“Smarter use of data will help marketers respond faster—and better—to business challenges Don’t just focus on Big Data; think about shifting emphasis to “Smart Data” – Noah Elkin, eMarketer
While going through a slide share presentation by Noah Elkin, I came across his quote above and couldn’t agree more.
Social media has evolved to be more sophisticated and challenging today. The evolution continues amidst which companies globally continue to increase their social media marketing budgets. There has been so much emphasis on social media analytics – measuring social media marketing efforts and it’s impact, but it’s sad to see that not many businesses are using it correctly. In a survey conducted by CMO it was found that only 15% of CMOs surveyed report quantitative impacts from their social media marketing expenditures.
Analyzing the social data collected through the process of monitoring social media metrics such as engagements, likes, comments, views, shares etc is equally important.
There are plenty social media tools out there, the market is growing and becoming more competitive. It is essential to have the right tools and the right mindset to use them.
SMAXpert is one such tool that stands out. I came across this tool couple of weeks back and had a chance to meet Alloy Chua – part of company’s founders group.
Alloy was kind enough to give me time for a short interview. Alloy shared some great insights about social media analytics and how small businesses can use SMAXpert to know their digital market better!
On to the interview!!
Q) What does “SMAXpert” stand for and how does it help businesses?
Alloy : SMAXpert (or SMAX) stands for Social Media Analytics eXpert & we’re a Singapore based digital marketing analytics company.
A big part of winning the digital marketing battle is always being informed. Businesses often find themselves wondering how effective their digital marketing strategies are and how much they are getting in return from them. Our vision is to have platform- SMAX, serve as an online tool that would help companies keep up with the fast paced world of digital marketing by giving them the information that they need at the right time.
SMAX’s main features are social media monitoring and social listening. It follows our framework that revolves around monitoring, listening and adjusting.
- You monitor your own social media metrics to have a view of your current online presence.
- Then you listen to your audience to get feedback and use the feedback to adjust your digital marketing strategy.
- You then execute your guided strategy and monitor again to see its effectiveness and impact.
It goes into a cycle of monitoring and listening, with you knowing the full impact of your marketing strategy and then making adjustments in each iteration.
A big part of winning the digital marketing battle is always being informed. – Alloy Chua, SMAXpert
Q) What is the importance of social media metrics/analytics today?
Alloy : Ten years ago it may have been just a choice to jump on the online bandwagon. Today with over 85% of searches for products and services conducted online, the importance of being part of the digital space is quite evident. Many businesses are using social media sites to reach out to customers more efficiently (76% of Fortune 500 companies in 2015). No wonder, everyone is trying to follow suit, whether or not they understand social media well.
To reap the rewards of utilizing social media for business, businesses need to know exactly where they are now in the digital space and how far their strategies will take them. Social media analytics changes the game such that it’s either being lost on social media or getting the most out of it. Businesses are all about ROI and it acts as an indication whether they’re on the right track or not but it has always been a challenge. Translating investments in digital marketing to ROI is not easy. The way we see it, analytics is definitely the way to get this quantitative ROI and measure the effectiveness of your investments.
To put it simply, let’s say you’re part of a marketing team who’s proposing a strategy to your boss. There’s no way you can convince your boss without having data to back you up like ROI in terms of digital metrics or actual sales? The analytics we’re providing in SMAX can be used as that data so you and your boss know just how effective your strategies are.
Let’s put in another example where analytics can be a game changer. SMAX, for example, provides sentiment analytics (whether positive or negative) to help you know what people are saying about you. The tool can lead users to the specific posts in social media where negative (or positive) sentiments were found. By being able to engage with those customers directly, businesses can then employ strategies to change those negative sentiments to positive ones. This strategy would cause an effect and it will reflect in your digital presence which could come in the form of more engagements, more new followers and potentially, even more sales opportunities.
Q) How is SMAXpert different from other social media analytic tools such as Sprout Social and Buffer?
Alloy : There are many social media analytics tools out there, but their focus is a lot on collaboration and management. For example, some focus on publishing and scheduling tools, while some are focused on collaboration which even includes CRM. We see ourselves different as our main focus is on social media analytics done not only through social media monitoring but also through social listening. We aim to make SMAX affordable for small businesses in contrast to products mostly catered to enterprises.
Our vision is to extend our analytics into intelligence wherein we use all the data obtained to provide suggestions to businesses. There are a lot of opportunities in predictive data and one of our plans for the product, for example, is to be able to predict the intent of an individual online whether their intention to post online is to buy a product or to look for suggestions etc. This information would then fit into digital marketing strategies aimed towards getting sales opportunities.
Q) What kind of Social data and metrics does SMAXpert report?
Alloy : SMAX analytics come from techniques revolving around social media monitoring and social listening. SMAX can provide you:
- Performance: The performance of your social media accounts in a given amount of time
- Competitor Analysis: The performance of your competitor’s social media accounts in a given amount of time
- Monitoring: What people are saying about your brand, company or product
The combination of social media monitoring and social listening allows SMAX to not only provide you with analytics to your social media accounts but also include mentions of you found in blogs and news sites. We also know that management only looks at summaries in the form of graphs, but executives require more detailed information to analyze and run campaigns, thus we have specific interfaces for management and executives.
Q) Who should be using SMAXpert? Is the tool free?
As much as our main target audience are small businesses that don’t have access to expensive data analytics that are usually available for big enterprises. Basically, anyone and everyone that has social media presence can use SMAX. From small restaurants or establishments, start-ups or even individuals who dabble in digital marketing and who want to monitor their social media metrics can benefit from the tool.
We have a free version of the tool online which everyone can register for and use immediately, albeit with limited features. We also offer different paid packages for the whole suite of features.
Q) Lastly, would you like to give any suggestions to our readers on social media analytics?
People are recognizing the power of digital marketing however, you can’t ignore the fact that there is still scepticism towards it. The game has changed significantly if you compare it to traditional marketing. Investments in digital marketing are no longer as easily translatable into dollar returns and customer behaviours have evolved differently as they get more easy access to data online.
The way to keep up with the fast-paced and ever changing world of digital marketing is to keep being informed. People keep asking “What do I need to do?” or “Am I doing the right things in digital marketing?” and there’s no Holy Grail or silver bullet that could give you the answer; it’s going to be a process of trial and error.
What you need to do though is keep trying, keep executing and finding out on your own which are the ones that work and which are the ones that don’t. And you don’t just decide randomly, you need the right data and the right analytics that would backup your decisions. Keep continuing the things that you see are working. Stop doing the things that you see that are not working. Leverage and experiment on things that you see are growing. Use analytics data to learn about your audience and understand what they like and don’t like and make adjustments to your messaging and marketing strategy. Always keep yourself informed and make informed decisions; that’s the key to surviving.
Tags: big data, social intelligence, social media analytics, social media marketing
It was an honor and a pleasure to be featured in your site! We hope to be able to help a lot more people with their digital marketing needs.
Thank you team SMAXpert! It was great to learn more about your tool!