Eleven Game-Changing Advances in Microsoft’s BI

Just published on the Slalom Consulting blog, Eleven Game-Changing Advances in Microsoft’s BI. A blog post I co-authored with my colleague Brian Gogle.

Thinking About Social Analytics

In a world where everybody has access to an electronic platform to broadcast their opinions it has become apparent that to understand and respond to your customer needs you must be able to follow them online or risk ceding market share to competitors.  Social Analytics can be used to monitor customer sentiments through the mining of data available from social networks such as FaceBook, Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Google+ or private social networks such as Yammer.

The value of Social Analytics to our clients can be demonstrated by showing how to use social analytical techniques to support marketing activities, assist with customer support and identify opportunities for future product development.

Implementation

Once you define Social Analytics by describing it as the process of mining consumer sentiment and can describe its value offering we must begin considering the process of how to implement social analytics under the realm of business intelligence.

Customer sentiment can be captured through a number of different methods.  We can begin by counting the number of Likes on a Facebook page, or search for keywords in comments tagged using a Twitter hash tag.  Careful analysis of keyword usage found in product feedback statements from online shopping websites such as Amazon.com or gleaming sentiments from product reviews and reader comments on sites such as www.cnet.com and www.engadget.com all add to create a detailed picture of how a company or product is perceived in the marketplace by consumers.

Expectations

With Microsoft’s acquisition of Yammer coupled with the SQL Azure Lab named “Social Analytics” the question must be asked what is Microsoft planning in this space?  This question further begs an answer when you consider Yammer’s recent partnership announcement with Kanjoya, a vendor specializing in sentiment analysis.  All signs are pointing to upcoming product announcements from Microsoft during 2013 related in Social Analytics.