When a crisis hits, all eyes are on your brand. So, making fast, informed decisions is imperative. Having market intelligence as part of your day-to-day process, and part of your crisis response, will ensure you handle every issue like a pro. Here’s how that looks and why leading brands refuse to live without it!
In this article we will discuss:
- How using market intelligence can reveal hidden treasures to help you become a better brand.
- Responding to crisis in a timely manner
- How next generation AI powered market intelligence, along with social listening can fuel your crisis plan
And there are vital facts and findings to consider when looking to repair or prevent crisis such as:
- There is a strong statistical connection between happy employees and happy customers, and becoming too narrowly sighted on one or the other can negatively impact your brand.
- Over 70% of brand managers attest that building an audience is more valuable today than direct sales – highlighting the need to engage and connect with consumers where they are.
- Influencers are likely to sway your consumers and can be helpful as you repair broken bridges, as 92% of consumers trust influencers more than advertisements.
Market Intelligence Makes the Brand
Market intelligence can help your brand make accurate decisions 5x faster and guide you in a timely response when there is a real threat. By monitoring relevant markets and capturing data surrounding trends, as well as intel around consumers, products, and competitors, it will keep your brand on its toes and in the know.
Offering powerful competitive, consumer and market insight, brands can monitor relevant resources across the internet, integrating consumer information collected from structured and unstructured data sources. Today’s next generation artificial intelligence analyzes this aggregated intel and extracts accurate insight that guides brands in strategic decision-making. And it’s something that encompasses your entire operation.
Social listening provides powerful competitive intel, so you’re never without a rudder to steer, or a lifeboat when needed. Let’s see it in action!
The Rideshare Story
Below, we have a conversation around ride share companies – in specific Uber. Each colored cluster offers us a wealth of information. We can set preferred dates to see just the timeframe we’re interested in and how the conversation has shifted. Here, our search is focused over the past year.
We will dissect these clusters using market research and social listening to see what the conversation is around Uber.
Crises Are Never Timed Well, But Your Response Can Be
In hot water with their drivers, our market intelligence spotlights Uber and the surrounding dialogue.
Transforming our clustered conversation from above into a bar chart helps to better understand the share of conversation each cluster holds. Uber stocks and shares are big news, and second only to that is the debate over whether Uber’s and Lyft’s drivers should be considered employees or remain contractors.
Riding closely to this are several categories discussing buying plans of Uber which in the right hands could be valuable information, giving a competitor like Lyft an edge and possibly a head start.
Uber Conversations Shift Over Time
To view how these subjects changed over the year and what’s most pertinent, our timeline view gives us up-to-date information on what is driving the conversation. Stocks and shares were consistent throughout the year. And in July Uber’s buying actions led to a spike – a sign of the companies plans to grow. However, that dwindled in August as disgruntled drivers began making a case that they should be employees.
Isolating the controversial category, we receive a more detailed story. It certainly is a big switch in conversation with Uber’s buying trends on hold. And this is happening while talk of lawsuits around wage theft and legal orders make headlines, with both Lyft and Uber expected to begin classifying their drivers as employees takes center stage in August. And all of this combined may be the best “how-to” map for a competitive company looking to avoid the same pitfalls as Uber! It shows precisely when and how the conversations progressed.
Consumers Have Lots to Say Too
Rounding out this picture is social listening. Consumers talk and not just to each other but to an entire world eavesdropping through multiple social channels. With 3.5 billion social media users, and 73% of marketers believing that social media presence is helpful, companies looking to have good favor would be wise to utilize it.
Social listening reveals what is being said and where – brands can now see which social platform they need to respond on to reach them.
Here, we have Uber consumers on Twitter, praising Uber drivers – not the company itself. Why is this important? It amplifies that the heart of this rideshare company isn’t just what it offers, it’s the drivers.
So, if you have unhappy drivers – you may have unhappy consumers in general. Research shows that there is a strong statistical connection between happy employees and happy customers. Being customer oriented is wonderful – but if your workplace suffers, eventually your company will too. And Uber has experienced this the hard way.
Here we can see top emotions attributed to Uber from consumers. Sadness takes the number one spot, though happiness is close behind. And it shouldn’t be taken for granted, because on a turn of a dime, your brand health can suffer.
Over 70% of brand managers say that building an audience is more valuable today than direct sales. No one likes negative feedback, however keeping a close eye on consumer sentiment via social listening can be a life saver when creating a crisis response plan.
Creating a Crisis Response Plan
Social listening is your weapon for crisis management when a product or plan goes terribly wrong.
Using Netbase’s summary metrics enables us to see how often a brand is mentioned, whether those words were negative, positive, or neutral, and ways to locate driving sentiment. We can set alerts, notifying us of changing consumer behavior or potential impressions surges, which can indicate an unhappy consumer or a brand influencer.
And yes, your brand needs to monitor all of these things.
Also, every savvy brand has influencers. Some could be an unknown consumer who loves what that brand is offering, or perhaps they are a payed influencer, or a company employee. These highly influential people hold sway over consumers as 92% trust an influencer more than an advertisement. And this trust makes them ideal for helping to manage a crisis.
Identifying Influencers in a Crisis
Using social analytics will pinpoint these influencers, so brands can keep an eye on who is saying what and how it’s being received by the social media masses. And this way, your brand can move accordingly.
Here is a dashboard focused around Uber – we have influencers found based on their mention and by followers/visitors. And we can also see post engagements.
Uber may be handling their employee/contractor crisis using market intelligence and social listening – as our sentiment wheel uncovers that consumers are pleased for the most part.
This is good news, that’s a bit late as Uber could have been alerted to the looming threat, adjusting as needed, or possibly avoiding it all together. Or maybe they were and this response was the somewhat informed, next best thing?
We do know this: Never be caught without a plan, because when disaster strikes, you’ll need to act fast. Let us show you how to use market intelligence together with social listening to avert crisis, or put the fire out of one that is already underway. Reach out for a demo!