction with their customers meaningful. The XYDO platform uses a sophisticated content system that processes 250,000 articles, images, and videos every day, and can identify the hottest, most relevant pieces for almost any vertical. Our clients can then leverage that 3rd party content to drive serious engagement with their customers.

Our first release combines XYDO content with email newsletters, and our customers have seen a 500% average increase in click through rate.

2. In your view what are the main advantages of content marketing?
Engagement – Great content endears your customers to your brand, and gives them a reason to interact with you. It’s amazing how many people reply to our customers’ mailings, thanking them for sending such a great email. When was the last time that happened with a promotional email?

Lead Generation – If what you send to your customers is good enough, they’ll pass it along to their friends. In fact, 10-40% of the clicks in our clients’ emails are their customers sharing content to their social networks, which in turn builds our clients’ audience (and sales funnel) .

Retention – Content marketing helps you stay top of mind with your customers in between purchases. By interacting with them consistently – and providing consistently good content – you increase your chance of a subsequent sale immensely.

3. What do your clients use content marketing for?
Email is the first distribution channel we’ve developed for, and the results have been astounding. One of our first customers, Lendio (www.lendio.com), saw an 800% increase in their click through rate after one week. The Utah Jazz, another customer, has seen consistent increases in their open and click through rates, such that they use XYDO mailings for the majority of their email communications.

4. How would you describe XYDO’s approach to content marketing in general?
The XYDO approach is twofold. First, we focus delighting existing customers by making sure every piece of content is absolutely engaging. Content marketing is worthless unless the content itself is amazing, and our system does a great job of identifying what will resonate with people. Second, we focus on helping our clients grow their audience by providing them with content that has a high viral potential. One of the by-products of the way our system judges content is that we know beforehand what people will share with their friends. It’s like giving our clients a loaded deck, and they see huge improvements to their social reach because of that.

5. What is your long term vision for XYDO?
While email was the first channel we developed for, we’re focused on becoming the best content resource for smart marketers regardless of communication channel.

6. As a marketing discipline, what more can agencies do to demonstrate the value of content marketing?
As large brands shift towards a content marketing approach, the argument for content gets easier to make. American Express is a classic example, with Coca-Cola following closely with a new content focus. Following with quantifiable results from their own experience should close the argument for content marketing.

7. In your opinion, what is the biggest misconception about content marketing?
The biggest misconception that we’ve seen is that content needs to come from within the company. The conversation doesn’t start in the marketing office – it starts and often ends with your customers. Providing great content, whether it originates from your company or not, is an extremely effective way to participate in that conversation.

8. How do you measure and evaluate the value of content marketing activity?
The metrics you use to measure content marketing efforts should depend on your distribution channel. For example, we’ve found open rate (change over time), click through rate, and % clicks to social shares to be great indicators of content marketing effectiveness when distributed through email.

I would like to put on record my thanks to Eric for taking the time to talk to us about XYDO and providing us with such a fascinating insight into content marketing. I wish him and the rest of the team all the very best for the future.

The reason for this post is that I often receive emails about an ‘awesome infographic’, ‘innovative Facebook app’ or ‘exciting launch’ which are all well and good, but too often there’s very little reason for me to open up the laptop and blog. Most of the time there’s nothing wrong per se with the outreach, but equally there is nothing right that compels me to respond in the way the PR would like.

However, a little more thought and care in the approach would pay dividends. PRs are untouchable at communicating news, but they need to become better at articulating benefit; all too often outreach is overly focused on client messaging. For blogger outreach to be effective there needs to be some middle-ground, to establish something that is mutually beneficial for both parties.

In its most brutal, blogger outreach can be thought of as a transaction e.g. an exchange of value between two or more parties. For instance, the blogger may have a niche audience the PR wants to reach, therefore reaching this audience has a certain value. Subsequently, the PR needs to offer something of enough perceived value to the blogger in order for them to write about the client and enable them to reach the niche audience.

I’ve mentioned value as it is a deliberately broad term, but its one PRs should be thinking more about. Monetary value is easy to understand, but PRs can offer value to bloggers in many different forms.

I’ve designed this list to help PRs make their proposition more valuable, so I will be more likely to write about their client; then everyone can benefit and achieve the desired outcome. Whilst, I would never claim to speak for anyone but myself, I’m sure many of these tips will ring true for other bloggers.

1. Content co-creation
I frequently receive outreach describing in great detail an initiative, milestone or other good news story and whilst, news is interesting, I blog as a hobby and want something more exciting than that. The opportunity to co-create content has much greater appeal than simply receiving a press release. By this I mean, instead of emailing about the appointment of a new Marketing Director, let me have a Q&A session with them or even better let my readers submit questions.

2. Exclusivity
If you want me to write about a new product, launch or event etc, let me or my readers have some form of exclusive access. It surprises me the number emails I get from PRs who blindly hope I will write about their client with absolutely no exchange of value mentioned. A more effective approach would be to give readers something exclusive, such as a money off voucher for the product, beta access to the app or discounted tickets to the event. All of this is more valuable and engaging than receiving a news release.

3. Competition prizes
Competitions have always been an effective tool to get people reading and talking about your clients and raising awareness. From my own experience bloggers are normally receptive to hosting a competition and writing about your client if the prize is valuable enough. The exchange of value when hosting a competition is easy to understand as they often have monetary value. Quite simply, if you’re launching a new product, you will increase the chances of someone blogging about it if there is a prize to give away too.

4. Product trials
In my opinion, a press releases on its own is probably one of the least effective tools to get bloggers talking and writing about your client. Instead wherever possible try and get your client’s product into the hands of bloggers. This can be expensive and time-consuming, but will undoubtedly add serious value to your outreach proposition and they will feel more compelled to blog; resulting in a greater chance of the desired outcome.

5. Experiences and events 
Finally, if you are serious about enticing bloggers to write about your client, offer them a fantastic, unique and exclusive blogger experience they will want to share with their readers as soon as possible. Over the years I’ve been involved in ‘money can’t buy’ experiences for bloggers including whiskey tasting hosted by a master distiller, the opportunity for bloggers to learn fuel efficiency tips from a cricket legend and arranged behind the scenes access at a major leisure brand.

Experiences and events are expensive to manage, but they have a high perceived value and will strengthen any outreach proposition. If you genuinely want to build long-term relationships with bloggers it’s an investment worth making.

I’d be interested to hear what ingredients are more likely to compel you to write about a pitch. Skilled PRs can fashion and add value to opportunities, but all too often I’m left thinking PRs need to think and work a little bit harder for their earned media.

In fact, recently I was lucky enough to touch upon all of these topics and more when I caught up with Kristi Knight, Vice President of Corporate Communications at home security company firm, Vivint.

Vivint rebranded last year from APX Alarm and with backing to the tune of $565 million from Goldman Sachs they have become the fast-growing home security company in North America. You can find out more about Vivint from its website, YouTube Channel, Facebook Page and Twitter stream.

1. In your view what are the main advantages of online PR and social media versus traditional PR?
We strongly believe in running traditional PR in tandem with social media. While traditional PR carries the much need third-party credibility factor, it’s a one-way communication vehicle. Social media allows us to interact with our customers and have a two-way conversation. When traditional PR is coupled with social media, our communications strategy is much more powerful.

2. Just how important is social media to Vivint?
Social media is extremely important to us as it enables interactions with our customer and key constituents. We are passionate about providing great products and services to our customers and we take their comments and feedback very seriously.  Social media is a great way for us to interact with them, understand what they need and how we can improve our service. The social media we typically utilize are our corporate and charitable blog, Facebook, Twitter YouTube and proactive outreach to the blogosphere.

3. Beyond advertising, what does Vivint’s use social media for?
In addition to creating awareness, we use social media, specifically YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, to boost our customer service and recruit outside sales teams and internal staff. Social media is a great vehicle to address customer concerns and incorporate customer feedback, allowing us to constantly improve our product and services. We’ve received numerous JD Powers & Associates customer service awards, and social media played a big role in that recognition.

We also use social media for our internal communications. For example, Vivint’s CEO, Todd Pedersen, hosts a weekly podcast for the company’s outside sales teams.

4. How would you describe Vivint’s approach to YouTube and social media in general?
We used YouTube quite heavily as we rebranded from APX Alarm to Vivint. We posted entertaining videos about what went into our rebrand, and even a rap that was created and performed by a Vivint employee. We also utilize YouTube for product introductory videos and company/executive background profiles.

5. Tell me about the rap you’ve used for the rebrand – what was the thought behind that?
One of our employees, Prince Early, approached our CEO, Todd Pedersen, and asked if he could create a rap for the company’s rebrand. He wanted to express how much he enjoyed working for the company and how much respect he had for Pedersen. The rap turned out to be extremely catchy and well written. During our employee launch event, we had him perform the rap live on stage. The performance was then posted on YouTube for all to enjoy. It has become a theme song for our new brand and message.

6. What impact has social media had on Vivint’s reputation and its bottom line?
Social media has played a key role in managing the company’s reputation. Because of the transparency of the online world, people can post complaints as well as compliments. When a complaint does arise, we’re now able to immediately address that concern and turn someone who may have been less than impressed into loyal customers. Customers want to be heard and social media allows us to listen and interact. Online conversations will happen about your brand whether you participate or not. We’ve chosen to participate.

In addition, as anyone in marketing will attest, it costs a lot more to replace a customer than to keep your current ones happy. We thus dedicate an enormous amount of time listening and communicating with our customer base.

7. How would you suggest that other brands look at social media?
As a business owner or executive, ask yourself, “Do I value what my customers think? Do I want to interact with them? Do I want to gain their loyalty?” If the answer is yes, then a social media strategy is the best way to accomplish this. Different business models require different strategies: For example, a B-to-C company may find Facebook more effective than Twitter, while a B-to-B company may use Twitter or a corporate blog more effectively. The tools and social media vehicles are many and are changing constantly so companies shouldn’t wed themselves to just one. Stay flexible, experiment, and decide which vehicle and strategy will best influence your target customer.

8. As a client, what more can agencies do to demonstrate the value of social media?
Agencies need to demonstrate how to incorporate social media into a larger strategy. They need to align social media with their clients’ traditional PR or marketing activities, use case studies to demonstrate their effectiveness, and show their know-how by involving themselves in the world of social media. Essentially, agencies need to guide and teach, but they should also “walk the walk.”

9. In your opinion, what is the biggest misconception about social media?
The biggest misconception about social media is that it’s easy and quick. An effective strategy takes a significant amount of time. Companies should dedicate whole teams to the task. Half-way participation won’t cut it—putting out a Tweet here and there, posting a Facebook status now-and-then. Companies need to communicate a message AND listen, monitor, and interact.

It’s also vital to couple your social media strategies into a much larger, traditional PR strategy. This two-pronged approached allows you to generate traditional press coverage which carries with it a third-party credibility, and to interact directly with your customers.

10. How do you measure and evaluate the value of your social media activity?
We measure social media through Facebook’s “Likes,” comments, messages and Facebook’s built in metrics. We measure Twitter through our followers, mentions and re-tweets. We measure YouTube through our subscribers, posted comments, and online virality of our video links. Our corporate and charitable blog are measured through RSS subscriptions, and comments and interactions with the various postings.  Once these metrics are gathered, they can then be incorporated into a much larger search engine marketing strategy that will assess the company’s overall online activity.

I would like to put on record my thanks to Kristi for taking the time to talk to us about Vivint and providing us with such an interesting Q&A. I wish her and the rest of the team all the very best for the future. 

The past 12 months will undoubtedly be remembered for the Fukushima disaster, occupy Wall Street movement, Euro zone crisis and phone-hacking scandal, all of which have impacted upon trust in government, business, NGOs and media. These major incidents have resulted in a historic fall in the trust of government and business, creating a leadership vacuum that has being ably filled by the quality, not tabloid media, whilst employees, have replaced CEOs as a credible spokesman.

In addition, this years Trust Barometer has its largest ever sample, having surveyed 30,000 people from both the general public and opinion forming elite.

Whilst there is a lot of data to digest, the following points are what I think will have the biggest impact on my role in 2012.

There are several reasons for this move; my reluctance/laziness to create a food blog elsewhere, simply wishing to broaden the topics I write about and more selfishly, because I want to. But fundamentally I view writing about social business/media and food and drink as not only matching up some of my interests, but the merging of passions.

Right then. Introduction over. Lets get reviewing.

Whilst I was back in London over the festive period I had the pleasure of visiting Meat Liquor. Although, lots of foodie bloggers have well and truly beaten me to the punch to pen a review, there are still many who have yet to hear about Yianni Papoutsis’ latest venture.

For those unfamiliar with Yianni’s rise to fame, his story is one of social media stardom, one that has seen him go from selling burgers out of theMeat Wagon to having a fully fledged restaurant in one of the most sought-after west end postcodes.

Its been quite a journey and a year ago I blogged about the mythical #MEATEASY operation happening above a pub in New Cross Gate, as well as finally getting my hands on an awesome Meat Wagon burger in the Mahiki tent during Henley Regatta.

I’ve been studying Google Analytics to see how this blog performed throughout 2011, as well as to gain an understanding of what topics are popular, how readers land on the blog and what terms people are searching for.

I’m fascinated by the vast quantities of data that we increasingly have at our fingertips and more importantly how the insights gleaned from this information can be used to inform future content, search and communications strategy – and I fully intend to utilise the data below to shape the direction of Social Web Thing.

2011 Summary

• Social Web Thing received 42,664 Pageviews
• There were 47 new posts
• The busiest day of the year was 6 October with 465 views
• The most popular post that day was So You Want to Work in PR? Here’s My 10 Top Tips

Top posts

• 2011 PR Grad Schemes
• 2012 PR Graduate Schemes
• So You Want to Work in PR? Here’s My 10 Top Tips
• 5 Tips to Pitch Yourself to a Potential Employer Using Social Media
• 10 Free Data Visualization Tools

Top referring sites

• Twitter
• Facebook
• linkedIn
• Edelman Digital
• Hootsuite

Top search terms

• pr graduate schemes
• pr graduate schemes 2012
• social web thing
• pr graduate scheme
• personal seo

The data above validates much of what I already thought about Social Web Thing with regard to content, traffic and search terms. It seems people find genuine value from posts that offer tips or advice on landing a PR or Social Media role. Interestingly, three of the top five posts were written in 2010, but enjoyed fantastic longevity throughout the year. All the numbers have proven insightful and will certainly give me food for thought for the year ahead.

All in all, 2011 has been a fantastic year, both personally and for this blog – amongst the many highlights are moving to a new country, gaining promotion and once again being nominated for the CRAPPs.

For something which started as nothing more than a hobby, I find it extraordinary and humbling to see how the Social Web Thing has evolved over the past 27 months. It’s been quite a journey and the growth has been very pleasing; with the blog exceeding 40,000 Pageviews in 2011.

Another source of much pride has been continuing to write for the Edelman Digital blog, as well as penning posts for The Next Web and Clare Siobhán Callery’s excellent blog, both on a topic close to my heart; employability.

Throughout 2011 I’ve learnt so much, from too many people to name, but I’ll be forever grateful to everyone who has made it such a wonderful year. I’m not quite sure what 2012 will hold for me, but I’m always optimistic and I’m sure it will be an exciting, memorable and enjoyable 12 months.

At this time of year, it’s almost customary to make some predictions about what trends we can expect to see in the year ahead, so I’ll put my head on the block and make some predictions – I’d be interested to hear yours too (here’s my 2011 predictions).

2012 will…

• Be the year of Social Business
• Be remembered for gamification coming to the fore
• See us have more control over our online data
• See the emergence and use of near-field communication (NFC) technology

2012 will not…

• See us any closer to the Rusbridger Cross
• See the death of SEO

Again, I’d like to thank you all for reading Social Web Thing and for your continued support over the past year, it’s much appreciated.

Wishing you and your families a Merry Christmas and great New Year,

Ben