Social Media Monitoring Vs. Customer Intelligence Analytics

This is a guest post by Gregory Yankelovich

Let's try to define the differences between Social Media Monitoring and Customer Intelligence analysis based on content available on Social Media platforms.

Based on the questions I often get from marketing practitioners after the webinars and group speaking engagements, there is a considerable confusion about a difference between SSM and Customer Intelligence methodologies. Below is my first attempt to establish a clear demarcation line between the two approaches. Please help to refine this matrix with your feedback, comments and disagreements.

Social Media Monitoring Customer Intelligence Analytics

SMM captures and measures WoM communications generated by anybody or anything: consumers, bloggers, marketers, pundits, industry analysts, customers, automated repeating and SEO software. The content originates from Social Media networks and other public (Internet) sources.

CIA captures and measures only customer communications about a product/service they have purchased and experienced. The user/customer-generated content (USG/CGC) can originate from public (Internet) or private (company) sources.

Transactional analytics, i.e., how much buzz there is about keyword=XYZ and whether it’s positive or negative. Focus is on BUZZ. Contextual analytics  - why customers purchased this product, what they do like and don't like about their experience, and to what degree. Focus is on Customer Experience.

Provides two-dimensional measurements per keyword provided – velocity and sentiment, i.e., how fast and furious the communications are generated, and whether they are negative or positive. Provides three-dimensional measurements per product/service – discovers what attributes of customer experience with the product are important to customers, measures how important each attribute is, and measures difference between customer expectations and customer experience with each attribute.

Immediate to short time frame communications are monitored and trended. Time frame is determined by a product lifecycle and trending of post-shipping customer feedback metrics.

Excellent for PR and Customer Support Crisis Management applications. Excellent for Strategic Marketing, MarCom Effectiveness, Product Management, Customer Support Management, Purchasing Management applications.

Gregory Yankelovich has over 30 years of leadership experience in defining, developing and marketing technology-centric products for B2B and B2C markets. He currently serves as the Customer Experience (CX) Whisperer at Amplified Analytics, the company specializing in technology for Opinion Mining of Customer Feedback for Strategic Marketing and Product Management Applications.