Visible Technologies plans to release social and search tools that allow marketers to support online campaigns. More than a year in the making at a cost of about a million dollars, Visible Intelligence organizes searches and analyzes massive amounts of data through what the company calls a "search-and-relevance engine" built on similar technology to Google. Counting hashtags and Facebook fans no longer works because businesses need to sift through the spam and elevenths signals to capture real, actionable information to support key initiatives. So, Kelly Pennock, who moved into the CEO role at Visible from chief technology officer earlier this year, spearheaded the project and built the vision for the new platform and company. Pennock says available technology has not kept pace with the opportunity to integrate social and search, so it requires a leap beyond existing social monitoring tools. Data and system integration tools allow users to integrate the platform with customer relationship management (CRM) tools and business intelligence (BI) systems to tap into social data across enterprise business applications. The platform also provides the ability to share data and easily engage among users and departments to create more meaningful and targeted customer experiences. Information is processed and returned to users in about 30 seconds, compared with about 20 minutes for other platforms, according to Debbie DeGabrielle, CMO at Visible Technologies. About a dozen Visible clients have been testing the platform since early September. The platform goes out and collects brand mentions in the form of data from a variety of social sites across the Web. It mines the data to look for specific mentions of a campaign or spokesperson. Wading through data that offers no value to the campaign can cost big bucks. So, aside from the ability to pull in data from a variety of social sites like publicly available information on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, Visible built in sorting capabilities, language support, and analytics to measure the campaign. It also provides sentiment score, media type and geography. There were plenty of challenges to building the platform because it identifies word order, proximity of two words to each other, type of media, and length of document. It also supports multiple languages and offers insight into sentiment. It sorts through an "overwhelming amount" of data to determine whether someone searching on the word "cruise" means Tom Cruise, cruise missiles or cruise ship.
With FDA guidance coming any day now (no really, any day now...) on how pharmaceutical companies should engage with patients through social media channels, there is sure to be an onslaught of new companies jumping into the mix. Make no mistake: these companies have been waiting on the sidelines in fear of a slap on the wrist from the FDA. With parameters on the way, companies that would otherwise be content to wait on the sideline will join the social media ranks. That's not necessarily a good thing. Has anyone bothered to ask the patients whether they welcome the involvement of pharmaceutical companies and what need they would fill? We've all read the stats that support the idea there is a void waiting to be filled. Pew Internet reports that 61% of online users are actively seeking health information and that individuals with chronic diseases are more likely to spend time on social networks than the average individual. This may point to the patient appetite for content but it does not imply they want that content to come from pharmaceutical companies. There is a common belief that even if the pharma industry decided to implement social media programs that patients would automatically rebuff its efforts. There is considerable logic to this line of thinking. Individuals generally don't join a social network to engage with brands. Because of this dynamic, people are predisposed to place more scrutiny on a corporate entity than on an individual. This holds true for any company, but when you consider a pharmaceutical company, the effect becomes magnified. Pharmaceutical companies are in a highly regulated industry where every move they make is placed under the microscope. More so than other industries, customers (in this case, patients) pick apart every message and every nuance that comes from a pharmaceutical company. When a pharma company decides to become an active participant in social media, you can bet a horde of people are watching its every move just hoping for a misstep. This is the lens that shapes the opinion that pharma is not welcome in social media circles. Sure, patients are wary of the participation of healthcare companies for all of the aforementioned reasons. But even more so, they are wary because their health is at stake. This isn't a decision on which laptop to buy or which new cell phone has the best apps. This is a decision that literally impacts the way you live your life. Patients have every right to be wary of pharmaceutical companies. But that doesn't mean they don't want and need them to be a part of their communities. Generally speaking, what someone suffering from an illness wants is information. It provides comfort, peace of mind and some semblance of control. Patients want information. Pharma holds the information. Pharma has a unique ability, in fact a responsibility, to educate patients as much as possible. Why should a little extra scrutiny stand in the way? As a company, if you are there for the right reasons and keep the patient at the center of your decision-making process, you will welcome the added attention. What are you waiting for?
Fashion victim, fashionista: these are words not easily applied to me. However, I have learned one valuable lesson over the years by observing an industry that's always on the lookout for the next big thing: if you wait long enough, past trends and patterns will make a comeback. This is exactly to the case with social media right now. As all things social start to mature, the same evolution that took place in the digital marketing industry only a few years ago is emerging: social is fast becoming less about experimentation, and more about regular production. In fact, production is the key word in many ways, which I'll come back to a bit later. In recent months, a noticeable shift has taken place among the clients and prospects we've talked with at our agency. They fall roughly into three categories: those still experimenting with social media, those using social media consistently as a tactical add-on to their marketing activities, and those trying to make social a more central, strategic component of their marketing efforts. As we approach 2011 budget deadlines, more and more marketers are trying to switch gears and move from using social as a tactical add-on to making it a core component in their overall efforts. Small, medium and large companies want to know how they can streamline, automate, budget, and measure social media and social marketing. How can it move from a series of handcrafted singular projects to a more consistent, more repeatable, more predictable undertaking? We have clear answers to that. The key challenge remains implementation. Marketing integration may have been the Holy Grail for advertisers over the last 15 years, yet the agency world became increasingly fragmented during that period of time. Many agencies that initially dismissed digital as a peripheral activity are now bent on not making the same mistake again with social. Agencies rightfully see social as central to the future of marketing and work to develop in this space as fast as they can. Yet each agency, each discipline, looks at social through a very narrow lens that only puts the emphasis on their original core competencies. And, this is what really spells trouble for marketers. Back to the issue of production, as mentioned earlier: It is tempting to draw parallels between social content production/earned media on one hand, and advertising production/paid media on the other hand. However, the comparison can be misleading in many ways. There are at least five key differences in social that every marketer should bear in mind: 1) Forget one-size-fits-all messages targeting "lowest common denominator" audience. Recognize that fragmentation is here to stay, and embrace it at every step. 2) Frequency and freshness of content matter more than production values. Increase your execution capability and move to rapid-fire, low-cost production cycles. 3) Campaigns have a limited shelf life, but quality content is a valuable and reusable asset. Build your library for the long term and ensure that you will be able to do "reruns." 4) Stop thinking (and budgeting around) campaign flights and push marketing. Start thinking about ongoing engagement. Audiences can no longer be turned on and off on demand. 5) In a genuine two-way, real-time conversation, it is hard to separate the production arm from the distribution arm. Your brain is connected to your mouth for a reason. Larger creative and media agencies have legacy economic models built around scale and size that make it difficult to adapt and operate profitably in a world of exponentially fragmented audiences and touch points. When it comes to social, the question is not whether "they get it," but whether they can evolve to become as fast and nimble as marketers need them to be. Even Web agencies, in spite of their digital DNA, can sometimes struggle with things like video production or labor-intensive, low-tech conversational engagement. The long-predicted new marketing paradigm is finally here. Marketers need to start thinking, behaving and organizing themselves as content producers who treat engage consumers as audiences, instead of fully outsourcing this function to external publishers. Content is still king, after all. A new species of agencies is emerging to deliver solutions that meet this new paradigm Built from the ground up to meet the new realities of turnkey content production and distribution, agencies with a studio mindset and roots in video program production and distribution can create a competitive edge from a creative, execution and dissemination standpoint. It's official: Social is now well beyond a passing marketing fad. Amid this environment, marketers find it increasingly challenging to differentiate brands, products and messages. The push for a constant flow of newness is becoming a key operational requirement -- just like in the fashion industry. One thing is certain:
Visible Technologies plans to release social and search tools that allow marketers to support online campaigns. More than a year in the making at a cost of about a million dollars, Visible Intelligence organizes searches and analyzes massive amounts of data through what the company calls a "search-and-relevance engine" built on similar technology to Google. Counting hashtags and Facebook fans no longer works because businesses need to sift through the spam and elevenths signals to capture real, actionable information to support key initiatives. So, Kelly Pennock, who moved into the CEO role at Visible from chief technology officer earlier this year, spearheaded the project and built the vision for the new platform and company. Pennock says available technology has not kept pace with the opportunity to integrate social and search, so it requires a leap beyond existing social monitoring tools. Data and system integration tools allow users to integrate the platform with customer relationship management (CRM) tools and business intelligence (BI) systems to tap into social data across enterprise business applications. The platform also provides the ability to share data and easily engage among users and departments to create more meaningful and targeted customer experiences. Information is processed and returned to users in about 30 seconds, compared with about 20 minutes for other platforms, according to Debbie DeGabrielle, CMO at Visible Technologies. About a dozen Visible clients have been testing the platform since early September. The platform goes out and collects brand mentions in the form of data from a variety of social sites across the Web. It mines the data to look for specific mentions of a campaign or spokesperson. Wading through data that offers no value to the campaign can cost big bucks. So, aside from the ability to pull in data from a variety of social sites like publicly available information on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, Visible built in sorting capabilities, language support, and analytics to measure the campaign. It also provides sentiment score, media type and geography. There were plenty of challenges to building the platform because it identifies word order, proximity of two words to each other, type of media, and length of document. It also supports multiple languages and offers insight into sentiment. It sorts through an "overwhelming amount" of data to determine whether someone searching on the word "cruise" means Tom Cruise, cruise missiles or cruise ship.