Gaining Insights from Social Media

For our Nordstrom project, we created the persona of Cindy Mai, a 31 year old, Chinese-American management consultant living in Chicago.   As a marketer, there are a number of insights that I could get from Cindy’s social media usage.  The first thing that would be important to know is which social media channels does Cindy currently utilize and what is her engagement level based on Groundswell’s Engagement Pyramid.  For instance, is Cindy simply a member of different social sites (Watching), does she share information on Facebook/Twitter (Sharing), respond to other people’s blogs/social posts (Commenting), does she write her own blog (Producing), or does Cindy actually edit and compile content (Curating)?   By observing Cindy’s online persona, I could learn a lot. 

For instance, if I was interesting in understanding her travel habits, I could look to see if she has posted any public YouTube videos and what content did those videos contain?  If she posted photos of her trip to the Bahamas, this may indicate that she is into travelling and would be receptive to messaging around luggage and travel accessories.  Provided that I had access I could see her the location of geo-tagged tweets, foursquare check-ins, and Facebook places. 

By looking at what pictures she has uploaded to flickr or instagr.am, I could determine what sort of images move her.  For instance when she takes pictures of buildings are these pictures of historic or modern buildings, this might tell be whether she has a more classic or more modern sense of style.

I could look at the sentiment of her facebook posts or tweets to determine Cindy’s overall personality.  For instance is the tone of posts playful or sarcastic, optimistic or cynical, praising or complaining?  In Clifford Nass, “The ManWho Lied to His Laptop”, he notes that in order to relate to people it is important to match their emotional valence.  For instance, if Cindy has naturally a bit of a negative persona, Nordstrom may seem irritating and cloying if they message her with overly positive messaging.  Messaging that is more neutral in tone may be more appropriate for her.

            Another way to gauge Cindy’s engagement would be to use 3^rd party software such as Klout or Infochimps to look at Cindy’s relative level of engagement across different platforms such as Facebook or Twitter.  Another site, FlipTop allows brands to search for social information based on users emails.  This would easily allow Nordstrom to track what channels Cindy is using to communicate.

However, another way to gauge Cindy’s engagement and potentially increase her engagement is to allow her to link different social media accounts to her online Nordstrom profile.  For instance, Cindy could link a Facebook and Pinterest account.  Nordstrom could track how often Cindy “likes” or “pins” a certain item.  This information could allow them to tailor Cindy’s experience to create a custom experience based on her preferences.  FB and Pinterest are great at tracking her online persona, but another way to engage Cindy is through Foursquare.  I got my haircut at Birds Barbershop yesterday and they offered $2 off for showing that I had checked into their shop.  Nordstrom could use similar tactics to encourage Cindy to show that she is at Nordstrom.  By incentivizing Cindy to check-in to Nordstrom, Nordstrom benefits in that her location is broadcasted to her other foursquare friends.  This increases Nordstrom’s brand salience.  In the ideal case, Cindy’s friend Lisa might ask her what she is buying and Cindy’s response might inspire Lisa to visit Nordstrom soon.

One caveat about gaining social insights about one’s brand’s customers is that it should be transparent to the customers when you are using their data and your brand should provide opportunities for users to opt out of sharing their information.  Otherwise, it verges on stalking.  When brands over step their bounds, it tends to cause backlash.  For instance, the mobile app, Path recently was found to have been uploading user’s iPhone contacts to their server without their knowledge and this caused a large amount of backslash online.  Nordstrom must be careful to balance its desire to engage Cindy and learn about her without appearing to be invasive or creepy.