Co-authored with Max Thorpe.

Consumers are social and local. As a consequence, marketers are following suit - they’re spending billions on engaging and interacting with consumers through a swath social media channels. The majority of a marketer’s social media programs appear to focus on producing and publishing organic content and sponsored posts in order to drive consumer awareness and engagement with their brands. In a recent interview with Geofedia, we’ve discovered that marketers can improve on their social media results by integrating local social media monitoring and listening in to their overall marketing efforts.

Publishing content and sponsoring posts is just part of what it takes to be successful in social media. In addition to publishing content, success in social media requires in-depth consumer understanding at scale. To develop consumer understanding, marketers should add monitoring and listening to their social media marketing efforts. Social monitoring relates to measuring the reaction consumers have with a brand’s own posts. Social listening, on the other hand refers to a brand going outside of itself to analyze and understand what consumers are talking about in general, or even around specific events or locations across all social media channels.

Over the last few years, a number of social monitoring and listening firms have emerged to help brands understand the conversations throughout the world’s social media channels; conversations that may be relevant to their brands.  Recently, we came across a new compelling social media monitoring and listening solution provider, Geofedia. Geofedia not only helps marketers listen to and understand the conversations that consumers are having, but where they are having them.  Geofedia captures public location data along with the sentiment of social media posts. This data can help marketers improve the relevance of their content as they reach out to the market through and with social media and their other marketing initiatives. It also can help them build detailed personas to inform their advertising efforts and to directly target, re-target, and reach individual people.

Take the NCAA for example. They certainly benefit from knowing what fans think and are talking about nationally, but they also care about what the fans are saying and thinking in a specified location.  Using Geofedia, the NCAA not only monitors national conversations, but can narrow their social monitoring and listening efforts to specific locations that they and their collegiate communities care about.  They do this by using the Geofedia platform to geofence locations of interest.  The platform can then capture and report back on any location tagged social posts made within the specified areas, like March Madness games throughout the country.  They can listen to the community conversation in each area, develop an understanding, and if desired, use the Geofedia provided data to post immediate reactions and feedback both nationally and locally.  Again, they could monitor social conversations anywhere, nationally or locally, that are relevant to the NCAA community.   

Geofedia, founded in 2011, has about 50 people supporting over 400 clients, such as the NCAA, CNN, BBC, and the Mall of America, to name a few.  Their user-friendly, patented, social monitoring and listening platform is really cool. It helps their clients capture an extreme amount of data.  The platform helps marketers understand consumer sentiment, gather competitive intelligence and market insights nationally and within selected geographical areas.

The data produced by Geofedia sits on the backdrop of the big data trends. By 2017, the big data market industry is expected to be worth as much 50 billion USD[1]. It is clear that marketers generally understand the need and strategic advantages of big data, but there is still much to be learned on how to exactly leverage it.  For example, R.J. Talyor, the Vice President for product at Geofedia, recognized that leveraging local social media sentiment is new for most marketers and may take some time for them to to understand and grasp it.  We suggest that it is time well spent, especially given Forrester’s belief that the basis of competitive advantage in today’s market is data mastery. It is unquestionable that marketing has become a data science.

Consumers are social and local. As a consequence, marketers are following suit - they’re spending billions on engaging and interacting with consumers through a swath social media channels. The majority of a marketer’s social media programs appear to focus on producing and publishing organic content and sponsored posts in order to drive consumer awareness and engagement with their brands. In a recent interview with Geofedia, we’ve discovered that marketers can improve on their social media results by integrating local social media monitoring and listening in to their overall marketing efforts.

Publishing content and sponsoring posts is just part of what it takes to be successful in social media. In addition to publishing content, success in social media requires in-depth consumer understanding at scale. To develop consumer understanding, marketers should add monitoring and listening to their social media marketing efforts. Social monitoring relates to measuring the reaction consumers have with a brand’s own posts. Social listening, on the other hand refers to a brand going outside of itself to analyze and understand what consumers are talking about in general, or even around specific events or locations across all social media channels.

Over the last few years, a number of social monitoring and listening firms have emerged to help brands understand the conversations throughout the world’s social media channels; conversations that may be relevant to their brands.  Recently, we came across a new compelling social media monitoring and listening solution provider, Geofedia. Geofedia not only helps marketers listen to and understand the conversations that consumers are having, but where they are having them.  Geofedia captures public location data along with the sentiment of social media posts. This data can help marketers improve the relevance of their content as they reach out to the market through and with social media and their other marketing initiatives. It also can help them build detailed personas to inform their advertising efforts and to directly target, re-target, and reach individual people.

Take the NCAA for example. They certainly benefit from knowing what fans think and are talking about nationally, but they also care about what the fans are saying and thinking in a specified location.  Using Geofedia, the NCAA not only monitors national conversations, but can narrow their social monitoring and listening efforts to specific locations that they and their collegiate communities care about.  They do this by using the Geofedia platform to geofence locations of interest.  The platform can then capture and report back on any location tagged social posts made within the specified areas, like March Madness games throughout the country.  They can listen to the community conversation in each area, develop an understanding, and if desired, use the Geofedia provided data to post immediate reactions and feedback both nationally and locally.  Again, they could monitor social conversations anywhere, nationally or locally, that are relevant to the NCAA community.   

Geofedia, founded in 2011, has about 50 people supporting over 400 clients, such as the NCAA, CNN, BBC, and the Mall of America, to name a few.  Their user-friendly, patented, social monitoring and listening platform is really cool. It helps their clients capture an extreme amount of data.  The platform helps marketers understand consumer sentiment, gather competitive intelligence and market insights nationally and within selected geographical areas.

The data produced by Geofedia sits on the backdrop of the big data trends. By 2017, the big data market industry is expected to be worth as much 50 billion USD[1]. It is clear that marketers generally understand the need and strategic advantages of big data, but there is still much to be learned on how to exactly leverage it.  For example, R.J. Talyor, the Vice President for product at Geofedia, recognized that leveraging local social media sentiment is new for most marketers and may take some time for them to to understand and grasp it.  We suggest that it is time well spent, especially given Forrester’s belief that the basis of competitive advantage in today’s market is data mastery. It is unquestionable that marketing has become a data science.

Talyor says that location was the first to be abused by marketers. “Location data is so personal that organizations want to use it very quickly, but there needs to be a value exchange for it to work long-term”.  When people share their location, they are revealing personal data. In order for them to continue to want to do that they need to experience a benefit from doing so. This presents one of the largest opportunities for marketers (hence the rise in the industry) but also one of the largest exposure points for consumers.  When marketers are using location-based services, like Geofedia, responsibly to provide value, then it results in delight for both parties.

We encourage our readers to take a look at Geofedia and the value that can be gained from local social media listening.  Be sure to check out one or more of their competitors, such as WeLink, Snaptrends, and Ground Signal, so that you can make a balanced decision with who you choose to work with.  Also, take a look at the MIT Sloan Management Review Social Business Blog [http://sloanreview.mit.edu/big-ideas/social-business/]. The MIT work really helps bring it all together. [

Talyor says that location was the first to be abused by marketers. “Location data is so personal that organizations want to use it very quickly, but there needs to be a value exchange for it to work long-term”.  When people share their location, they are revealing personal data. In order for them to continue to want to do that they need to experience a benefit from doing so. This presents one of the largest opportunities for marketers (hence the rise in the industry) but also one of the largest exposure points for consumers.  When marketers are using location-based services, like Geofedia, responsibly to provide value, then it results in delight for both parties.

We encourage our readers to take a look at Geofedia and the value that can be gained from local social media listening.  Be sure to check out one or more of their competitors, such as WeLink, Snaptrends, and Ground Signal, so that you can make a balanced decision with who you choose to work with.  Also, take a look at the MIT Sloan Management Review Social Business Blog [http://sloanreview.mit.edu/big-ideas/social-business/]. The MIT work really helps bring it all together.  

[1] "Big Data Market Forecast Worldwide from 2011 to 2017, by Segment (in Billion U.S. Dollars)." Statista. Wikibon, 2013. Web. 20 Aug. 2015. http://www.statista.com/statistics/255970/global-big-data-market-forecast-by-segment/.