The languages of consumer advocacy

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A new Weber Shandwick survey on advocacy by consumers (via Simon McDermott) provides support for the idea of paying attention to online conversations, although traditional media still outrank online for their ability to reach and influence consumers. The survey confirms the role of word of mouth advocacy as it reaches an eye-opening conclusion about international markets.

Key observations:

  • Decision-making among global consumers has accelerated.
  • 45% of global consumers identified as Advocates.
  • High-Intensity Advocates are critical to reach.
  • Badvocates waste no time.
  • Advocacy is more common in Europe and Asia.
  • Both traditional and new media play critical roles in forming Advocates' opinions.
I see support for defensive monitoring, influencer analysis and traditional media analysis in the list. What's really interesting is the observation about advocates in Europe and Asia, since most social media analysis companies say that US clients are ahead of European clients in understanding social media and the benefits to their business. It's also interesting to contrast with the English-centric services of many US and UK companies.

When I started asking social media analysis companies which languages they can handle, it seemed a simple enough question. English is ubiquitous, and a few predictable languages show up over and over again. Then I started seeing more obscure regional languages and dialects, and the language matrix started growing dramatically:

    Arabic
    Bengali
    Bulgarian
    Cantonese
    Catalan
    Chinese (Mandarin)
    Czech
    Danish
    Dutch
    English
    Estonian
    Filipino
    Finnish
    Flemish
    French
    German
    Greek
    Hindi/Urdu
    Indonesian
    Italian
    Japanese
    Korean
    Lithuanian
    Malaysian
    Norwegian
    Polish
    Portuguese
    Punjabi
    Romanian
    Russian
    Shanghainese
    Spanish
    Swedish
    Taiwanese
    Thai
    Turkish
    Ukrainian
The bottom line for clients is that you can probably find someone to monitor any language they can think of. But if you want to know what consumers in a given market are saying, you'll want a vendor who can understand their language.

Update: The Guide to Social Media Analysis (2nd edition) includes a table that summarizes the language capabilities of 63 vendors across 55 languages, from Arabic to Zulu.


1 Comment

Nathan,

Great post! I think the biggest question and concern facing vendors offering multi-language monitoring platforms is whether they out-source. Given the sensitivity of the information being monitored, some clients might require extra assurance that the business intelligence remain within the four-walled world of that firm.

Further to the point of US clients being ahead of European ones as it relates to understanding social media, one specific observation I've made runs somewhat contrary to this notion.

I believe the mindset in the UK towards the multi-faceted aspect of online consumer advocacy appears a little ahead in terms if understanding the wide-range of impact social media can have on business. For instance, they view threats to a companies reputation as being inextricably linked to risk/security management.

To paint a better picture, imagine a customer service counter at a large retail store. The first week in promoting a new product, the store starts to receive random complaints. The second week, the complaints multiply to the point where the lineup is starting to cause a disruption to the walk-by traffic, people knocking over items from the store shelves either deliberately or accidentally, and hostility starts brewing amongst those standing in line.

This situation starts to call into question a number of things with regard to monitoring quality assurance of products/brands, but it also may call into question a number of preparedness programs. How is the staff handling these irate customers? How is this sudden rise in customer traffic effecting safety protection programs in the store?

When we translate an incident like this to online environments, similar patterns can be seen happening on blogs, chatrooms, consumer and gripe sites. In our experiences, it seems that UK clients are especially keen on keeping a pulse on online incidences with the potential to give rise to protests, boycotts or other more serious threats to risk and security protection programs.

And although we started seeing this pattern in the UK as far back as few years ago, it appears that North American clients for larger companies are just now starting to recognize the importance of linking reputation management strategies with risk/security management.

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About Nathan Gilliatt

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  • Voracious learner and explorer. Analyst tracking technologies and markets in intelligence, analytics and social media. Advisor to buyers, sellers and investors. Writing my next book.
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