Keystone XL and The Impact of Social Media Study

Today we announced the release of our groundbreaking research into a major issue that crosses two borders – the Keystone XL pipeline and how social media was used.

Download the free report here: MediaBadger Keystone Research. No registration required.

We note that this was an in-house research project by our own team and was not sponsored by any company, organisation or individual. Some of the key findings of this report are;

• This issue galvanised very large numbers of people, organisations and groups on both sides of the Canada-US border and social media facilitated cross-border connections and relationships.
• Negative sentiment around Keystone has remained a majority view among people active in social media channels since this issue entered the public domain in July 2008.
• Positive sentiment, however, has gained momentum over the past year and has nearly closed the gap with negative sentiment in some channels.
• Our research also suggests that social media was vital in incorporating  the views of local, civil society groups from rural areas in a broad public debate.
• Finally, the issue also moved into the social media dialogue surrounding the 2011 Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa this December.

We can certainly see the social media is having an increasingly bigger impact on our world beyond just marketing. Increasingly, citizens are learning how to use these technologies to organise and drive change not just in democracies, but in dictatorships like Egypt and Tunisia.

So what do you think? Will social media continue to be as or more important in society?

The Role of Social Media Research in Foreign Policy

The role of social medias in the Arab Spring is being intensely analysed (and we’re among those analyzing) and was perhaps the crux point of governments and other organizations seeing the value of social medias in civil society change. The failed green revolution in Iran in 2009 was arguably the opening gambit of social medias role in political change. Whether social media played a pivotal role however, is up for debate.

Revolutions aside, social medias offer more opportunities to governments, IGO‘s, NGO’s and multi-national corporations for knowledge, context and understanding  of civil society than has been possible before. No longer is social media usage purely for entertainment value – and those that think it is, may be missing critical insights.

We have conducted a number of research projects into social media for public sector and private sector clients on foreign policy issues. Through these projects (and our in-house research) we’ve come to gain a very deep appreciation, as have our clients, into the value social medias can play. Among them are;

Citizen Views & Opinions in Recovering States: A prime example here is Haiti. After the cholera outbreak in 2010, many Haitians and Haitian diaspora took to social media channels to discuss the issue. Chief among them was the evolution of a mythology or conspiracy theory that the UN was out to poison them. This is certainly not the case. But such views become valid perceptions and create communications gaps and strained relationships between those giving and receiving aid. Research into social media can identofy such issues and enable improved communications.

Trade Negotiation Issues: One of our recent research projects helped a government to identify why its attempts to communicate with the business community in a foreign country weren’t going so well. Our research showed that the target business community was referring to the bilateral trade agreement in a completely different way – simply because of a cultural issue of language. By taking an innovative step in looking at online chatter, the government was able to change its communications tactics and better engage the audience more effectively.

Domestic Views on Foreign Policy: Citizens at home have their views on their governments activities in foreign countries; especially when it comes to conflicts where military personnel are at risk. Understanding the views, opinions and mood of citizens at home can help a government to develop effective communications to its citizens and understand if the engagement in a foreign country may cause significant unrest in the civil population.

Peace Operations: Today’s peace operations in fragile states in or just coming out of conflict are delicate and far more complex than they used to be. Citizens in fragile states are also more connected to the Web than is often realized; through both broadband access and mobile devices. In fact, the use of social medias via mobile devices is quite significant – enough for viable research. Monitoring and analyzing citizens commentary can help understand citizen views, identify areas at risk for aid delivery and more.

There are more areas where such research can have an impact. Often, online research is a complement to traditional methodologies such as interviews and focus groups, providing a layer of insight not possible before.

The Dark Side Of Social Media and Online “Marketing”

Yes, there is, surprisingly, a very active dark side of social media “marketing” in a number of business sectors. For business marketing online, it is a highly competitive place. Witness the large volume of SEO agencies and the vast volumes of SEO “how-to” content. Toss in the rise of social media channels and the perhaps even larger amount of content around how to engage in marketing through social media, it’s little wonder there is a darker side.

We’ve completed well over 200 research reports across a multitude of industry sectors; from consumer goods to ball-bearing manufacturers, finance and tourism. In almost all of them we have encountered what we’ve come to term as Digital Dark Marketing.

These tactics vary, mostly it’s been about companies using SEO tactics, legitimate and black hat SEO means, to push down their competitors in search engines. Increasingly though, we are seeing similar activities across social media channels. Sometimes it is simply the usual aim of improving a company or products visibility over  a competitor – this is fine and is part of the benefits of a capitalist society. A business may also hire, unknowingly, a black hat SEO firm as recently happened to a firm in New York (ironically the article is in Forbes, who has just been accused of link spam themselves – link to article below.)

Where is gets darker however, is when nastier tactics are deployed. These range from hiring people to place negative reviews of a competitors product or service all the way through to using tactics that get a competitor pushed into Google’s “sandbox” or listed as spam for the domains web address and company emails. As we looked back at our data over the past three years of research projects, we estimate about a 11% increase, CAGR, over the past two years and forecast an 14% CAGR increase in the coming three years. Not massive amounts you might think, but enough.

There are no regulations over these tactics. Tier 1 consumer search engines like Google or Bing do not have the algorithms or methodologies to know if a dark marketing tactic is being used. Gathering the evidence of these tactics is also not easy in manual form. To trace the activity and create a path of evidence is a significant challenge and most businesses barely understand social media and are still learning how it can help them in legitimate marketing – even the firms consulting on social media are still learning. It is still a nascent sector of the online world in business terms for marketing.

Some of the tactics we’ve seen are;

Link Spamming or Spamdexing: An ongoing point of pain for search engines who are constantly “tweaking” their algorithms to stay one step ahead of these annoying folks. This tactic can be used to push down a competitor in a search engine or cause the company targeted to be “sandboxed” by a search engine in a reverse link spam operation.

Paid Negative Reviews: This seems to work in two ways. 1) is by a firm or an agency hired by a firm, paying people to slam a competitive product or drive down reviews on ranking/rating services or sometimes staff will of the company will do this themselves and 2) finding existing negative reviews of competitor products/services and “promoting” them across ranking/rating sites and other social media services (e.g. using a false Twitter account to promote a negative instance.)

Pay Per Click Fraud: Some companies will find someone or an organization to click on competitors ads in search engines or other sites/services to maximize their ad budget quickly, then place their ads afterward.

Content Realignment: Fancy term we have for taking a competitors own “content” about their product or service and altering it, then placing it on the same social media channels where they placed it, but your name is mentioned. Slightly obvious but rarely gets detected.

Paid Bloggers: A company may find a blogger willing to provide a highly positive review of their product/service and subtly or overtly “slam” their competitor. They may provide the content and the blogger may admit they are being paid to write the review but may be unaware of how they are being manipulated. There are those who have no scruples at all however, and will do as the company bids and not declare their actions. Some laws are being developed to counter this, although the intent of the law is really to hold all bloggers responsible for their statements as general consumer protection.

Blind Party Linking & Ads: Companies may unknowingly be participating in this kind of action. This is when they are “sold” links or advertising by seemingly legitimate online marketing firms or individuals. The business doesn’t understand what is happening and simply thinks it is buying ads and links. Forbes magazine was recently accused of Link Spamming.

There are a host of other tactics, some as obvious as trying to get a competitor kicked out of a social media service all the way through to “flooding” a competitors hosting service or using bot or DOS (Denial of Service) attacks. The industries where see the most of this activity is financial products (mortgages, investing), insurance (home, auto, life), electronics manufacturers and online retailers. Other sectors however, are not immune.

How do you know if your company is being targeted? It’s not easy. It takes some time and effort, but a digital media research firm that understands social media marketing, SEO and search engine marketing tactics and Web technologies can help. Evidence is hard to gather for legal retaliation we have found, but you can develop strategies to fight back. Some online reputation management services are good, but they are too often just “real-time” and do not have the ability to track history and miss many social media channels.

There is an “information war” taking place in Cyburbia today. From spammers in email and websites for pirated or black label goods through to competitive anti-marketing tactics. Unfortunately this just adds to the challenge companies face with their online presence, yet as time goes by, can ill afford not to understand.

Ethics In Social Media Monitoring & Analysis

Two of the top questions we are asked about conducting our research and monitoring in social media channels are 1) what about privacy? And 2) What about the ethical issues. They are good questions. On the privacy front, we stay within the bounds of Canada’s PIPEDA laws and observe similar privacy laws in other jurisdictions. The “ethics” question is a tougher one, I’ll admit. Here’s a bit of our take and we’d welcome your thoughts as well. The government departments we work with, federally, provincially, state and municipal are often the most concerned about privacy – I’m often impressed how much so.

This is a new field of “research” in many ways. Such a rich volume of data has never before been available to anyone, anywhere in the history of humanity. In ethical terms, there are a number of concerns and issues. Namely, what does one do with what one finds?

Let’s be very, very clear on one primary fact – if you put something publicly on the Web, that is not password protected or locked down with privacy stuff – it is public, so anyone can find it. After 200+ research projects, well, we’ve seen a lot of strange content out there.

Research in the digital world of Cyburbia has it’s issues. Some of these ethical issues are;

1. Potential Incriminating Content: What does one do if you come across activity that seems to be fraudulent in nature or seems to be breaking laws, like naughty content? Do you report it and if so, to which authorities? What are the implications of your firm as researching?

2. Libel or Slanderous Content: That’s a grey area, but sometimes you find content that could be libelous or damaging to another person. What do you do with it? Does the potentially damaged party deserve to know?

3. National Security Threats: What about content by terrorists or perceived terrorists and those of similar ilk? Do you report that to authorities?

4. Sockpuppeting, Trolling & Astroturfing: These types of behaviour around content manipulation occur all the time and can be a challenge to deal with for a researcher. Issues like sockpuppeting can have legal ramifications in some jurisdictions and must be dealt with…but on who’s shoulders does that rest?

In many cases we have established processes to deal with some of these issues. Our policies are always evolving and I can say we have some lively debates amongst the team here, and that’s good. But this is a new area of research and the answers are not always simple. Others are clear cut; if we see children being abused, we report it immediately to the relevant police authority. But libel or slander can sometimes be comedic or satirical in nature and the party being targeted may be fine with it.

What issues do you see? Do you think such monitoring is invasive?

(Author: G. Crouch)

Social Media Monitoring or Social Media Research?

It’s a question that comes up a lot with new or prospective clients – what is the difference and value of social media research in regards to social media monitoring. It’s a good question. The answer is “both” are critical. Here’s our take on why and the difference.

If you’re looking to develop a social media strategy, then you need to “listen” before you develop a strategy and listen before you actually engage. This is where the “social media research” aspect comes into play. By conducting the research into social media first, you’ll understand a) if there is any conversation about you taking place, b) what is being said, c) where it is taking place and c) who is talking about your company or organization. This initial research provides the key insights you’ll need to make effective business decisions.

In developing a social media strategy, the questions you need answered are those in the above paragraph. Once those questions are answered, you can then determine a) should I be engaged in social media and if so, to what degree? b) Which channels should I be focusing my resources on, c) what kind of resources do I need and what are the associated costs, d) what kind of content will my audience respond to (e.g. video, text, audio, images) and e) what do I then need to monitor, how often and what tools are best?

At MediaBadger, we come in at the first part- the social media research. From the results of our research, we can recommend the best tools to use for social media monitoring, how often and where to monitor in line with your budget and available resources. Hiring a social media research firm is a critical part to your overall online marketing strategy. Such research can identify keywords for search engine optimization, social media optimization, Web design issues (i.e. User Interface Design), nature and form of content and what business units may be most impacted by social media.

I’ll note that one constant complaint amongst our clients is that they hire a 20-something MBA or grad student to do the initial “listening” but the results are tepid at best. That’s because they are missing the point and the target audience. If you still think social media is not for kids, you’re completely missing your target audience – to the detriment of your bottom line. While MBA’s and PR degrees or diplomas are incredibly valuable, they do not make up for real-world or industry business experience. Such experience is critical to being able to understand the “data” to turn it into useful information that can be acted on to make a positive impact to a business overall or a business unit.

Monitoring comes afterward and is equally important and is often called online reputation management or ORM. We generally do not provide monitoring services. There are a number of tools and services that do that; at the top end is radian6 and the bottom end is WhosTalkin, a free service that offers links but no metrics or sexy graphs. In fact there are over 40 services. Keep in mind though that almost all of them only use a connection to Google, which means serious limitations on what might be found…all miss key hyper-localization services such as Yelp or FourSquare – that’s important if your a very local business. We often help clients find the best monitoring solution for their business, industry and budget. Conversely we offer monthly and quarterly updates – which may be preferred if your engagement level is low and audience participation not on the level of the likes of say Apple, Nike, Adidas or Sony.

So to sum it all up; the research part provides you with the road map of where to go and what to say while the monitoring makes sure your good with your audience for the online reputation management component. Here’s a blog post on SocialMedia Today talking about where monitoring tools fail as well. And here is a good list of monitoring services.