KDPaine finally finds an automated analysis tool she can love..

My involvement with the SAS Social Media Analytics tool,  began with a simple question asked on the roof of the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC at your typical  post-presentation cocktail party.  Diane Lennox, in charge of PR measurement at SAS, asked a simple question: ‘Would you consider working with us to use our product in our measurement system?’

I of course agreed,  knowing that I’d always lusted SAS's their analytical tools. Little did I know at the time that they were working on an automated text analysis system. But back then, we also didn’t know what social media would do to the measurement business. Since then, we’ve watched the system develop into an incredibly useful integrated measurement system that is truly a game changer in the industry.

So why am I so excited about this particular solution?  SAS SMA offers all the standard features of social media monitoring platform with several  important points of differentiation:

1. It’s integration of traditional and social media and web analytics into one seamless application. So now when someone says "did adding Facebook toour launch mix work? We can now say yes, not only did it impact the pickup of our key messages, but it also increased web traffic by 22%.
2. It’s accuracy level -- over 90% is better than most humans can do, and orders of magnitude over anything I've seen in the industry.
3. It’s ability to deliver “phrase clouds” as opposed to word clouds which are much more useful when trying to analyze a marketplace.
4. The potential to integrate the data with business analytics that SAS is known for like CRM and Marketing Mix Modeling.

I'll be adding to this more as it happens, but got to go answer a few questions live

Update as of 10 am PST.

A few other important point to make about why I'm now such a fan of SAS's social media measurement solution.

To me a big differentiator is SAS itself. SAS is a company that provides data to make better business decisions -- just like KDPaine & Partners. Their philosophy is that data alone doesn't provide answers, it is the interpretation of the data and the degree to which that data is customized to the specific business goals of your organization that makes it valuable. So unlike most other organizations they don't start by talking about the tool, they start by identifying the drivers to business success and the goals and strategies that will drive results. THEN they begin to identify the words, phrases, issues and problems that need to be analyzed. THEN they develop a taxonomy. THEN they test that taxonomy against how humans would interpret it. When they get to a sufficient accuracy level, then they deploy. I know of no other company other than my own,that invests that much upfront time to get things right.

On the back end, they have the tools to help make sense of that data. Either the CRM application (and yes, they already integrate with Salesforce) to help manage your media; the web analytics to deterine the impact on revenue or efficiency (i.e. cost per customer acquisition or cost per download or click thru) or the financial analysis tools to figure out impact on market share and earnings per share.

Then there's the whole competitive intelligence aspect. Most of my clients want to know where they fit in any discussions about their industry. They all know that they need to be tracking topics and issues, not just their brand name. At best they can pull in discussions about the competition, but few have the budgets to accurately analyze the entire industry. Now that is not just possible, but eminently doable.

To sum up, when I started KDPaine & Partners 8 years ago, I had in mind a system that would somehow, (I didn't know how at the time) connect the dots between outputs and outcomes. That's what SASSMA does. I can't wait to share with you the case studies. 

 

Comments

[converse all star]

I did want to let you know that Biz360 also provides analytics for traditional AND social media (we've been doing traditional for 10 years, and social for about two). Although we do not provide web analytics, we do provide phrase clouds and other advanced analytics within our platforms.

[olympic games accommodation]

I am glad to hear that. Thanks for the information.

[Analyticly]

Katie,

PeopleBrowsr has just launched Analytic.ly and we'd love to show you around.

Best,
Liz

[Sysomos]

Katie,

Have you seen Sysomos MAP, our social media analytics service? If you'd like a demo, let me know.

Mark Evans
Director of Communications
Sysomos Inc.

[Tshelton]

Katie:

Would be interesting to catch up with you and compare notes - we have
been looking at Attensity and Autonomy - looks like SAS has similar
natural language processing. I'd be interested in seeing a more
rigorous comparison to test the "92 percent" accuracy you are quoted
as giving to SAS in the NY Times...

best

Ted

[twitter.com/themaria]

Katie,

First of all, I'm a huge fan of your work as someone in the monitoring / measurement space.

Secondly, thanks again for popping over to our blog at Biz360 and providing commentary about our sentiment measurement method.

Thirdly, the SAS tool you describe seems great; I've been a fan of SAS since my MBA days.

I did want to let you know that Biz360 also provides analytics for traditional AND social media (we've been doing traditional for 10 years, and social for about two). Although we do not provide web analytics, we do provide phrase clouds and other advanced analytics within our platforms. If you are ever inclined, I'd love to give you a personalized tour.

You can always find me on Twitter as @themaria and @biz360 or email mogneva (at) biz360 (dot) com