Pulsar

• Through its CORE platform, Pulsar offers a comprehensive analytics tool that monitors social media as well as company websites.
• Some of the features of this platform include using artificial intelligence to understand content performance, audience insights, benchmarking marketing against competitors or the entire industry, data storage for as long as possible, brand level view of reports, native analytics for owned-channels, and addition of unlimited social channels.
• In addition to the CORE platform, Pulsar has an in-house research team that provides social media insight research whether continuously or as a one-off event. This research offering provides custom analytics.
• In fact, Pulsar has developed "custom analytics models for industries including film & TV, news, gaming, sports & fashion" to deliver "deliver contextualized, action-oriented insights."
• The research program at Pulsar uncovers insights such as marketing effectiveness, audience discovery, creative development, and brand and product strategy.
• It is one of the best-in-class providers of social media insights reporting services because it has worked/works with clients such as Unilever, The Guardian, 20th Century Fox, Instagram, IKEA, Twitter, Ogilvy, and Aviva.

Linkfluence

• Linkfluence is a social media intelligence firm offering different services, platforms, and solutions.
• Its social data services include software empowerment, project management, social intelligence consulting, and customer support.
• Linkfluence also specifically offers social media/data market research, which combines expert researchers and its proprietary monitoring technology. It has over 100 local research analysts "with specialized teams for each industry and vertical, experienced in working with leading global brands."
• Under its market research offering, brands can look forward to unearthing insights into brand perception, audience analysis and tribe detection, market trends detection, and understanding the consumer's voice.
• Some of Linkfluence clients include Air France, Danone, Publicis Group, and Sephora. In addition to this, Linkfluence was listed among the top ten social media listening platforms by Forrester Wave.

Sprinklr

• Through its Core platform, Sprinklr offers a unified platform that covers solutions such as social media listening, corporate governance, data management, collaboration, automation, and analytics. The platform can also be integrated with other solutions and platforms from IBM, Adobe, SAP, Salesforce, and Microsoft.
• In addition to the platform, Sprinklr also offers integrated services across many domains, including strategy and analytics, which encompasses social media insight programs.
• The company notes that "Our team of world-class strategy and analytics consultants, with deep experience in creating and measuring social programs at some of the world’s largest organizations, are ready to support your social strategy and analytics needs. "
• Other integrated services include enablement, success management, transformation services, managed services, and moderation services.
• Some of Sprinklr's clients include Sonos, Lenovo, McDonald's, SAP, Allstate, Chick-Fil-A, and AAA Club. Sprinklr has also been named as the "the only vendor in this evaluation capable of delivering all five social technology categories: social listening, social adtech, word of mouth, onsite social capabilities, and social media management" in The Forrester Wave™: Social Suites, Q4 2019.

Digimind

• Asides other products and solutions, Digimind's social media listening helps clients to "listen, engage, analyze, and report" on their social media activities and engagements.
• The features of its listening product include seeing the conversations that matter the most, use Digimind Social Analytics to analyze and benchmark social media accounts, manage online reputation, and create reports in a few clicks.
• Other features include automatic sentiments, automatic country detection, influencer comparison by media type, personalized dashboard, clustering, and personalized tags.
• Its market intelligence product also provides advanced monitoring, text mining, and real-time analysis across social media, web pages, websites, databases, RSS feeds, and forums.
• Digimind was listed among the top ten social media listening platforms in The Forrester Wave™: Social Listening Platforms, Q3 2018 Report.
• Some of Digimind's clients include Carrefour Italy, ASUS, NH Hotel Group, and Lexus Asia Pacific.

Talkwalker

• Talkwalker Analytics is one of the product offerings of Talkwalker and it is inclusive of social media listening, social media analytics, reporting, and putting insights into action.
• The social media listening functions include analyzing brand mentions, brand protection, emerging trends, real-time action and response, and visual listening.
• Its social media reporting function has features such as multiple formats, customizable dashboards, automated alerts, white labeling, add company-generated data, rule-based tagging, and much more.
• The social media analytics tool covers hashtag and campaign tracking, image recognition, influencer marketing, virality, Google Analytics integration, Facebook Insights integration, and much more.
• Its social media intelligence functions allow clients to take action with insights gathered on social media. The features include big data analysis, a command center, "predefined data dashboards for a variety of use cases," sentimental analysis, 2 years of historical data, access to offline data, and much more.
• Talkwalker was "recognized as a strong performer by Forrester in its Forrester Wave: Social Listening Platforms, Q3 2018 report."

NetBase

• NetBase Audience Insight is NetBase's product that turns social media insights into actionable reports.
• The insights from this product can help clients to understand buyer personas, create more personalized experiences, optimize social media content, identify influencers, drive engagement, develop regional campaigns, build strong relationships.
• NetBase also has a stand-alone social media analytics software/tool. The features of this tool include a patented artificial intelligence engine, capture all conversations across social media, compare owned versus earned content, visual brand analytics, ability to capture location-based feedback, real-time alerts for an unexpected turn of events.
• In the Forrester Wave: Social Listening Platforms, Q3 2018 report, NetBase was named a leader in social listening platforms.
• Some of NetBase's clients include Land Rover, Louis Vuitton, IKEA, Coca Cola, 7-Eleven, and Arby's.

Zignal Labs

• The Zignal Enterprise is a "modern media intelligence platform harnessing the power of real-time and predictive analytics across the entire media spectrum, allowing teams to make faster decisions with confidence, achieve better outcomes and identify strategic opportunities."
• Its features include the ability to see where conversations are taking places across the globe, "consolidated view of media analytics with Zignal Brand 360," see the impact of communication strategy, estimate brand sentiments per time, simplified reporting, customize alerts to the things that matter most, scheduled briefings, and the ability to identify and leverage brand influencers.
• Zignal Labs' customers include Citrix, Amtrak, Expedia, Facebook, Gartner, GoPro, Levi's, and LG.
• Zignal Labs was named as a contender in the Forrester Wave: Social Listening Platforms, Q3 2018 report.

Research Strategy

Insights and Trends: Trends in the Social Media Insight Services Market

1. Using Analytics to Improve Customer Engagement

Description

• Companies that are innovative and analytical rely on data from multiple sources including vendors, customers, regulators, and competitors.
• For analytics to be helpful in improving customer engagement, companies would rely on both monthly standard subscriptions and ad hoc customized reports to make informed decisions as insights could be found from anywhere where the consumer interacts with the business both indirectly or directly. This means that businesses need to remain focused on CX vision.
• Using social analytics tools, a company can "sift through all consumer data, sorting it and categorizing it to reveal what consumers think and feel."
• Some features/data-points that customers would demand to be included in their social media insight report based on analytics include social metrics, psycho-graphics, sentiment analysis, audience analysis, campaign analysis, competitive bench marking, and social monitoring.

Why it is a key trend

• Social media analytics provide brands and businesses with an abundance of insights that they can apply in all areas of operation.
• Companies can highly benefit from knowing how to find and use insights generated by social media analytics and also adapt to the changes these insights undergo as a result of technology advances.
• As such, the majority of managers are using analystics to gain a competitive advantage.
• According to the MIT Sloan Management Review, "competitive advantage from analytics continues to grow".

Examples

• WinField United, the seed and crop-protection division of Land O’Lakes Inc., helps farm operators analyze millions of data points from multiple sources, to boost per-acre production.
• "Cheetah Digital provides the ability to generate ad hoc, automated, and trend analysis in collaborative ways that help organizations sync and evolve." As a result, they help marketers justify what they do through creating shared accountability for campaign results and identifying the next steps.
• Ocean Spray uses Social Media analytics to find the next $100M idea.

2. Increased Adoption of Artificial Intelligence

Description

• Artificial intelligence or AI simply means “the capability of a machine to imitate intelligent human behavior.” A good demonstration of AI at work can be seen in "letting Alexa or Siri perform a search and deliver results."
• AI streamlines processes so that tasks can be performed more efficiently.
• In the social media insight services market, consumer brands use AI to produce different types of reports including monthly standard subscriptions and ad hoc customized reports. Company representatives can get "AI-insights as alerts on their mobile devices, personalized to their needs and customers, and delivered at the best possible time."

• Adopting AI in social media insight reporting means that a social media market report would provide the "majority of the latest and newest industry data that covers the overall market situation along with future prospects for Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the Social Media market around the globe."

Why it is a key trend

• There has been a 50% increase in the proportion of larger companies stating that they are using AI, up from 24% to 36%.
• The value of the AI market in social media was USD 365.83 million in 2017 and is expected to reach USD 2,234.56 million by 2023, recording a CAGR of 28.69% for the period 2018-2023.
• To leverage the power of social media, marketers from multiple industries are actively exploring AI-based tools.
• Adoption of AI in social media analytics means smart social analytics that "helps brands harness useful data that’s worth acting upon."

Examples

• With Synthesio Social Media Intelligence data, Social Media Insight Reports help brands dive deep into specific business questions. "Brands use the Synthesio Social Listening Platform to monitor their online presence and surface actionable insights and this means less time searching and more time strategizing." A company is, therefore, able to amplify its human intelligence with Synthesio’s artificial intelligence.
• Using AI, Crimson Hexagon has vastly expanded the amount of data, the breadth of sources, and the sophistication and quality of analysis. Their "consumer insights platform allows clients to understand audiences, track brand perception and campaign performance, and detect competitive and market trends by analyzing the world’s largest volume of unstructured text and images across social, online public, and enterprise-held data sources."