Now with Big Data and the Real-Time web we are entering a whole new phase in the history of data Visualisation. New challenges lie ahead and new methods are being devised, so we felt compelled to look into it again to try and focus on how exactly data visualisation really helps us make sense of complexity.

Fresh from our presentation at BigDataWeek London last night, here’s a quick intro to the 10 reasons why we like visualising data.

This article was originally published in Research World Magazine‘s March/April 2012 issue. In it, Andrew Needham, Face CEO and Founding Partner, discusses what needs to be done for social media analysis to provide real research insights.

“Will Social Media Replace Surveys as a Research Tool?” This Advertising Age headline from March 2011 sent ripples through the industry. Joan Lewis, the top research executive of Procter & Gamble, the world’s biggest research buyer, predicted a dramatic decline in the importance of surveys by 2020 due to the rise of social media.

Technology can also help researchers extract more meaningful insight from the data by moving beyond analysing conversations by volume and doing more to understand the data’s impact and influence – its ‘visibility’. This requires weighting the data using specific algorithms for each social media channel. Furthermore, all current social media mining tools look only at content, and overlook context and behavioural data. This means that most of them are not making the most of the data feast. When it comes to community platforms there is much that can be improved, but integrating social media data in real time is key. Real value comes from mapping the data onto the rest of the research toolbox.

These innovations need to come thick and fast because clients want to be able to connect the dots between different data sets to better project what is going to happen in the future. To do this effectively requires more human analysis and consulting working alongside technology. The industry needs to look outwards so it can attract different types of people with different skill sets. Finding researchers who are also technologists, or technologists who are also social anthropologists is difficult, but we are going to see a greater mix of technological skill sets with more traditional ones. This mix will lead to the development of new methodological frameworks, powered by technology, to help gather and analyse those game-changing insights in a consumer landscape that is changing so quickly.

As Joan Lewis said, “When we’re doing it, we need to do it well. It’s really been easy for people to take the idea that the world is changing as an excuse to do really poor work. And there’s no excuse.”

Here are 3 areas where as an industry we can add real value to the new social marketing process:

Return on Engagement Specialists

The rules for this new model of marketing are still being written and this has led to a position where many digital agencies are still marking their own homework. With the larger investments being made in this space by brands, research agencies are well positioned to play the role of objective analytics partner. As researchers we should be offering clients advice on developing KPIs for their social media activity, helping them to design the right measurement framework, and making sure they select the right tools for social data collection. Beyond simple measurement, researchers also have the opportunity to help clients develop return-on-engagement models that demonstrate the link between behavioural data and the impact on the things that clients really want to measure, e.g. consumption.

Fanbase Analysts

Many companies are learning to listen to the conversations related to their brands and competitors. However, there’s more to social media research than tracking conversations by keywords. Brands are social entities. People establish connections with them (cognitive, emotional, functional) and these connections foster further connections to other people. As brands build audiences online, it is increasingly important to understand and map audiences and the content and passions that connect them. When brands understand their social audience they can design content and strategies to engage them more effectively. Research agencies will have an increasingly important role in helping brands segment their social media audiences and give strategic advice on strategies to engage them.

Content Co-creators

Generating content that people want to share is a difficult business for brands as the traditional advertising creative process is disconnected from the communities they want to engage with.

To create social ideas that have the potential to be loved and shared by people in communities it is important to involve them in the creative process. This is why co-creation as a methodology of developing and refining content will become increasingly common over the next few years. Involving consumers in the production and creative development of content via MROC and co-creation sessions is a process that plays to the strengths of community researchers and those planners with great facilitation and social media expertise.

Glasto Goes Social #2: Social Media Monitoring Process

credit: El Bibliomata Flickr

Photo by Cristina V on Flickr

This theme is at the heart of Fran’s blog which challenges the whole Brand as API model by asking “What if, instead of focusing on what the API allows the user to Pull we start focusing on what the API allows the user to PUSH, meaning allowing the user to ingest a controlled and owned selection of brand-relevant personal data into the brand API such as user context, passions, interests and behaviours?” He rightly points out that if he could feed for example his location data into the API of his mobile network operator (plugging in his mobile gps, Foursquare or Sonar data) then he could get the most customised international plan based on his travel habits. In effect we’re turning the transaction model on it’s head – as a consumer I have lots of data and information that is really valuable to you Mr Brand and I will trade this for something that I can get in return from you.

This was at the heart of two other presentations I went to today:

The first was by Amber Case the Co-Founder of Geoloqi.com, a Cyborg Anthropogist, who painted a picture in her talk “Ambient Location and the Future of the Interface” of a world where technology helps to shape everything around you without the need of a laptop, iPhone, iPad or any interface. Almost unimaginable, I know, but it’s a world where technology takes a back seat, where the interface is completely reduced so you don’t have to do a search, follow a little pin on Google Maps or load an app. The best technology she said should be invisible and help you to live your life in the way you want to. This is a very big thought re-inforcing the theme of putting the individual at the centre his/her world.

The second presentation “Data is the New Oil: Wealth and Wars on the Web” by DJ Patil,  the Data Scientist in Residence at Greylock Partners and Owen Tripp, the Co-founder of Reputation.com focused on the challenge of turning what they called “data vomit” to data action. One of the key ways to help make data actionable they said was to make the consumer part of it and give benefits back to consumers for sharing their data (including returning data back to the user so its actionable so it  adds value to them). At the moment people give away their data while companies and brands make money so why not create personal data vaults where we store all our data and related content for multiple purposes. If enough of us did this we would turn our own data into a form of personal currency which if it achieved scale would turn the tables on brands and companies.

There are a number of start ups such as Personal who are doing this. There are also start ups in the education field that are building portfolio platforms that allow students to learn from their own data and share their data with other students. This is driving a whole movement of students who want to own their own data. It was a movement of students that started Facebook, so could this be not only the next big thing but the answer to the privacy debate around Big  Data.

Relevance for Researchers: As the control of data moves from the brands and platforms back to the consumers, the way the consumers relate to the brands and receive brand communication will have to change by necessity. We have to be aware of this shift in order to appropriately track this shift for our clients.

As someone who has been working on the idea of making brands human by plugging them into the fabric of society, today I definitely couldn’t miss a session called “Brand As API” hosted by Peg Faimon and Glen Platt from the Armstrong Institute for Interactive Media Studies, Miami University Oxford, Ohio.

The premise is clear and simple, and extremely agreeable:

“As brands finally begin to deliver on the promise of a 1-to-1 relationship with their customers (through social media, mobile, and data-driven tools), it is critical to develop a new foundation for that relationship. This requires brands to leave the “broadcast relationship” and, instead, build a relationship sharing communication, innovation, and the very product/service itself. Insight into this relationship can be found in the structure, language, and use of APIs (Application Programming Interface). APIs provide a set of rules – a language for connecting to data and services. To remix. To build. To leverage. To extend. Many API calls provide explicit metaphors for the ways brands can connect to customers. Generally, the API relationship provides insights into the role of brands in the customers’ life. This conversation will explore these metaphors, share case studies, and work to build a language for better connecting consumers with their brands.”

You can look at the full presentation below and get the details on how they think a brand as API might work.

The main idea behind the concept of the Brand as API is that it would allow to open up the Brand, its assets and its services and allow people (consumers, businesses, developers) to do things with that Brand, from playing with the contents and the identity of the brand all the way down to designing products and services.

Peg and Glen went on discussing the key elements of an API and how they relate and map against new ways of building meaningful relationships between brand and consumers.

While this is completely agreeable and sensible, the idea of the Brand as API as crafted in this presentation still seems to rely on two assumptions:

1) The assumption that people want to do stuff with that Brand, pulling information and data assets off a Brand in order to create something custom. And while we know this is true, we also know this only applies to a very small percentage of the user base of the Brand.

2) And the mother of all assumptions: the belief that the relationships consumers have with brands are primary while we know that consumers’ most valuable relationships are with other consumers, and what brand CAN try and do is fit in those relationships in a meaningful and/or useful way, i.e. as social currency or enablers/problem solvers.

It seems that while the analogy between brands and APIs has got incredibly long legs, we are still looking at it from the wrong perspective: the brand perspective.

What if, instead of focussing on what the API allows the user to Pull we start focussing on what the API allows the user to PUSH, meaning allowing the user to ingest a controlled and owned selection of brand-relevant personal data into the brand API such as user context, passions, interests and behaviours?

What if I could feed for example my location data to the API of my mobile network operator (plugging in my mobile gps, Foursquare or Sonar data) and get the most customised international plan based on my travel habits?

And what if consumers could ‘sell’ this personal data to brands? Consumers used to pay brands for products. We are now heading towards a future where digital data abundance means brands are going to pay consumers for their personal data. Users get customised offerings while remaining in control of their personal data, brands increase their relevance by investing on live audience intelligence rather than push strategies.

This is why I believe the biggest added value of a Brand API lies not so much in the ability to provide a Brand-to-User stream of data rather in its ability to manage a bi-drectional stream of data, where the user can shape the brand around itself using the vast amounts of personal data he is in control of.

And this is why i believe the biggest and most important asset of a brand API is not the Brand Essence, rather the User Profile.

Such an API would not be shaped around the brand but around the user and his needs. And effectively it would be an Audience API rather than a Brand API. Something that could sit at the centre of the business and power any decision the business has to take, from innovation to marketing to CRM.

But the thing is, in order to be plugged into the fabric of society brands probably need both, or even more than two APIs. Like any other social product/service out there.

So we’ve taken a moment to gather 5 events that researchers attending SXSW should go to. These events will shed light on the state of digital and its implications for the plugged-in market research and innovation agency. You can bet we’ll be attending!

1. Brands as Patterns

What makes a brand in a digital world where there are no beginnings or endings? Campaigns, one of the cornerstones of branding, don’t work quite so well anymore. But while patterns and fixed rules help maintain a brand image, they can also make a brand seem out of touch with what is currently affecting its customers. This panel will debate about how brands should behave in the digital world.

Relevance to Researchers: An guide towards developjng brand positioning that work for the new, empowered, social media consumer.

2. How to be yourself when everyone else is faking it

We are often pushed to use our real identities online, such as on Facebook. However social media makes it easy to consciously present a specific version of ourselves online. Add in that using our real identities can make it easier for repressive governments to control people, and the question gets stickier. This presentation will dip into the debate surrounding authenticity and privacy online.

Relevance to Researchers: Helping us understand how people are negotiating their identities through social media – of relevance not just for social media researchers, but anyone needing to connect brands with their consumers online.

3. How Your Data Can Predict the Future

We now have access to tons of data. From what consumers click on to who they share it with, from where they discover brands to where they become disillusioned with them, there is a wealth of data available to researchers these days. This data can be used to make predictions for marketing and advertising, but this presentation will also ask what else we can predict. Happiness?

Relevance to Researchers: The Holy Grail of much research is predicting consumer behavior. This panel will not only look at how “big” social data can help provide insight into prediction, but also how brands and advertisers can connect emotionally with consumers.

4. Cool Hunting and Cool Farming with Social Media

Are we about to see another burst in human civilization similar to that of the advent of agrarian society in humanity’s history? MIT’s Center for Collective Intelligence is now actively researching “cool hunting” and innovation. Beyond the efforts of academia, this panel will discuss the practical business applications of pattern recognition and trend prediction.

Relevance to Researchers: This panel will take a different look at the challenge of prediction, covering theories and academic insights balanced with real business experience. Market researchers can learn from academia, but we must always balance it with the needs and experiences of our clients.

5. I May “Like” You, But I’m Not in Like with You

How much is a “Like” on Facebook actually worth? This presentation will look into what makes people value something, and how brands can capitalize on this. All the while, it will ask how much people value their relationship with the brands they interact with online.

Relevance to Researchers: Just like brands, researchers are using “Likes” and other online actions as demonstrations of support. But how much do these actions really reveal about the consumers’ values? Researchers can also benefit from a greater understanding of how to really judge consumer actions online.

Jess Owens talks about mobile data in the latest issue of design/architecture magazine ICON, issue 106 on mobile phones

“This year the number of mobile phones will exceed the 7 billion humans on the planet. For this issue we asked novelists, academics, experts and designers to reflect on this communication revolution, in a 22-page special on how cell phones have changed the ways we behave, connect to and navigate the world. And to make their own predictions about how mobile phone technology will look in the future …”

Jess takes on the issue of mobile data, which data do our devices capture and most importantly what they share?

Does mobile data sharing matter? Some would argue no: users are knowingly exchanging their data for free access to entertaining and useful services. But the impact of such bargains goes beyond the individual.

Read it all here

For researchers this is exciting because it means so much is up for grabs. With change comes opportunity; the opportunity to meet emerging client needs head on. One of these is how to ensure an idea has the best chance of success in the shared and created media space. It was a question that was at the heart of a recent project we did for a major ice cream brand. The brief was about launching the brand successfully in a social way in a new country with a discerning taste for ice cream. It allowed us to show how our new thinking delivers better results for brands craving success in the earned and created media space.

The 4Cs Proposition

There were four key stages to our approach that fed into each other namely, conversation, content, communities and conversion. Our model is powered by our philosophy of co-creation (doing things with not at) and technology (our social media insight tools). It is circular and iterative more of a loop or series of loops as we believe that the new marketing-cycle is no longer linear, planned over 3 years and populated with campaigns that have a beginning and an end. The role the consumer plays in each of these stages is crucial but I am just going to talk about the first two for now.

Conversation

This stage is all about identifying and understanding your key audiences within the context of the brand landscape in real time. By using Pulsar we have developed a more dynamic way to map audiences through the social web. This helped us to identify four key cohorts within the brand’s target audience. One of them we identified as the group most likely to embrace and propagate the social mission of the brand based on their passions, interests and behaviour. It was this cohort that we invited into the community and to co-create the creative platform that would best link the brand mission to content and conversations consumers were already engaged with. This stage highlights why brands need to stay on top of what’s truly important to audiences at any given time. It is less about isolated market research data and more about understanding your customers, in the moment. This requires a data processing and data analytics model that will allow a more real-time, agile and active approach to planning based on what people are doing and saying with each other as it happens.

Content

Co-creating with the right cohort of the target audience through an on-line community and face-to-face co-creation workshop allowed us to do two things very well. The first was the ability to generate a range of creative platforms rooted in genuine consumer insight that linked the brand mission to the target audience in a relevant and credible way. The second was the ability to generate hundreds of ideas within the umbrella of the creative platform that leveraged existing consumer content and enabled the brand to join current consumer conversations and activity in an engaging way. This stage showed that building platforms by co-creating with consumers is the best way to finding and sourcing potential areas of content that either already exist, could be created or added to that can inform a content strategy to support the given creative platform. Once this is in place consumers working together with the brand can populate the content areas with loads of ideas that have the potential to start lots of little “fires” some of which will take off and some of which will go out.  The involvement of consumers though means that brands will have worked out why they have permission to be in that consumer space as well as what role they can play there.

Curating diffusion

The work we did with this ice cream brand was a brilliant example of how to tackle the challenge of creating ideas that have legs in the shared/created media space. The role the audience plays in making this work is key and understanding there are many community cohorts within a target audience you can potentially co-create with and getting the right one to do this with is important if you want to be successful. This helps the brand to understand and identify those content areas within the creative expressions of the “Big Idea” that are already in play in the lives of consumers. The next stages namely Community and Conversion are all about curating “diffusion and monitoring what we call return on engagement. But more of this another time.