3 Reasons to Integrate Social Networks into your Market Intelligence Strategy

Digital marketing and communication departments actively monitor and analyze their online reputation and impact of their actions on social media. Market intelligence teams, on the other hand, do not.

One reason is the weak performance of traditional market intelligence tools, which remain quite limited in their collection and analysis of social data.

To bridge the gaps in the market, Digimind has launched Marketplace an integration of Digimind Intelligence, Digimind Social, and Digimind Historical Search with third-party software for additional sourcing, collaboration, and data visualization. Designed for market intelligence professionals, Digimind combines technologies for listening and analyzing social network data, with a software solution for accessing 24 months of historical data on social networks.

Thanks to this seamless integration, Digimind enables market intelligence professionals to monitor their markets comprehensively, taking full advantage of the power of social networks.As market intelligence professionals do not always understand the benefits that social networks can bring them, this article aims to help you understand how monitoring social networks should be an essential part of your market intelligence strategy.

Social Media: Data That Never Stops Growing

In order to understand why market intelligence functions should have an interest in social networks, it is important to consider the growth and impact of social networks.

According to the Global Digital Report by We Are Social and Hootsuite, there are 3.484 billion social media users in the world, bringing total penetration to 45%. With Asia experiencing the fastest growth, market intelligence professionals may wish to monitor this market that offers its own social networks, such as Weibo. Furthermore, 

• Social media usage is ingrained in today’s society.  The average person spends about 3 hours and 14 minutes of internet time on their phone. 
• Globally, every 60 seconds, more than 900,000 logins are made on the Facebook platform, 4.1 million videos are viewed on YouTube, and around 46,000 posts are added on Instagram!
• Beyond the increase in social media usage, we can note a change in consumer behavior: more than 83% of internet users interact with brands via polls and 39% use social networks to give their opinion.

These figures prove  it is too risky to not integrate social networks into your market intelligence strategy, as  these channels are a gold mine of insights for businesses to leverage.

What are the opportunities for market intelligence professionals?

Integrating social networks into your market intelligence projects allows your  company to monitor trends, decode signals, and be at the heart of conversations.

More specifically, these benefits can be divided into three key categories:

• Develop your markets and competitive intelligence
• Identify upstream trends
• Reinforce your risk surveillance

1. Develop Your Markets and Competitive Intelligence ⚔️

Monitoring social networks allows you to analyze your market in its entirety. In addition to traditional sources, you will be able to track the activities of your competitors, suppliers, and customers.

For example, one of Digimind’s clients, a leader in the aerospace industry, scrutinizes photos taken at trade shows to collect clues about competitors. The results are often surprising, as they have discovered content such as prototype previews, and acquired photos of customers on competing stands.

In order to avoid missing any details, Digimind AI Sense image recognition technology enables the recognition of your logo or your  competitors’ at any event.

Additionally, you can closely monitor the buzz around your competitors on social networks. For example, by monitoring consumer opinion sites and forums, you can capture valuable insights around your competitors' products, pricing, and business strategies.

2. Identify Upstream Trends 📈

Social networks can be an invaluable channel for detecting and confirming new trends, on top of traditional research on open sources and specialized databases. 

Here's how:

• Do a quick, preliminary search with Digimind Historical Search on the topics you wish to monitor to get a first-look at trends and collect key concepts to help you set up.
• Next, set up queries in Digimind Social, using the results of Digimind Historical Search, to:
• Closely follow influencer and expert chatter: You will be able to keep an eye out for potential crises and gather early indications of where your market is headed. 
• Survey your target market, a proven practice: As mentioned earlier, 40% of users relay their opinions on social networks. Capturing these conversations means gaining valuable insights on needs that were previously undetected. 

3. Reinforce Your Risk Surveillance 🕵️

We have discussed the opportunities of social network monitoring, but it is important to understand the goal in implementing this practice.  Social media monitoring is an excellent addition to your risk surveillance. It can be a great asset for measuring and decrypting consumer sentiment and for identifying growing dissatisfactions.

Another client , a global player in the food industry, once detected a weak indication of dissatisfaction concerning the packaging safety of one of its products in a scientific journal .

In response, they decided to measure the resonance of this threat. The company used social networks to monitor consumer and influencer perceptions on this topic, ensuring they detect a potential health-safety risk upstream.

Through social media listening, the client was  able to understand the direction of the market, and share valuable insights with the:

• Communications department, who could prepare for a potential crisis 
• Product team, who could evaluate the required modifications for the product

Integrations between Digimind’s products, collaborative tools (Jive, Yammer, and SharePoint) and CRM platforms (Salesforce) enable the real-time exchange of insights between departments, as well as improved deliverables.

Social media can also be a source of security intelligence. 

As the risk of employees misusing networks and publishing confidential or sensitive content grows, it is important to monitor their activities, and ensure they do not impact the company detrimentally by delivering information to the wrong hands. By doing so, you can protect your brand against potential information leaks.

In conclusion, social networks are a great channel for accessing new insights. When used with traditional monitoring methods, companies can leverage the best of both worlds.