social media monitoring

“Delivering a combination of consultancy and insights is the greatest challenge for the next years”

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Rinske Willemsen

Interview with Rinske Willemsen, CEO of Clipit Media Monitoring, the Netherlands.

Hi Rinske, what is your background and what is included in your current role at Clipit?

After getting my master’s degrees in Business Communication and Business Administration, I have been working in the media & publishing business and marketing management for 18 years. Since 2013, I have been the CEO of Clipit in the Netherlands, a media-monitoring agency located at the university campus of Nijmegen.

What differs Clipit from other social media monitoring companies in the Netherlands?

Our aim is to unburden our customers in their goal to make media attention transparent. Therefore, we work closely with PR (and marketing) communication specialists from corporate organizations and PR agencies to make their work easier and more efficient. We are proud to announce that the service and support provided by our media analysts with specialist media intelligence knowledge has been awarded a 9 out of 10 rating by our customers.

What are your greatest challenges ahead at Clipit when it comes to serving your customer monitoring and analysis, and developing your offer?

This year we have expanded our portfolio with data-driven insights. Through a more commoditized media monitoring solution, we offer more in-depth analysis and insights to our customers. We have just started this new division, so our main challenge will be to integrate this new solution into the existing business and convince our customers to appreciate the value of (big) data.

Have you recently, or are you planning to, release any new technology-based solutions that will add to or improve services for your clients? If so, what solutions, and how will your customers benefit from them?

Clipit is a founding partner of NPSlab, which predicts the net promoter score (NPS) of an organization by combining traditional market research results with media monitoring data as input for an algorithm. NPSlab is a co-creation of market research agencies Etil and Clipit. Machine learning helped us discover a correlation between the results of questionnaires and big data from media monitoring analysis.

Combining the two can generate real time insight into the extent to which customers will recommend the organization and is an indicator of future returns. The resulting real-time NPS enables organizations to make adjustments right away to improve customer loyalty.

All clients have different levels of understanding how media can be analyzed; what is the most common misconception that your clients have?

That PR-value is a metric that registers how much you have earned on a campaign or in brand reputation. It’s not; it’s an indicator to compare different campaigns, periods or to benchmark several brands and learn from these comparisons in order to optimize your campaign or strategy.

With your experience in media intelligence, is there a specific mouthwatering case that you know of where media intelligence has really played a crucial role for a client? If so, what case was that?

We conducted media intelligence analysis for a very successful campaign for Bavaria (part of Swinkels Family Brewers’) #Carnavalvrij (day off for carnival). We integrated and analyzed all paid, earned and owned data streams and cooperated with all agencies involved. We measured to which extent the initial campaign goals were reached and we generated valuable figures and insights for the client and translated them into clear and applicable conclusions and recommendations, which the client will take into account for future campaigns. All analysis results were presented as a management summary in an online one-pager format.

When it comes to the actual data behind the media monitoring you do, what kind of data or media not currently used for monitoring can be interesting in the future?

We have noticed that PR and Communication departments often use media monitoring data only to a limited extent. However, once you understand the potential of combining monitoring data with other data streams, a wealth of possibilities opens up in terms of measuring the effect of your efforts on your business objectives.

We already offer and implement (real-time) dashboard solutions in which different data streams are linked, such as Google Analytics data, customer effectiveness, net promoter scores and sales figures.  We help our customers with the interpretation of these different types of data and offer the correct insights.

Who is your dream client, what would you focus on, how would you like to work together, and what results would you aim for, in the best of worlds?

My BHAG (big hairy audacious goal) is to deliver overview as well as insights to every impactful brand all over the world, to be their consulting partner in branding strategy and reputation issues. The first step of realizing this dream is within the Netherlands.

You have been invited to speak at the FIBEP World Media Intelligence Congress on October 2nd in Copenhagen. What will be your topic?

I’m very delighted to be invited and within the theme ‘Communicating Media Intelligence,’ I will speak on the importance of data visualization in big, big data analysis.

How do you present such an amount of analysis results in a clear overview to the client? With the media intelligence evaluation of the successful Bavaria Carnival free campaign, we managed to cover the best insights and respond to the main question in an interactive one-pager format.

How do you think the media intelligence industry will change in the next 5 years, and what are the greatest challenges ahead?

Privacy laws will further restrict the availability of social media data; therefore, it will be challenging to offer more than an overview of media mentions. Delivering a combination of consultancy and insights is the greatest challenge for the next years.

By Renata Ilitsky

“The social media monitoring we know today and as it would be in 5-10 years, has to be considered a highly strategic activity”

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Gianandrea Facchini_blog
Gianandrea Facchini

Interview with Gianandrea Facchini, CEO of Buzzdetector, a digital intelligence company in Italy

Hi Gianandrea, what is your background and what is included in your current role at Buzzdetector?

I worked in media and advertising agencies since the 1990s. In 2007, I founded Buzzdetector. My role as CEO is not only to manage the company, but try to be the engine behind the company. I try to look ahead and to get a vision of what’s going on in the market, such as new trends in our business.

I was very lucky because when I started to get into media and digital in general, I landed in a community called MarketingProfs, where I had the chance to interact with professionals such as Ann Handley, Scott Monty, and many others from all over the world. Interaction with prominent figures like them gave me an opportunity to get an early vision of the digital space, widened my vision about what’s going on in the business.

What differs Buzzdetector from other social media intelligence companies in Italy?

We are a rather small company, even if we act globally. We didn’t go for the most advanced technology from the beginning, but rather tried to specialized on decoding the information for our clients. We have our platforms and tools, and are not simply renting the platform, but renting the ability to decode and transfer all the information and insights into reports. This is the main difference; we are very experienced in providing clients with insights, and customized reports have been our key point since the beginning.

What type of companies benefit from your services?

We work mainly with multinational companies and high end clients. Since 2008, we have worked with Nestlé; we worked with Boehringer Ingelheim, a German pharmaceutical company for five years; MSC cruises at the global level since 2011; Versace; and HOMI, the most prominent trade show in Italy.

You have recently done some extensive research about the fashion industry. Why did you focus on that?

When we started thirty months ago, we were just doing a test on some tool to develop and we choose the Fashion Industry because it was the week of Pitti in Florence, but something interesting came out from this research, so we pushed on this analysis, which ended up becoming rather extensive.

We followed the most important fashion weeks (New York, London, Milan, Paris), and all the influential people and VIPs, such as celebrities around the fashion market, became very interesting for us. We collected information and categorized it in a deep way. All the materials we collected have been categorized, such as conversations, fabrics, individuals and brands, which are now in our database. The categorization took extensive work because we understood that the market was and is rather peculiar, and this was one of the markets that was most disrupted by digital. It became interesting for us to follow this market, which is why we developed The Signal. This is a pure digital intelligence project.

We are expanding this research to the movie and the music industries; in fact, we have already started to put this in place since we have the technology backbone, so we just have to fill it up with information.

What are your most important takeaways from your research about the fashion industry?

First, it’s an industry where the most relevant actors are just looking individually for their own way to face the digital disruption. Fashion brands mostly belong to associations in each of the main countries. But, nonetheless, each brand is trying to look for their own way to tackle digital; there’s nothing in common. There’s a lot of confusion, that is the main takeaway.

Second, most of the activity seems to be tactical and not coming from a real strategy. The activity comes after the creation and the unique idea of the designer for that season; the digital becomes part of the tactic to launch the collection, it’s not part of the strategic weapon of the companies.

I used to work in the fashion industry before working in advertising agencies, and I know that the creation of the collection is the main engine of the industry, which is absolutely right. Then there is no real strategy to dominate the media or a strategic approach to digital.

Third, even though we are being told that Twitter is dying or being buried, prominent individuals like celebrities and VIPs in industries like fashion, movies and music are keeping this platform alive because they have huge audiences on Twitter. Rihanna’s Twitter followers amount to double of her Instagram followers, for example. Why would she leave Twitter? She will keep it to communicate with and to sell to her audience. So, one of the main reason Twitter is still being used is because of celebrities and VIPs.

Do you have any specific plans to expand your business in the near future, like expand to new markets or develop products?

The Signal is a new product that we launched two weeks ago. We have a couple of really prominent organizations in the fashion and luxury industries testing it now.

It is a digital platform that we developed in which markets are tackled vertically and where the categorization within the market is making the difference.

For the Fashion and Luxury market we created a dataset of 75 brands, 97 fashion bloggers, 116 celebrities, 49 editors, 58 magazines, etc. We can use the data for public relations, media and celebrity strategy and competitive analysis. The main goal of The Signal is to provide companies with data sets of information that gives real insight and intelligence.

We are proud of the research we published along with Exane Paribas, one of the most important consultancy companies. We produced a piece of research which includes 36 brands in luxury and fashion, the digital environment and how they face the digital environment.

We looked for a link between the moment when collections are presented to the buyers, journalists and to the public, and the moment when people go to look for a product they saw in a collection on an e-commerce platform.

We found that hashtags used during an event, an advertising campaign die immediately after the operation and are not used as a hook to keep customers engaged with the brand. Hashtags are not used strategically to help find a product on an e-commerce platform. We ran a test and saw that the same products run in a completely different way on each e-commerce platform, with none of the descriptions having the same wording.

As a consequence it’s difficult for consumers to find products online. The e-commerce platforms are driving the search and not the brand, which is a problem. Brands are opening their own stores, but they can’t maintain control of the product online as they do in the physical world.

What are your greatest challenges ahead at Buzzdetector when it comes to developing your offer?

That’s a good question; the greatest challenge is that whenever we enter into a conversation with multinational corporations, it is difficult to make them understand that it’s not the size of the company that makes a difference, but the overall approach.

We are used to working with these kind of companies. It’s not just a matter of making the technology work; the most advanced monitoring platforms, with hundreds of millions invested in development, provide almost the same results as a small platform if you are good at writing the query.

The real problem is trying to get sentiment analysis that truly works; today it doesn’t work algorithmically. It can be correct 60 to 70 percent of the time when you’re really lucky, and a company can’t make a decision with a 30 percent margin for error.

Are there any social platforms that are closed today that you would be interested in tapping into for monitoring that would benefit your customers?

I would love to see Snapchat’s numbers. The most important platforms of the close future are the messaging platforms where you can’t have access, which I’m not questioning. This is the reason why we’re shifting towards the digital intelligence, collecting information in conversations from the brand’s point of view.

Since we can’t collect conversations as we do on the open platforms, our work has to adapt to the reality of the new platforms taking the market. We as a market have to modify the way we follow conversations to adapt to the new platforms.

What kind of data or media that you do not have monitoring on today can be interesting in the future?

Photos are rather important, as well as videos. I don’t foresee any real solutions in a close timeframe on monitoring them. I’m afraid that photo and video recognition could become the new sentiment analysis of the time, with the accuracy being rather low.

Are there specific or typical needs in the Italian market for social media monitoring that you think differs from the rest of Europe or the world in general?

I see a focus on pure reputation analysis, which disturbs me. Monitoring is not just a matter of perception; social media monitoring is something strictly linked to the strategic approach of a company to the market and its audience. When you’re limiting your analysis to the reputation, you are clearly doing basic work. In my opinion, in the Italian market, pure reputation analysis is still too much adopted. A lot of companies are losing information for growing and expanding their market at home and abroad.

How do you think the media monitoring and social intelligence industry will change in the next five years?

Messaging is impacting the industry because we can’t get in this as we can in other social media platforms. We have to find a way to follow the conversation, but it will be crucial to the organization to control and stimulate the conversation with the customers because they won’t have any other chance to find out what customers are talking about in messages.

This is a call to action to a more proactive strategy on behalf of companies to customers. Whenever you can’t follow the conversation between individuals, the only information you will get is the one around the conversation you can stimulate for them. From a monitoring point of view, this is changing everything because you have to go through more relevant semantic analysis, which is taking the lead of what will happen in this industry in the next five years.

The social media monitoring we know today and as it would be in five or 10 years, has to be considered a highly strategic activity. It has the ability to positively impact an entire strategy, product development, sales, commercial aspects, communication aspects and logistics. Social media monitoring has the ability to impact every aspect of a corporation’s life.

By Renata Ilitsky

Medienbewachen.de close to listing 100 Social Media Monitoring Tools

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(Zur deutschen Version dieses Artikels geht’s hier)

Medienbewachen.de

November last year we launched Medienbewachen.de, a Wiki in German for everyone looking for social media monitoring tools focusing on the German-speaking market. On the Wiki you’ll find dozens of tools that can help you monitoring and analysing the buzz on the web. Many services listed offer a detailed presentation introducing their core features, pricing and contact details. Medienbewachen.de shall make it easy for everyone to find the tool suiting their individual needs best.

Since its launch, the Wiki has grown – it now lists 76 social media monitoring tools of which 38 offer a detailed presentations plus another 38 where a presentation will be added in the future. Every week we get in new requests regarding the Wiki and we are really happy to see that Medienbewachen.de also clearly helps with generating new leads and giving additional reach to the social media monitoring services taking part.

According to Stefan Vetter, Head of Marketing at MeMo News AG Switzerland, Medienbewachen.de has become the fifth biggest traffic source for MeMo News. He praises the Wiki for being an excellent platform where everyone looking for social media monitoring tools can gain a good first overview. Such a platform has been missing before, he said.

Echobot, based in Karlsruhe, Germany uses Medienbewachen.de actively as part of its marketing strategy. Tobias Görgen, Managing Director of Toocan, thinks that being part of the Wiki means increased traffic and visibility for monitoring tools. We made an interview with Tobias last year, you can read it here.

Google Analytics shows that during the last month 75 percent of all visitors came to Medienbewachen.de for the first time, while 25 percent were returning to the site. This means that people started actively using it as a resource for their research of social media monitoring tools, but also that a lot of new people find to the site. A good balance!

We look forward to developing Medienbewachen.de further and would love to see your tool listed as well, so you offer a social media monitoring tool aimed at the German market. Get in touch and we get you started!

Medienbewachen.de listet bald 100 Social Media Monitoring Tools

Twingly1 Comment

(The English version of this article is available here)

Medienbewachen.de

Im November vergangenen Jahres haben wir mit Medienbewachen.de ein Angebot für alle gestartet, die nach Social-Media-Monitoring-Werkzeugen speziell für den deutschsprachigen Raum suchen. Auf dem Wiki findet ihr eine umfangreiche Übersicht zu Werkzeugen für die Beobachtung und Analyse von Sozialen Medien – viele davon mit einer detaillierten Präsentation. Ziel ist es, allen, die auf der Suche nach einem Social Media Monitoring Tool sind, bei der Auswahl zu helfen.

Die Site hat sich in den vergangenen viereinhalb Monaten sehr gut entwickelt. Mittlerweile sind 76 Social Media Monitoring Tools vertreten, davon 38 Tools mit oftmals detaillierten Präsentationen, sowie 38 weitere die noch eine Präsentation hinterlegen werden. Wöchentlich erreichen uns Anfragen, und Medienbewachen.de hilft ganz offensichtlich den gelisteten Unternehmen dabei potentielle neue Kunden zu erreichen und ihre Sichtbarkeit zu verbessern.

Stefan Vetter, Head of Marketing bei der MeMo News AG Schweiz, ließ uns wissen, dass Medienbewachen.de mittlerweile Platz 5 der Besucherquellen für MeMo News einnimmt. Sein Urteil: “Ich halte Medienbewachen für ein sehr gutes Angebot, um einen Überblick über Anbieter von Social Media Monitoring und Analytics im deutschsprachigen Raum zu bekommen – das hat zuvor einfach gefehlt.”

Echobot.de, ein junger deutscher Anbieter aus Karlsruhe, nutzt Medienbewachen.de aktiv als Teil seiner Marketingstrategie. Tobias Görgen, Managing Director von Toocan, geht davon aus, dass Medienbewachen.de vielen Anbietern zusätzlichen Traffic und damit zusätzliche Reichweite bringt. Mit Tobias haben wir übrigens im vergangenen Jahr ein Interview geführt.

Ein Blick auf Google-Analytics zeigt, dass im letzten Monat 75 Prozent aller Besucher auf Medienbewachen.de die Site zum ersten Mal besuchen, 25 Prozent sind wiederkehrende Nutzer. Das deutet daraufhin, dass bereits rund ein Viertel der Besucher das Angebot aktiv für seine Recherchen nutzt, während gleichzeitig sehr viele neue Besucher zu Medienbewachen.de finden. Ein gutes Verhältnis, wie wir finden, und nun gilt es Medienbewachen.de weiter auszubauen.

Fehlt noch ein Anbieter mit Fokus auf den deutschsprachigen Raum, oder wollt ihr euer Tool vorstellen? Dann meldet euch!

“Oft ist die Twitter-Tatort-Gemeinde zwiegespalten”

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Click here for the English version!

Der Tatort ist die in der deutschen Twittersphäre am meisten und intensivsten diskutierte Fernsehsendung. Stefanie Aßmann und Nicole Greiner haben vor einiger Zeit in einem Blog damit begonnen, die Twitter-Resonanz auf einzelne Episoden auszuwerten und zu analysieren. Im Interview erzählt Stefanie, wie es dazu kam, was twitternde Tatort-Fans bewegt und was als nächstes kommen könnte.

Wer bist du wieso bewegt dich das Thema Social-Media-Monitoring?
Meine Name ist Stefanie Aßmann, bei Twitter @miss_assmann. Ich arbeite bei VICO Research & Consulting als Consultant und beschäftige mich dort beruflich mit dem Thema Monitoring und Social Media. Vor zwei Jahren habe ich mich im Rahmen meiner Masterarbeit das erste Mal mit Social Media Monitoring auseinander gesetzt. Damals gab es nur wenig Literatur zum Thema. Für mich war das ein Grund, dies zu ändern und das Blog zum Thema ins Leben zu rufen. Außerdem finde ich es sehr spannend, wie die Nutzer online über Produkte und Marken diskutieren. Analysen zur Social Media Kommunikation ergeben immer sehr interessante Erkenntnisse.

Du befasst dich seit einiger Zeit damit, die Twitter-Reaktionen zum Tatort zu analysieren. Wie kam es dazu?
Wir haben auf der Arbeit montags über den Tatort gesprochen und uns darüber unterhalten, wie viele Leute doch auf Twitter darüber diskutieren. Da kam uns die Idee, das es lustig wäre, den Tatort anhand von Tweets nachzuerzählen. Mit Nicole habe ich die Idee einige Zeit später wieder aufgegriffen. Leider schaffen wir es zeitlich nur selten, den Tatort zu analysieren.

Wieso sorgt gerade der Tatort für ein derartig großes Echo bei Twitter?
Das ist eine gute Frage und ein gutes Thema für eine Analyse. In meinem Freundeskreis schauen sehr viele Leute sonntags Tatort. Da viele Freunde der Social-Media-Welt beim Fernsehen das Smartphone nicht aus der Hand legen können, haben sie wohl angefangen, den Tatort zu kommentieren. Das Ganze hat sich irgendwann verselbstständigt. In meiner Timeline ist mir der Tatort jedenfalls als erstes TV Format aufgefallen.

Welche Tools und Verfahren verwendest du für deine Analyse?
Angefangen haben wir mit der Twitter-Suche. Zwischendurch habe ich auch das Tool von VICO eingesetzt, um eine Tag Cloud zu erstellen. Anja von Twingly war nun so nett und hat mir ein Liveboard zum Tatort eingerichtet. Damit erhält man einen guten Überblick, wie viele User zu welchen Schlagworten zum Tatort twittern. Um die Tweets zu sammeln, nutzen wir aktuell die Twittersuche und Live von Twingly. Ideen für weitere Analysen habe ich genug. Mir fehlt nur die Zeit für die Umsetzung.

Welche Folge war bisher die mit den insgesamt positivsten Twitter-Kritiken und welche die mit den negativsten?
Da wir nicht jeden Tatort analysieren, kann ich das gar nicht so genau sagen. Oft ist die Twitter-Tatort-Gemeinde zwiegespalten. Gerade der Tatort von Justus von Dohnanyi hat für viel Gesprächsstoff bei Twitter gesorgt. Entweder wurde der Tatort als Meisterstück gelobt, oder er wurde verrissen. Prinzipiell kann man auch sagen, dass bei manchen Tatorten der eigentlich Inhalt bei Twitter gar keine Rolle spielt. Manchmal sind gewisse Details im Tatort spannender als die Handlung selbst. Gerade wenn bestimmte Details im Film nicht logisch sind, wird gerne gemeckert.

Glaubst du, der Tatort wird immer eher eine Ausnahme bleiben, was das Social-Web-Engagement der Nutzer angeht? Oder werden künftig viele weitere Sendungen ähnlich viel Resonanz in den Social-Media-Kanälen erhalten?
Der Tatort war die erste Sendung mit so viel Resonanz bei Twitter. Mittlerweile wird alles mögliche – bespielsweise “Bauer sucht Frau” oder “The Voice of Germany” – bei Twitter diskutiert. In meinen Augen birgt Twitter bei der Analyse von TV-Formaten noch sehr viel Potential. Anbieter wie Couchfunk haben schon erkannt, dass man das klassische Fernsehen mit der Internetnutzung verknüpfen sollte.

Denkst du darüber nach, deine Analysen auf andere Sendungen auszuweiten?
Ja, da denke ich schon länger drüber nach. Allerdings habe ich noch kein Format gefunden, dass mich inhaltlich auch so interessiert. Mich würden hier generell amerikanische Serien reizen. Dort werden die verschiedenen Social-Media-Kanäle bereits jetzt schon verstärkt von den Sendern eingesetzt.

“Often, the actual plot isn’t what engages users in the online discussion”

Twingly3 Comments

Hier könnt ihr das Interview auf Deutsch lesen.

The German crime drama series Tatort (German for “crime scene”) is the most discussed TV show among Twitter users in Germany. A while ago Stefanie Assmann and Nicole Greiner started to analyse the Twitter feedback on a couple of episodes. In our interview, Stefanie explains how that happened, what it is that gets the tweeting audience excited as well as what the next step could look like.

Tell us a bit about you.
My name is Stefanie Assmann, @miss_assmann on Twitter. I’m working as a consultant at Vico Research, a German full-service agency for social media, dealing mainly with monitoring and social media. About two years ago I learned about social media monitoring for the first time while writing my Master thesis. Back then there wasn’t too much literature on that topic, which made me eventually launch a blog about it. It’s fascinating to see how users discuss brands and products. Analysing their comments always leads to interesting insights.

You have started to look closer at what Twitter users say about Tatort episodes and to publish the results on your blog. Why?
On Mondays at the office we usually discuss the latest episode of Tatort (which is always broadcasted on Sunday evenings), and we found it impressive how many people were doing the same on Twitter during the show. Nicole and I thought it might be fun to use those tweets by people watching Tatort to re-tell the story of the episode. Eventually, that led to a couple of blog posts where we evaluated the Tatort-buzz on Twitter. Unfortunately, we don’t have the time to do that regularly.

Why is Tatort the single regular TV show in Germany getting that much attention on Twitter?
Good question and food for another analysis. Many of my friends usually watch Tatort on Sunday evenings. It’s quite a popular series. And as it is the case for many social media enthusiasts, they can’t stop using their smartphone, even while doing something else like watching TV. So they started to tweet about Tatort. Now that has become some kind of “tradition” on Twitter. I remember that Tatort was the first TV show that appeared in my Twitter timeline.

Which tools do you use for your analysis?
We started with the Twitter search, and we also used a tool from VICO, my employer, to create a tag cloud. Recently Twingly was so kind to provide us with a Liveboard that helps to get a quick overview about the amount and type of Tatort tweets.

Are there any typical patterns or reactions that you observe?
Since we don’t cover each Tatort episode it’s a bit hard to say. But my impression is that usually the feedback is rather varied, with both positive and negative comments. So some people love an episode while others hate it. Often, the actual plot isn’t what engages users in the online discussion. Instead it’s specific details that make people tweet. If the audience perceives a detail as unrealistic or absurd, that would usually lead to a lot of complaining on Twitter.

You think Tatort will be an exception regarding its Twitter buzz, or will other German TV shows become equally popular on Twitter?
Tatort was definitely the first show in Germany to create this kind of engagement among Twitter users. But nowadays there are other TV shows as well that get lots of tweets. I think there is a lot of potential in “social tv”, and specific web services are popping up to build on that and to connect traditional TV with the web.

Do you plan to extend your analysis to other shows?
I would love to, but I have yet to find a show which excites me enough to invest the time. A US show would be fun, since there the stations themselves already actively use social media.

Twingly launches Wiki for German Social Media Monitoring Tools

Twingly2 Comments

(The German version of this post you’ll find here.)

Do you also want to know what’s been said about you on the interweb? Google reveals it all, but still, what is the quintessence of it? You realise that you need help. So you google again in order to find out who could help you, but crikey, there’s a whole jungle of different services out there. And the question remains – which one of them suits your needs best?

You’re not alone with this dilemma. Daily hundreds or even thousands of people in marketing and PR are exposed to it. Anyway we’d like to help. That’s why today we launch Medienbewachen.de (in German!).

On Medienbewachen.de you’ll find the the most important social media monitoring services on the German market. Many of them have already posted a short presentation which helps you decide whether a service could be something for you by giving you details regarding the main features and prices.

Medienbewachen.de shall become the most important reference-site to turn to in order to find quickly the SMM-service that suits ones needs best.

Already now over a dozen services present themselves in a short presentation and there are more to come during the following week.

The first services to register were bc.lab, blueReport, Brandwatch, BUZZRank, cogia intelligence, construktiv, ethority, Infospeed, Kantar Media, Landau Media, na-media sonar, pressrelations,  rapid-i, Toocan, Vico Research Consulting and Webbosaurus. 

The idea is to give all companies offering SMM-services for the German market the possibility to easily post their presentation and even update their information in the future. We therefore chose the form of a media-wiki.

Do you offer a social media monitoring tool that is not listed yet? The go and present yourself!

Why does Twinglylaunch Medienbewachen.de? Like most of you we also experienced that it is almost impossible to keep track of all social media monitoring tools. That is why we already in April 2010 decided to launch  Mediebevakare.se. Following that we got the question from our German friends if we couldn’t set up something similar for the German market. That is how Medienbewachen.de became one of my projects this year – and finally it is live!

A big Thank you also goes to Stefanie Aßmann. Her article about different SMM-tools on the German web magazine t3n  was an inspiration to finally start this project. Stefanie wrote her master thesis about social media monitoring, which she published in parts on her blog. Both of us had a very giving discussion during this year’s dmexco and we are in regular exchange since then.

Stefanie continues to write about the latest happenings within the monitoring industry. One of the many reasons why you find her blog Social Media Monitoring linked to Medienbewachen.de. We consider it a very valuable read and recommend that you pop by there once in a while and fresh up your knowledge! Read Stefanie’s article on today’s launch here.

Last and definitely not least we would like to thank all suppliers of SMM-Tools who already present themselves on Medienbewachen.de. You and your enthusiasm are the central part for the future success of this new platform!

/Anja Rauch

Twingly launcht Wiki für deutsche Social Media Monitoring Tools

Twingly3 Comments

(The English version of this article is available here)

Gehören Sie zu denen, die gerne wissen würden, was man so im Netz über Sie sagt? Und dann fangen Sie an zu googlen, sehen was alles so über Sie im Netz steht, wissen aber nicht, wie Sie die wichtigsten Informationen und Schlüsse für sich daraus ziehen? Sie stellen fest, dass Sie Hilfe brauchen. Wieder googeln also. Social Media Monitoring heißt das Schlagwort. Und dann trifft Sie (mental) vielleicht der Schlag, denn Sie entdecken, dass es eine Unmenge an Werkzeugen gibt, die Ihnen potentiell helfen könnten. Bloß – welches davon ist das beste für Sie?

Diese Frage stellen sich wohl hunderte, wenn nicht tausende Marketing- und PR-Menschen jeden Tag. Wir hoffen, dass wir da nun Abhilfe schaffen können. Denn seit heute gibt es Medienbewachen.de (auf Deutsch!).

Auf Medienbewachen.de finden Sie die wichtigsten Social Media Monitoring Anbieter des deutschsprachigen Raumes gelistet, viele davon mit einer kurzen Präsentation, die Ihnen einen schnellen Überblick zu Service und Preisen gibt. Medienbewachen.de soll also Ihre neue Referenz-Seite sein, um einen zu Ihnen passenden Social Media Monitoring Dienst schnell zu finden.

Bislang sind bereits mehr als ein Dutzend Dienste mit einer Präsentation vertreten, und es kommen noch einige in den nächsten Wochen hinzu.

Die ersten Anbieter, die sich auf Medienbewachen.de vorstellen sind bc.lab, blueReport, Brandwatch, BUZZRank, cogia intelligence, construktiv, ethority, Infospeed, Kantar Media, Landau Media, na-media sonar, pressrelations, rapid-i,  Toocan, Vico Research Consulting and Webbosaurus. 

Die Idee ist, dass alle Anbieter von Social Media Monitoring Diensten sich hier listen. Die Form eines Media-Wiki ermöglicht schnelles Einstellen und Aktualisieren der eigenen Präsentation.

Auf diese Weise soll Medienbewachen.de zu der Referenzseite für deutsche Social Media Monitoring Dienste werden!

Sind Sie Anbieter und Ihr Dienst ist noch nicht vertreten? Dann los, stellen Sie sich vor!

Warum launcht Twingly Medienbewachen.de? Auch wir finden, dass es kaum möglich ist, einen Überblick im Dschungel des Angebots der unterschiedlichen Social Media Monitoring Werkzeuge zu behalten. Im April 2010 launchten wir deshalb bereits für den schwedischen Markt Mediebevakare.se. Daraufhin erhielten wir Nachfragen wo denn eine deutsche Version bliebe. Dies wurde damit zu einem von meinen Projekten und nun ist es endlich live!

Mein großer Dank geht dabei an Stefanie Aßmann, deren Artikel über verschiedene SMM-Tools bei t3n dazu im Frühjahr den ersten Anstoß zum Projekt gab. Stefanie hat ihre Master-Thesis zum Thema geschrieben und diese auf Ihrem Blog veröffentlicht. Wir beide hatten auf der diesjährigen dmexco ein äußerst konstruktives Gespräch zum Thema und sind seitdem im Austausch hierzu miteinander.

Stefanie schreibt auch weiterhin über aktuelle Neuigkeiten aus der Monitoring-Branche, deshalb finden Sie ihren Blog Social Media Monitoring auch auf Medienbewachen.de verlinkt. Es lohnt sich wirklich, dort ab und an mal reinzuschauen! Hier ist Stefanies Artikel zum heutigen Launch.

Vor allem aber bedanken wir uns herzlich bei allen SMM-Anbietern, die bereits Teil von Medienbewachen.de sind bzw. es zukünftig sein werden. Sie und ihr Engagement  sind das Herzstück für den Erfolg dieser neuen Plattform!

/Anja Rauch



“Social media is neither a guarantee for increased revenue nor a temporary trend”

Twingly1 Comment

Dieses Interview gibt es hier auch auf Deutsch

Last week we published an interview with the Twingly co-founder Björn Milton who after years in the startup business decided to do something totally different: That was to open a hotel on the Swedish island of Gotland.

We stay with the tourism industry even in today’s interview with Tobias Görgen, one of the two co-founders of Toocan, a social media monitoring company from the German speaking region that uses the Twingly API to gather data about the blogosphere.

The startup has offices in Berlin and Vienna and focuses on providing monitoring services for medium-sized tourism companies. We talked with Tobias about the specific challenges the tourism sector is confronted with in the ear of social media.

Please give our readers a short introduction about Toocan.
About a year ago I met Alexander Löbbecke who has many years of experience with software development in the media sector. At that time I had many ideas surrounding social media and it’s effect on medium-sized companies. So within weeks we started to built Toocan: an intuitive tool which enables not only big brands but also medium-sized firms to monitor what consumers say online about companies, products and trends.

Since we wanted to have a clear focus we decided to target the tourism industry. That market is highly depending on guest reviews and if you think about your own travel planing, often recommendations by others are decision-making factors. Our client base consists of many hoteliers, travel destinations and tour operators.

What is the difference between a broad social media monitoring service and one like yours which focuses on the tourism sector?
The main difference are the sources: Besides the major social web platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube and the main media outlets, we collect data from travel and review websites as well as from travel blogs and travel news sites.

What is the typical problem that your clients want to be solved?
Most medium-sized companies lack resources to get themselves a thorough overview about what’s been written on the web. Thus they appreciate our automated monitoring. Many clients not only want to monitor their own products and services but also those of competitors.

Do you have an example for a specific case where you could help a client?
Yes: The leading hotel chain Best Western used Toocan to monitor the social media buzz about all their 200 hotels in Germany. While it’s already hard to manually stay up do date about the social web chatter regarding a single hotel, it’s impossible to do that for 200, so we could really help them. Another example is the family-run travel organizer Corfelios which has specialized in trips to the Greek island of Corfu. They use Toocan to monitor who plans a trip to Greece (e.g. through tweets) in order to approach those users with travel offers.

How do you use Twingly?
Twingly is a great way for us to monitor all those blogs out there, since we can’t keep track on all of them manually. Thanks to Twingly we were able to perform a quick and successful launch.

What challenges do you see for the tourism industry in the era of social media? What has gotten better, what more difficult?
Tourism has become much more transparent. All guests now can rate and describe their experience on one of the many travel websites, often including visual “evidence” like photos or videos. That sometimes creates a contrast to the high quality photos published by some travel operators and hotels. I expect this to become even more common with the rise of smart phones and tablets. For the industry this is both good and bad: Potential flaws are exposed, but companies can also react and use this chance to improve. That of course requires that they get to know about the feedback and criticism posted on the web.

Which advise can you give tourism companies on how to adapt to the changing landscape?
Social media is neither a guarantee for increased revenue nor a temporary trend. Companies and hotels should have realistic expectations. But social media definitely is a new kind of communication. You can either participate in that communication or not, but the latter means that you miss out on a lot potential. At Toocan we offer a basic service that allows companies to simply listen, which is the basis of communication.

Where can companies meet you?
We have offices in Berlin and Vienna, but we meet a lot of clients on fairs like the ITB Berlin, the Travel Expo Cologne or the CMT Stuttgart. Or we can meet where the companies are located.

“Social Media ist weder Umsatzgarant noch ein vorübergehender Trend”

Twingly2 Comments

You can read this interview also in English.

In der vergangenen Woche berichteten wir im Twingly Blog über Twingly-Mitgründer Björn Milton, der sich nach vielen Jahren in der Startup-Welt entschloss, ein Hotel auf der schwedischen Insel Gotland zu öffnen. Auch heute bleiben wir beim Thema Tourismus: Toocan ist ein Social-Media-Monitoring-Dienst für den deutschsprachigen Raum, der sich besonders mittelständischen Tourismusunternehmen empfiehlt. Das junge Unternehmen mit Büros in Berlin und Wien nutzt Twinglys API, um Daten über die Aktivität der Blogosphäre abzurufen. Wir haben uns mit Gründer und Geschäftsführer Tobias Görgen über die speziellen Problemstellungen der Tourismusindustrie im Social-Media-Zeitalter unterhalten.

Bitte stelle Toocan kurz und kompakt vor.
Ich habe vor genau einem Jahr meinen jetzigen Geschäftspartner Alexander Löbbecke kennen gelernt. Er verfügt über viele Jahre Erfahrung in der Software-Entwicklung im Medienbereich. Ich hatte recht viele Ideen angesammelt, die sich vor allem rund um das Thema Social Media im Mittelstand drehten. So entstand binnen weniger Wochen Toocan: Eine intuitives Tool, das es nicht nur den großen Marken erlaubt, zu beobachten, was Konsumenten im Internet über Unternehmen, Produkte und Trends sagen.

Da wir uns beim Markteintritt fokussieren wollten, entschieden wir uns für die Tourismusindustrie. Dieser Markt ist extrem bewertungsabhängig und wenn man an seine eigene Reiseplanung denkt, dann sind Empfehlungen oft ausschlaggebend. Somit sind viele Hoteliers, Destinationen und Reiseveranstalter sowie deren Agenturen unter unseren Kunden zu finden.

Ihr fokussiert euch auf die Tourismusindustrie – welche Unterschiede zu herkömmlichen Social-Media-Monitoring-Tools gibt es?
Vor allem sind die Quellen andere: Neben den wichtigen Social-Web-Plattformen wie Facebook, Twitter und YouTube erheben wir auch Daten von Bewertungsportalen, die vor allem in der Reiseindustrie von großer Bedeutung sind. Darüber hinaus finden sich viele Reiseblogs und Newsseiten neben allen anderen gängigen Medien bei uns wieder.

Was sind die konkreten Problemstellungen, mit denen sich eure Kunden an euch wenden?
Die meisten Mittelständler tun sich schwer dabei, sich überhaupt einen Überblick zu verschaffen, weil personelle aber budgetäre Ressourcen meist knapp sind. Da kommt vielen eine automatisierte Beobachtung gerade recht. Da wir nicht nur das eigene Unternehmen für den Kunden monitoren können, sind viele auch z.B. an einem Vergleich zum Wettbewerber interessiert und wollen ihren “Nachbarn” etwas unter die Lupe nehmen.

Hast du ein Beispiel für einen speziellen Case, bei dem ihr einem Kunden besonders helfen konntet?
Best Western, die mit uns alle ihre 200 Hotels im Deutschland beobachten. Schon eigenhändig und manuell ein einziges Hotel zu verfolgen, ist in den Weiten des Webs kaum machbar. Mit mehreren Häusern bzw. Produkten und Themen ist ein Monitoring-Tool unabdingbar. Auch interessant ist der kleine Reiseveranstalter Corfelios. Das Familienunternehmen hat sich auf die Nische Korfu-Reisen spezialisiert und beobachtet über Toocan, wann jemand einen Urlaub nach Griechenland plant und sich entsprechend im Netz äußert, um dann proaktiv ein Angebot zu machen.

Auf welche Weise nutzt ihr Twingly für eure Produkte?
Twingly ist eine tolle Ergänzung für die Vielzahl an Blogs da draußen. Man kann nicht immer und überall wissen, wann es wieder einen neuen, interessanten Blog gibt. Twinglys Expertise hat uns in diesem Bereich somit einen schnellen Start ermöglicht.

Welche Herausforderungen siehst du für die Tourismusbranche im Zeitalter von Social Media? Was hat sich für Hotels und andere touristische Einrichtungen zum Besseren entwickelt, was zum Schlechteren?
Touristische Anbieter sind sehr transparent geworden. Jeder kann seinen Gastgeber nun auf diversen Portalen öffentlich bewerten und sogar Foto- und Filmmaterial bereitstellen. Dies relativiert dann die Hochglanzbilder mancher Anbieter und wird sich durch den Trend von Smartphones und Tablets künftig noch stärker entwickeln. Für die Branche ist dies Fluch und Segen zugleich: Potentielle Mängel werden aufgedeckt, jedoch können die Unternehmen auch darauf reagieren und sich verbessern. Dies setzt natürlich voraus, dass sie überhaupt von Kritiken und Anregungen im Internet mitbekommen.

Welche Tipps würdest du Hotels und anderen Anbietern der Tourismusindustrie geben, um sich an die veränderten Rahmenbedingungen durch Social Media anzupassen?
Social Media ist weder Umsatzgarant noch ein vorübergehender Trend und man sollte einen realistischen Anspruch haben. Aber es ist definitiv eine neue Art der Kommunikation. An dieser Kommunikation kann man sich beteiligen oder auch nicht, würde aber dann viele Chancen ungenützt lassen. Toocan bietet unter anderem an, dass man zumindest “Zuhören” kann, was die Grundlage einer jeden gesunden Kommunikation ist.

Wo können Interessierte euch persönlich treffen?
Wir haben zwar Standorte in Berlin und Wien, treffen unsere Kunden aber meist auf Messen wie der ITB Berlin, der Kölner Reisemesse und der CMT Stuttgart, oder auch gerne bei ihnen vor Ort.