IBM Introduces New Social Media Metrics And Tracking Tools

If you interact with the social media world at all, you know what an immense opportunity there is to gather, analyze, and act on all the great data floating around.

But, as is the case with so many organizations, there’s an increasing challenge to make sense out of all that information, particularly in real-time.

IBM just announced a solution intended to assist on this front, new cloud-based software that is designed to help marketers gain real-time, actionable insight from data available across social media channels.

This new software builds on IBM’s business analytics capabilities by helping organizations to develop faster, more precise social media marketing programs that support their brand’s total online presence through a cloud-based delivery model.

IBM Coremetrics Social

IBM Coremetrics Social helps companies analyze the business impact of their social marketing initiatives.  It does so by helping them  measure the effectiveness and return on investment (ROI) of their social marketing initiatives by gaining insight from data that’s publicly available on social media websites.

“IBM’s approach to social media analytics is based on the understanding that people interact with an organization’s brand in a number of ways — including email, social networking sites and company Web sites — and the true measure of business impact demands a fully integrated view of the interaction with these resources,” said John Squire, chief strategy officer, IBM Coremetrics, about the announcement.

“The new social media analytics software unveiled today will help marketers develop more targeted, highly-measurable, and effective social media marketing campaigns.”

This follows IBM’s recent announcement of new software and the creation of a new consulting practice dedicated to the emerging category of “Smarter Commerce,” which is focused on helping companies swiftly adapt to rising customer demands in today’s digitally transformed marketplace.

Smarter Commerce includes new cloud analytics software that enables companies to monitor their brand’s presence in real-time through social media channels to better assess the effectiveness of new services and product offerings, fine tune marketing campaigns, and create sales initiatives in real-time.

IBM also announced IBM Unica Pivotal Veracity Email Optimization Suite, which analyzes email links that are shared across social network platforms, enabling marketers to better capitalize on opportunities across channels.

It has become routine for social networks to be used as a resource to broadly share links to special offers made available by companies via email. Well-known brands can expect to see as much as 38 percent of their special offer email links shared across social networks. An average of 28 percent of these links is then ‘liked’ or commented on.

The new IBM Unica Pivotal Veracity Email Optimization suite tracks and analyzes email links that are shared across social network platforms, delivering actionable insights which marketers can turn into recognizable profit.  Unlike other technologies, this new offering opens the doors for marketers to identify, track, and improve the perception of their brands across channels.

The Social Email Analytics software tracks all links associated with a marketer’s brand and email, not just the intended links a marketer shares.

This approach better encompasses and reflects the emerging complexities and ramifications of consumer interactions with brands, starting with email and ending up in the social realm. With this new software, marketers can also hone Web pages for social networks and better identify opportunities across channels.