Firms 'could miss out on social media channels'

SPSS is helping several firms analyse text on social media channels to

uncover customer views and spot emerging trends.

"Ways of measuring blogs are starting to emerge, but they are at a very
simple level," said Colin Shearer, vice president for market strategy at
SPSS.

"You can measure the number of times a blog was accessed, but this
doesn't say anything about the tone or emotion used, which is why text
mining is important. We are trying to understand how customers behave as
a group and at an individual level."

According to SPSS, customer opinions that are expressed on social media
sites can often be far more candid than those collected through, for
example, traditional market research methods, providing more accurate
insight into customer behaviour and attitudes. Organisations are failing
to optimise the return on investment from marketing spend by treating
on- and offline activity in isolation.

"Details derived from blogs can be used to enhance existing segmentation
information, giving rise to a new set of data for direct marketers,"
said Shearer. "Collecting insight in this way can enable them to react
more quickly to customer trends than through traditional methods."

- See feature, page 32.