Collective Intellect’s President Tim Lefkowicz kicked off the start of the 2008 Summer Olympics by appearing on the Fox Business Network (FBN) Money for Breakfast Show anchored by Alexis Glick which follows pre-market business headlines. FBN sought Collective Intellect’s opinion on the results of the pre-Olympic Sentiment around the major brands that are advertising at the Olympics, and we are expecting to return later in August with more interesting insights.

Referring to CI’s latest report, Glick, asked about how the traditional Big 3 of VISA , Coca-Cola and McDonald’s were doing heading into the Beijing games. Joining Lefkowicz and Glick was Mark Sunshine from First Capital to discuss these three big sponsors from the financial market perspective. Sentiment calculations list positive sentiment for VISA, Coca-Cola, and McDonalds. The other brands mentioned as part of this pool are GE, Kodak and Panasonic.

Lefkowicz predicted that “VISA was the Brand to beat running up to the opening ceremonies” based upon CI’s reporting.

A few highlights from the conversation are summarized below:

Visa had a positive sentiment of 67%, the largest share out of the Big 3, which can be contributed to VISAs campaign with the “Come Together” Olympics narrated by Morgan Freeman as well as another AD which features US Olympic team swimmer and gold medal contender Michael Phelps.

McDonald’s themes are much focused media campaigns on Olympic China advertising like “I love it when China wins.” Mr. Sunshine mentioned that McDonalds is actually down playing their Olympic involvement in the U.K. to avoid possible boycotts over alleged human rights violations by China.

Coca-Cola’s “Bird’s Nest” campaign does well with their theme of cooperation, and their embracement of social media and the younger demographics. Coca-Cola is a mainstay of the Olympics.

For the complete version of FBN’s “Gold Medal Marketing Show”, watch the following clip: http://snurl.com/3cw7y

Tags: Blog Analysis, Brand Management, Mass Media/Culture, Social Media Monitoring // Add Comment »

Tags: Blog Analysis, Social Media Analytics, Social Media Organization // 1 Comment »

Paul Gillin’s recent thought-provoking comments on whether and if a negative sentiment “floor” exists for Dell obscures a larger point - never give up! Using social media tools to further understand the negative sentiment associated with the “floor” helps build a business case (for or against) further marketing strategy and outreach. My response:

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A natural floor for social media tonality certainly exists, and no doubt varies by industry topics. However, as an employee for a company whose mission is to both interpret and effect change within the social media arena , I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that Dell has a unique opportunity to dive deeply into the negative commentary that constitutes the “floor”. Put another way, understanding tonality sets the stage, understanding content provides further opportunity for outreach. If the themes around negative content are inconsistent from month-to-month, a case can be made for a “floor” of constantly churning negative activity that it doesn’t pay to try and influence. However, if the themes emerging from negative social media activity are consistent, and no outreach has been attempted that leverages “the message” of this consistent negativity, the case could be made to further reduce the floor by testing different types of social media outreach. Dell may certainly have recognized this and have attempted the outreach (or decided that an ROI case can’t be made for it) – but it’s worth mentioning!

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Collective Insight helps marketers understand the “face” behind the social media buzz and can use that knowledge to connect in a relevant and timely fashion.

Tags: Blog Analysis, Social Media Analytics, Social Media Metrics // Add Comment »

There appears to be more uncertainty than usual in the mainstream media regarding the Pennsylvania pre-primary polling. Pundits are pointing to the ambiguity that comes with the 300,000 newly registered voters. The old “cell phone” argument is making a comeback, too.

So a lot of doubt is being cast on the poll numbers, specifically that Clinton will be able to maintain her significant lead. Our survey of the political blogosphere will only serve to cast further doubt on traditional polling methods. Real Clear Politics, which averages all the traditional polls, is giving Clinton a 6 point lead.

Our data shows that it will be much closer: Clinton 51%, Obama 49%. So close in fact, that I wouldn’t be surprised that when the results come in, those numbers could be flipped. Using our traditional methodology, Obama is ahead in the Pennsylvania-based blogs, but the national average allows Clinton to pull slightly ahead.

Many within her own party are calling for Ms Clinton to step down if her margin of victory is close, so a 2% win would be a pyrrhic victory at best. This should become very interesting indeed.

Tags: Analyzing Consumer Generated Media, Blog Analysis, Mass Media/Culture // Add Comment »

With over a hundred million blogs and hundreds of millions of users of social networks and readers of social media, the internet is becoming the central location for marketing efforts to influence customers purchasing decisions. Integrating offline and online campaigns are a must in order to achieve optimal reach and conversion opportunities. There are more options to touch the customer today than ever before, and the media and reach combinations can be staggering. The primary purpose of marketing is the same: conversion. The methods to reach people are practically unlimited. And the game has completely changed. Instead of broadcasting it’s now called engagement. At the AdTech conference this week in San Francisco, engagement is all the buzz. So where to begin, what comes next, and how do you measure the effectiveness? Let’s start with the landscape of channels to push a message.

In the traditional offline arena we have the standbys of television, radio, billboards, press releases, print and direct mail. We can expand this well known arena to incorporate web banner ads to draw a circle around the arena of broadcast advertising.

Social media marketing makes up the rest of the picture and is less understood. This area includes blogs, wikis, podcasts, video blogs and webcasts, social network profiles, twitter/text and widgets.

All of these forms of media are intended to do one thing: create a call to action for a customer that moves them through the path of awareness to consideration to preference to purchase. Social media includes both earned and paid components, the more earned media achieved results in lower costs and, theoretically, higher conversions. Conversion is the point at which a customer takes the action to purchase product. Conversion is now largely based on conversation. Social media forms a conversation between buyers, prospects, and producers in all of their permutations. Social media levels the message playing field. Any one of these people could become a key influencer of thousands or perhaps even millions of people around purchasing decisions. One bad experience with an influencer can wreak havoc on a brand. It is time for companies to come out of their shell, find their advocates and detractors, throw out the polls and (dare I contribute to the hype) ENGAGE.

Tags: Blog Analysis, Social Media Best Practice // Add Comment »

The stakes are high for this last of the big Democratic primary days. If Clinton surges ahead, she will undeniably be a serious contender again, and if Obama maintains his lead, he can cement his status as the frontrunner, and push Clinton further to the margins.

Using the normal methodology (averaging national and state-focused blog results), the blogosphere predicts a very narrow Clinton lead in both states. It is with some reservation, however, that I post this as a final prediction, because of several mitigating factors– the primary reason being that if only Ohio and Texas blogs are taken into account, the numbers are even closer, but Obama maintains a small lead in both.

I believe a lot of Clinton’s traction in the national blogosphere comes from her recent media blitz—SNL, The Daily Show, et cetera; as well as Rush Limbaugh’s recent advice for Republicans to vote for her in the primaries. The question is if all this national coverage will actually influence voters in the states.

Our methodology for blogosphere primary predictions worked much more consistently early on in the races than later (and in general, Republican primaries were also easier to predict). One reason for this might have to do with the saturation of the data during the multiple races on Super Tuesday. But a more interesting hypothesis is that the national trends, coverage, and dialogue, are no longer as big of influencers on the state-level political process. Perhaps more and more people are ignoring the national pundits and TV appearances, and focusing on the local campaigns, speeches, and issues.

The two-data-point methodology was put in place to ensure that the small sample of local political blogs was not skewed, and it was balanced out by the national conversation. Maybe though, as the races go on and on and are focused longer on particular states, the national conversation is becoming less relevant to the results. Or perhaps, after the saturation of Super Tuesday, the collective opinions of the national blogosphere will be more accurate than a smaller local sample.

Even though the aggregate data predicts a Clinton win and the numbers are very close, I’m going to go out on a limb and put my own personal faith in the state-based projection– and call both races for Obama. As the race goes on, I believe the importance of national punditry in state races is diminishing.

But regardless of the end results, tonight will certainly be interesting.

(We ran data for the almost-settled Republican race as well, showing an overwhelming McCain lead—69% in Texas, and 81% in Ohio.)

Tags: Analyzing Consumer Generated Media, Blog Analysis, Mass Media/Culture // Add Comment »

Tweitgeist twitter theme cloud heavily weighted with superbowl themes. It makes sense but just didn’t think it would be this over the top.

Tags: Analyzing Consumer Generated Media, Blog Analysis // Add Comment »

What a great turnout for the primary yesterday. I think Arriana Huffington said it best with, “A Great Night for Hillary, a Crappy Night for Pollsters“. And if that’s not enough info on polling, here’s another link from Zogby.

While we didn’t pick Hillary as a winner against Obama, our numbers were much closer than what pollsters predicted. We accurately picked the order of republican candidates with McCain coming in first, Romney second, and Huckabee third. On the democratic side, we had predicted a very tight race between Clinton and Obama with Obama winning and Edwards coming in a distant third. The race was indeed tight between Clinton and Obama but the blog data still showed Obama with the advantage. I will try to dig into the data a bit more and post on the collective wisdom of the blogging crowd but at first glance it appears that showing emotion was a positive for Mrs. Clinton.

The proof points are definitely real and in this case closer than the polling results indicated. Social media measurement and analytics rule the day.

Stay tuned for Super Tuesday!

Tags: Analyzing Consumer Generated Media, Blog Analysis, Mass Media/Culture // Add Comment »

One of the questions that inevitably comes up when talking to customers about social media marketing is “How does Collective Intellect determines who the influencers are in social media?” This is a great question, because unlike traditional media — where you have existing criteria — circulation, source credibility, advertising rates based on impressions — social media influence is dynamic, not static. If you take away the top 3% of bloggers — the “A” list, if you will — what a marketer is typically left with is really difficult to figure out. Depending on what you’re tracking, there may be lots of posts from different bloggers, and heavy discussion on certain message boards and forums, plus video post sites such as YouTube might garner high interest in your area. The question is, which posts, which conversations in social media are the most important to you right now?

There may be lots of results associated with a keyword you search on in Google, or any of the low-priced keyword-based tools, but which results are the most important? Time-based search gets you just that — the most recent information. Certainly valuable, but how do you know of those recent conversations, which hold the most weight, which will spread the farthest, where will you get, so to speak, the most bang for your buck?

The question to ask is not who has the largest audience. The question should be: who — right now (today, this week, this month) — has the widest influence within the area I hope to impact?

So, if you’re interested in issues around dog food (to use a favorite topic of DK) what matters is finding the influence communities that have the greatest opportunity to impact current discussions around dogs, and more specifically dog food. Finding influencers in a general pets area might be helpful to a degree, but the more laser-focused you can get, the more relevant you are. This means what you are looking for are those social media content creators and commmunities where the content is really high value.

What do you think? I have some successful examples of this idea in action that, hopefully soon, I will be able to blog about.

My main point: Social media is a moving target — what today is an influential source or community might lose that status by next week or next month. Waiting for a quarterly report from market research may not be the best approach when pulling together campaigns.

Tags: Blog Analysis, Social Media Best Practice, Social Media Monitoring // 1 Comment »

Last week Google updated its PageRank algorithm, which lowered the PageRank of some fairly well known blogs. This PageRank change caused quite a stir on Techmeme, upsetting many bloggers. And rightly so, as Google is responsible for bringing their message to the masses in the same way that Primate Legend Jane Goodall has brought us fantastic stories about the princely chimpanzees.

But did these complaints affect Google? A look at Collective Intellect’s sentiment data tells another story.

The graph to the left shows Google’s daily sentiment as compared to Oct. 24th, the day the PageRank change was made. The sentiment data shows that Oct. 24th had the fourth highest sentiment of any day over the last to weeks; and the day following the PageRank change had the second highest sentiment over the same period.

After looking at this data, it is not surprising to note that the PageRank discussion died down within a day.

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