Spin On Demand

Who is saying what about your brand?  And just as importantly, how influential are they?  I had the great fortune of receiving a personal demo of Press Army, from Michael Sheetal, Director of UltraSuperNew Inc. during a recent Forrester Research Bloggers event in Tokyo, Japan.  Press Army is a web-based tool that enables real-time brand or topic tracking and analysis in social media.

For our demo, we used the term “iPhone 3G” and specified Japan as our region of interest.  An interactive timeline allowed us to focus on a 4-week period of activity around the launch date in Japan.  A ranking of the contexts in which the search term was used provided insights into the nature and focus of the blog posts/tweets/etc.  ”Availability” topped the list, while “Pricing” came in a distant 5th.  Armed with this information, if I’m the iPhone marketing manager for Japan, I now have a great tool for prioritizing my marketing plans to maximize adoption.  (On the other hand, if I’m the marketing manager for Nokia charged with introducing a smartphone competitor in the hyper-competitive and unforgiving Japanese market, I’m gaining invaluable competitive intelligence…)

Press Army also provided the ability to drill-down and identify specific bloggers who wrote about the “iPhone 3G” in Japan, ranked according to their level of influence, which is determined through several methods including # of views, # of link backs, # of followers (Twitter), and other variables.  Being able to identify the most influential bloggers talking about a specific brand presents some very interesting options.  I might consider methods of (ethically) amplifying the reach of bloggers that are discussing my brand in a positive light.  Conversely, the ability to identify negative content, such as bad reviews, enables me to focus my limited time and energy on the most influential sources.

You can find more information about Press Army at http://pressarmy.com.