Predict the Future Through Social MediaGet ahead of the curve by becoming

a trendspotter

Heidi Sullivan, SVP, Digital Content, @hksullyTom Ritchie, SVP, Product Management, @Tom_Cision#cision

Trends – Why track them?

Insights into community and consumer behavior

Inspiration/Innovation

Expand knowledge base to become a more electric personality

Speak the language of your community

Create timely story ideas

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What are we looking for? What can we find with trendspotting?

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You can’t have an audience without people.

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And you can’t have effective

marketing if you

can’t reach those

people.

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There is no more silver bullet.

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Is your content reaching

your intended audience?

Google increased the importance of

original content when they

determine Search Engine Results Page

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“If the news is

that important, it will find me.”

- A college student in an article by Brian Stelter in the New York

Times, March 2008

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Why Influencers?

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The tip of the iceberg

1% of any population will be active content creators

9% will be participants

90% will simply "consume" that content online

- Rohit Bhargava, Influential Marketing Blog

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The Hush Puppy Concept

No, not these: These:

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The Hush Puppy Concept

1994 – Hush Puppies struggling

as a brand

A few NYC hipsters started

wearing them

Spread to NYC fashion, then the

rest of the country

Sales exploded by 5000% in 2

years

Q: Do influencers start trends?

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Duncan Watts’ Online Music Download Study

• 14,000 participants rank 48 songs

• When not provided with others’ ranks, results were completely random

• When provided with group ranks, users followed the herd and word of mouth took over

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Do influencers truly influence the masses?

Malcolm Gladwell: Law of the Few

“The success of any kind of social epidemic is heavily dependent on the involvement of people with a

particular and rare set of social gifts.”

VS

Duncan Watts: Trends are Unpredictable

“A rare bunch of cool people just don’t have that power. And when you test the way marketers say the world

works, it falls apart.”

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Who is right: Watts or Gladwell?

Both. Trends still begin with a small few and are spread by those with connections.

Influencers can change over time – and anyone can become an influencer.

However, a general rule of thumb is that influencers tend to talk to each other. #cision

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To identify our

influencers, we

need to identify our tribe.

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Know your niche – the devil is in the details

About one quarter of bloggers tracked in Cision’s media database cover one of 26 “first tier” general topics. The rest cover more specific topics.

General 23%

Specific 77%

Source: Cision Media Research

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Influencers Talk to Each Other Once you find one or two influencers in your space, see who

they are talking to and who they reference

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Yesterday’s Audience – The Bucket Method

Age

Income

Geography

Gender

Race

Marital Status

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2020

Male

35-44 years old

Income $50K+

Married

Some College

Chicago

Volleyball Player

Starbucks Coffee Drinker

Liberal

Sox/Bears Fan

Avid Fisherman

YouTube Viewer

Food Blogger

Tweets 3x/day on average

100+ Brand/Movie Likes on Facebook

DEMOGRAPHICS PSYCHOGRAPHICS SOCIALGRAPHICS

Deeper understanding of end-users

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Blogger

Tweets 3x/day

100+ Facebook

Brand Likes

Volleyball Player

Starbucks Coffee Drinker

Liberal

Sox/Bears Fan

Avid Fisherman

Male

35-44 years old

Household Income $50K+

Married

Some College

Chicago

35-44 years

Today’s Consumer inReal-time

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Look-Alike & Response Models

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VOLUME VS. ACCELERATION = VELOCITY

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Share of voice vs. share of trend

Nike vs. New Balance overall blog mentions

% increase Nike vs. New Balance on “barefoot running”

Nike

New Balance

Nike

New Balance

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

2010 2011

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Mining internal troves of unstructured data

A new breed of language processing tools is deriving deep

insights from customer conversations

Advanced text analytics have arrived

• Going beyond mere sentiment detection, modern tools

also provide context and help to mine for attributes (e.g.

the author’s intent)

• A bird’s eye view of unstructured text will show you what

your customers are trying to ask you for

Source: OpenAmplify

Intent analysis

“I have to ask my sister about which tablet PC to get. She knows all about

those.”

“So many tablets out there! Which one?”

“I’m finally ready to get a tablet. Recommendations?”

We have access to conversations that we’ve never had before.

• IDENTIFY communities and influencers.

• LISTEN to conversations and blog posts to identify trends and gain insights.

• PARTICIPATE and build relationships, becoming a member of the community (and not just a PR person.)

• RESEARCH trends, companies, technologies and more.

• CREATE real stories about your brand that connect with trends and news of the day in your industry.

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Trends aren’t just about PR

- From trendwatching.com’s “15 Trend Tips”

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Predict the Future Through Social MediaQUESTIONS?

Heidi Sullivan, SVP, Digital Content, @hksullyTom Ritchie, SVP, Product Management, @Tom_Cision#cision