Monthly Archive for March, 2009

Competitive Intelligence Research Advantages of Social Networks

Published
by
Ian Smith
on March 31, 2009
in Competitive & Internet Intelligence, Web 2.0 and Web 2.0 Search
. 0 Comments

Social networks are great.  Tools such as Facebook and LinkedIn are handy to have to become reacquainted with old friends and meet new contacts.  The amount of information that is available on such  platforms varies however, competitive intelligence professionals can agree that they are just tools to be placed in a CI researcher’s toolbox.

Let’s take a look at how Facebook and LinkedIn can be used in a competitive intelligence context.

1 - As a marketer of telecommunication and television services , you have a feeling that a competitor, Bell Canada, is not seen in the highest regards by its clientele.  One avenue that individuals can utilize to voice their displeasure is in a Facebook group.  Groups are easy to start, join and post comments on the groups’ wall or discussion board. By simply conducting a keyword search with ‘Bell Canada’ on Facebook and clicking on the “Groups” tab, you will find a number of groups as seen below.

Searching Groups For Bell Canada

Taking an in-depth look of one of the “Bell Canada Suck” group with more that 700 members, you can access some of the strong opinions held by others about Bell Canada.  As a result, competitive intelligence researchers can gather stories of malcontent with may uncover many Bell Canada’s weaknesses when it comes costumer service.

2 - As a corporate strategist, you are seeking out who your key competitor is recruiting.  Recruiting certain individuals with particular skills may indicate a strategic move in the future.  Let’s take the case of aerospace giant, Bombardier.Aerospace.  Upon logging onto LinkedIn with a valid username and password, select “Search Companies” from the drop down menu and use the keyword “Bombardier Aerospace”.   The result of the query is a company profile with relevant human resource information.  Below are two screenshots of the page.

In the first image, you find that LinkedIn supplies information such as:

  1. Career path for Bombardier Aerospace employees
  2. Listing of current employees on LinkedIn
  3. Companies that Bombardier Aerospace employees are most connected to
  4. New Hires

On the second half of the page (2nd image), the LinkedIn profile provides such details as:

  1. Recent promotions and changes
  2. Key statistics about the company (i.e., locations across the world, top schools of the employees and median age of employees)

Keep in mind that the information on LinkedIn may not be up to date however, it is a very good starting point for human resources related information.

Should you have a Facebook Pro Account?

Published
by
Ian Smith
on March 18, 2009
in Author-Ian Smith and Web 2.0 Strategy
. 0 Comments

Upon reflecting on my last post, I totally forgot to deal with an important aspect regarding using Facebook for professional purposes.

Should you use your existing personal Facebook account for professional endeavors?  My answer: It depends.

If you deem that the content on your personal account is inappropriate for colleagues, management, clients, suppliers and members of your network to see, then it is time to register for another account.

Once again, the approach to completing the profile to your second account should be treated as an electronic resume.  For example, the “Education and Work” section should be in chronological order in terms of when and where you worked. (Try to avoid time gaps.)  Another example are the groups and fan pages that you may select to join.  The groups and fan pages should reflect your professional interests.  Below is an image of my Facebook Pro profile that lists my groups and one fan page.

From my listing of groups, it should be apparent that my profession interests lie in the field of the competitive intelligence and the information industry.  In addition, it shows the networks that I am connected to. A good sign of a good resource person.

To answer the question posed in the title of the post, I think you should have a Facebook Pro Account for the simple of keeping business and pleasure seperate!!!

Tapping into competitive behavior on the web via search data

Published
by
Stephan Becker
on March 16, 2009
in Competitive & Internet Intelligence, Metrics and Web Analytics
. 2 Comments

While perusing Avinash Kaushik’s book Web Analytics – One Hour A Day (you can visit Avinash’s blog here on visit our blogroll), I stumbled upon a cool tool that I had used before, but had not touched for a while. I must admit that although I am rather refractory when it comes to using Microsoft products beyond the bearable minimum, its adCenter Labs is a pretty cool tool worth mentioning. If you are in search for intelligence in the field of competitive web usage behavior, Microsoft adCenter Labs may be something you should be looking into.  Although it has been around for quite some time now, this powerful tool is pretty underutilized and therefore worth being put on the front burner, especially in tough times where the optimization of existing business processes is king.

Microsoft’s AdCenter Labs - the intelligence layer

AdCenter Labs uses search data to retrieve competitive and demographic information related to keywords. Imagine just for a second the huge amount of information collected in the process of people entering keywords into Google, MSN, Yahoo etc. You will certainly agree that each of these keywords represents an intention. For example, when you enter the keyword ‘Dell’ into Microsoft’s Live Search, chances are you are looking to buy a computer. You may be interested in learning more about the models that Dell has available, interested in learning more about the features of a specific model or may even be looking into comparing prices but in the end, your search for ‘Dell’ indicates a clear intention to buy a computer.

On the other hand, Microsoft collects a huge amount of personal data through its Microsoft Live ID network and is therefore able to link search queries to demographic data such as your age, sex, location, etc. If you have a Hotmail account, use Messenger or regularly visit MSNBC for example, your search Live Search queries are linked to your demographic data and therefore provide valuable insights into your preferences and web search behavior. What more is the search engine knows what keywords you have been entering before the Dell keyword and it knows what you will be entering afterward… doesn’t that provide for a nice potential to predict web behavior? Now don’t think that you are immune of this kind of data logging if you don’t use any of the aforementioned Microsoft websites or other tools.  Ever been to Expedia? Bingo! Expedia is part of Microsoft’s Live ID network and so are other web services.

Don’t you think for a second that Microsoft is alone in collecting search data and matching it with demographic data. Biig brother in search land actually is… well you guessed it: Google!  Google uses a similar  approach.

How you can benefit for FREE

But what does this mean to you as an organization maintaining a website, doing business on the web or analyzing competition? Well, it would be of no use at all if the data was stored on Microsoft or Google servers and was being used  for internal purposes only, yet here is the scoop: Google and Microsoft both provide FREE ACCESS to the intelligence buried in the matching between search data and demographic data, completely legally!  Let me give you a couple of examples:

MS - Demographics prediction tool:

Would the following intelligence be of interest to you if you wanted to gather some basic demographics about who is looking up ‘Quebec investment’ on the web? What if you were an organization with a goal to attract investment? What if you were to launch an Internet marketing campaign and were looking for the right keywords to target your audience?

Quebec Investment - demographics prediction tool

What if you were a private consultant selling life insurances? Would the following information help you in the design of an online marketing campaign? What if you could repeat your query with this tool, entering additional keywords and combination to find out more? Useful, not useful?

Demographics prediction - Life insurance

MS - Search funnels tool:

If you are a company using the internet to sell products or to generate leads, would you be interested in knowing what people were thinking before they entered your product in the search engine? What about gaining insights into their intentions after they entered a keyword that relates to your product?  What about knowing what names pops up in their heads when searching for a specific product or service? Valuable intelligence when it comes to determine keywords for your own online campaigns or to adapting your ad copy to what you know goes through the heads of your target groups:

Microsoft adLabs Search Funnel tool

Facebook Or Not To Facebook For Business – That Is The Question?

Published
by
Ian Smith
on March 12, 2009
in Author-Ian Smith, Competitive & Internet Intelligence, Social Media Marketing and Web 2.0 Strategy
. 0 Comments

At first, Facebook may seem like a toy that is handy to have for a distraction to get your mind off of things for a while however, it does have its professional uses. Granted, LinkedIn is selected over Facebook when it comes to a preferred social networking platform as an enterprise solution however; here are some of the advantages of selecting Facebook:

1 – Critical mass.  As of March 2009, Facebook has 108.3 million users to LinkedIn has 15 million users. (Source: The Sydney Morning Herald).

2 – Applications. Adding applications to your profile may prove beneficial. For example, placing a RSS feed on your page will allow you access to news that will pushed to you rather than searching for it on the web.

3 – Groups. The sheer number of groups on Facebook allows you to network with more individuals on a variety of topics.
.
Some of the main reasons that business professionals fail to join Facebook are i) perceptions that registration process is too lengthy or complicated and ii) Facebook is for teenagers.

Not so in both cases.

Once you have visited the site, you will be asked for basic information to set you up with your account.  Details such as your full name, email address, password and date of birth.  Thereafter, you will asked to fill out your profile.  Many individuals are usually turned off by this point but here is a piece of advice.  Approach this process as the means of promoting yourself.  This profile is a hybrid of a business card and your resume.  Be brief but precise in regards of your career.

Now that the basic stuff is out of the way, other details in regards to your profile is gravy. Posting a photo is recommended so that individuals can match your name with a face.

To address the notion that “Facebook is for teenagers”, here are some interesting facts: the largest growth in Facebook membership comes from the 35-49 year old set. Facebook has added twice as many 50-64 year old visitors as it has visitors under 18. (Source: Reuters) Translation: Many of your peers are hopping on the Facebook bandwagon and it is waiting for you to jump on quickly.

At this point, you should have all the requirements and good reasons to use your presence on Faceback to reach your corporate and professional objectives.  A handy use of Facebook can be seen when establishing a group or page for networking purposes.  A prime example is the Northern Lights Mining Network (NLMN) page on Facebook.