A little help for your next blog post...
I was recently sitting with a prospective client showing them how we would use our process for language analysis to fuel their blog content when I saw a lightbulb go off. The client was a division of a quarter billion dollar food supply company looking to better connect with restauranteurs through blogs. In answering the question, “what do we write about?” I started to show the client how it’s possible to find and sort through millions of online conversations to find out exactly what these restauranteurs are are concerned about. After looking at a few graphs, the client looked up and said, “wow, it almost feels like cheating.”
She was referring to the fact that the guesswork is methodically being taken out of many aspects of marketing through monitoring and analysis of online conversation. Want to know what IRA customers hate about working with their HR departments prior to developing your next ad campaign? How about what aspects of a particular kitchen appliance is more appealing to new moms for the next round of product design? Chances are, there are thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of conversations that can give you more insight than you’re used to having.
This is not to say traditional research is going the way of the 8-track. It’s just you can’t deny the power of observing large quantities of unsolicited product or industry specific feedback. We recently completed a language analysis project for a company in the golf equipment industry. We found hundreds of thousands of blog posts, forum posts and other online conversations totally free from sponsored content. These were real people talking with each other, looking for answers to specific (often the same) questions or just venting about how a product failed them.
We use language analysis as fuel for helping companies develop blog, social or other online content marketing efforts, but we’re starting to help companies with product development efforts and persona research. These are things great social media prognosticators have been talking about, and even experimenting with, for brands with big experimental budgets. It’s just nice to see some of this starting to work out for everyone else.
