SOCIAL MEDIA FOR BUSINESS RESEARCH

Ken Sickles: SLA, June 2010

* Compete.com (via Gigya’s “Social is the Next Search”)

“Once we know something, we find it hard to imagine what it was like not to know it.”

- Chip Heath, Made to Stick

Nowhere you’ve heard of, NY

CITY LIMITS

POPULATION: 500

Social Media has made the global conversation “local”

105+ Million 500+ Million 70+ Million

What happens in New Orleans stays…

What happens in New Orleans stays…

On

“gather real-time market intelligence”

Doing research with Social Media

Company

What are the companies saying? What are customers saying? What are partners saying? What are employees saying?

84%

31%

Importance & Satisfaction of Private Company Info Sources

45% use Facebook or Twitter

Product

What are customers saying? What questions are companies

asking? What are companies saying?

1 out of every 5 tweets mention a product or brand

65 Million / Day

1 out of every 5 tweets mention a product or brand

65 Million / Day

People

Which people are the experts? Which employees matter? Which executives are having

conversations?

A few more stats:• 550,000 Groups• 150 Industries• New user every second• 50% outside of U.S.

• Executives from ALL Fortune 500

Topics

What industry trends are emerging? What are good sources for more info? Which companies and or people are

related?

Wrap Up

Use Social Media for Research purposes Find good sources Find hard to get info

Wrap Up

Build your expert network This is important. Really.

Wrap Up

Understand how information discovery and navigation are changing

* Compete.com (via Gigya’s “Social is the Next Search”)

25 billion shares per month

Top five websites visited by businesses:1. Facebook – 6.8 per cent of all traffic2. Google – 3.4 per cent of all traffic3. Yimg (Yahoo!’s image server) – 2.8 per cent of

all traffic4. Yahoo – 2.4 per cent of all traffic5. Doubleclick – 1.7 per cent of all traffic

Wrap Up

Mainstream resource tools (Factiva) still necessary!

Getting Started (Pick 1/2) Twitter:

Get a user name Listen at first Find like minded people Participate

LinkedIn Establish your profile Join groups Participate

Facebook Establish your profile Use the “like” button Find communities

kensickles@gmail.com http://linkedin.com/kensickles

bstg http://letstalkknowledge.com/

Thank you!!

Resources

LinkedIn http://learn.linkedin.com/

Twitter http://business.twitter.com/twitter101/ http://listorious.com/ http://tweetdeck.com/

Facebook http://developers.facebook.com/

Other resources

Delicious, Digg, Reddit, etc. Mainstream resource tools (Factiva)

still necessary!

Social IS NOT A HOBBY! It’s a fundamental shift in the way we do business.