What does "big data" mean? Which is the importance of a data scientist in a company, and how this role can be strategic, in order to identify and to build new marketing and communication strategies? Social Media Monitoring must be at the core of an effective circular and never ending process: thanks to it, it is possible to know not just what people is saying about our company but also how they interact and how these conversations can be transformed in strategy. So, it is important to give feedback to the operations and business area, as well as to other units which can be interested by the monitoring. It is fundamental then that the data scientist - who has at least skills both in statistic and in marketing area - be able to apply classic quantitative analytics (engagement, reach, etc.) and qualitative ones: in this sense the social network analysis can play an interesting role in (re)defining the position of the brand and its relationship with its followers online. KEYNOTE AT DIGITAL MARKETING & MEDIA SUMMIT, Hamburg October 24th - 26th 2012

1. TELECOM ITALIA GROUP
Digital Marketing & Media Summit
Hamburg, September 26th 2012
Big Data and Social
Monitoring:
Building Meaningful
Relationships
Emanuela Zaccone
Corporate Communication

2. Big Data and Social Monitoring: Building Meaningful Relationships
The three waves of social consciousness
► Just recently we have begun to accept that the idea of being present on
social media, investing in them and setting up campaigns and activities,
does not just mean generating leads or improving brand awareness, but also
offers the chance to redefine brand strategy and reputation
Corporate Communication 2

3. Big Data and Social Monitoring: Building Meaningful Relationships
Third wave: monitoring as enabler
► Social media monitoring works as an enabler:
► It is a social media strategy builder
► It is a relationship creator
► It is a brand awareness builder
Corporate Communication 3

4. Big Data and Social Monitoring: Building Meaningful Relationships
Big data challenge
► Too big, too fast, too hard
► Big algorithms, big machine learning and big understanding
Corporate Communication 4

5. Telecom Italia and
the Reputation Monitoring Room

6. Big Data and Social Monitoring: Building Meaningful Relationships
Telecom Italia in figures *
Mobile
(Italy and abroad)
Fixed and
Broadband
32.2 (Italy)
Fixed and
Broadband
Million mobile lines in
Italy
14.3 (Abroad)
68.9 Million fixed retail
access lines 4.1
Million mobile lines Million fixed lines
in Brasil
7.0 in Argentina
20.9 Million retail
broadband accesses 1.6
Million broadband
Million mobile lines in
accesses in Argentina
Argentina and
Paraguay
* As of June 30th, 2012
Corporate Communication 6

7. Big Data and Social Monitoring: Building Meaningful Relationships
Digital citizenship as a strategic weapon
 Telecom Italia associated to its
technological role: an empowerment of
its brand strategy and digital
citizenship
 Starting from 2008 Telecom Italia
increased its investments in Web and
Social, both from an operative and
research point of view:
It promoted netnographic research in
order to map the Italian digital landscape
and modify brand positioning
It launched a new Web System design for
Telecom Italia Group, evolved over years
thanks to the contribution of new
projects
Corporate Communication 7

8. Big Data and Social Monitoring: Building Meaningful Relationships
How can online perception influence brand image?
In 2009 we discovered that Telecom
Italia’s reputation, as regards the
online brand experience, was better
than the offline perception.
In order to transform online perception
of the brand in a better offline brand
image:
• We enhanced the research area
• We increased our online
presence
• We activated the Reputation
Monitoring Room
Corporate Communication 8

9. Big Data and Social Monitoring: Building Meaningful Relationships
What to do?
How can we evaluate our online investments?
How can we measure the impact of our online
initiatives on brand reputation?
How can we transform online conversation monitoring into
an engagement strategy?
Corporate Communication 9

10. Big Data and Social Monitoring: Building Meaningful Relationships
The Reputation Monitoring Room
 The Reputation Monitoring Room –
active since June 2011 – is a real time
monitoring facility, focused both on
quantitative and qualitative analytics.
It monitors all the online conversations
related to Telecom Italia Group on
property channels, blogs, forums, news
websites, aggregators and Social
Networks
 The Reputation Monitoring Room
evaluates the efficacy of our events
and initiatives by comparing them also
with competitors
Corporate Communication 10

11. Big Data and Social Monitoring: Building Meaningful Relationships
The reputation of the Reputation Monitoring Room
► Forrester case study, August 2012
► Digital Communication Awards 2012, Best Monitoring and
Evaluation
Corporate Communication 11

12. Big Data and Social Monitoring: Building Meaningful Relationships
Our Web and socialverse
• About10 websites, 10
Facebook pages with
more than 2 million fans, 5
Twitter accounts with
almost 1 million followers, a
strong presence G+,
on
Pinterest and Instagram
• We listen to and analyze more
than 1.500
conversations per
month
Corporate Communication 12

13. Big Data and Social Monitoring: Building Meaningful Relationships
What we do? A recursive process
INPUT TOOLS OUTPUT
Sources Data Collection Storage & Analysis Alerting & Reporting
OUTPUT
 Performance of TI and competitors
Software REPORTS  Specific initiatives/campaigns
 Benchmark & Market research
 TI Properties
 Crisis management
 Blogs  Activate action plans to reduce
REALTIME response time
ALERTING  Press office
 Forums
KPIs  Community managers
 SNs Research INTEGRATED ANALYSIS MODEL
 Community  Evaluate economic investments and
communication strategies before, during and
after events
 News websites
 Improve our activities on-the-go and
reallocate investments as needed
 Conjugate online and offline analyses in a
unique analysis framework
Corporate Communication 13

14. Big Data and Social Monitoring: Building Meaningful Relationships
Analysis model for events and initiatives
GENERAL STRUCTURE
Our analysis model is focused on three main dimensions:
1. Ownership (who owns the property which makes communication)
2. Channels (where the communication takes place)
3. KPI (which are the most relevant metrics we want to measure)
OUTCOMES
The main purposes of our model are:
• Understand how much engagement our initiatives and events can generate on Web and Social Media and how
users perceive our brand
• Measure and track our communication performance
• Measure and track communication performance of our partners
• Measure and track spontaneous conversations vs led by brand and partners communication (amplification)
• Understand the return of our adv investments in terms of impressions and engagement
• Discover who our influencers are in our activities domain
• Understand the impact of a specific event or initiative on brand’s image
• Plan and evaluate future communication actions and investments
• Measure and track competitors’ performances (growth, engagement, etc.)
Corporate Communication 14

15. Big Data and Social Monitoring: Building Meaningful Relationships
Analysis dimensions
These are the analysis dimensions we use to catalogue and measure the contents
produced around a specific event or initiative:
OWNERSHIP
• Properties
• Advertising
• Partners
• Spontaneous conversations
CHANNELS
• Web
• Forum
• Blog
• Social Networks (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, Pinterest, Instagram, etc.)
KPIs
• Reach • Sentiment, quality
• Streaming (live, Video On Demand) • Loyalty
• Engagement • Virality
Corporate Communication 15

16. Big Data and Social Monitoring: Building Meaningful Relationships
[EXAMPLE] Dashboard for channels and KPIs: properties
Web (dedicated website) FB (page) TW TOTAL
6%
18% Twitter
12.345 123.456 456.789* Facebook
Reach n.a.
pageviews post/tab views tweet views 76% Web
12.345 players loaded 1.234 live
Streaming n.a. 56.789 players loaded
(1.234 live – 56.789 VOD) players loaded in tab
150 comments to live 580 activities / 120 retweets /
Engagement n.a.
streaming 55 posts + tab live 71 tweets**
Positive Positive 1%
0,5% 2% Positive
24,6% 20% 24%
Very Positive
Sentiment n.a.
74,9% 78% 75% Negative
This dashboard – focused on properties, but identical for lead-by-partners and spontaneous conversations –
is dedicated to comparable key metrics.
This kind of scheme helps us to immediately idenitfy which is the contribution given by each channel and
property in promoting the initiative.
Corporate Communication 16

17. Big Data and Social Monitoring: Building Meaningful Relationships
The impact of online conversations on the brand
Perception Index
1
19%
Initiative related
conversations 0,9
0,8 0,75
0,72
Other 0,7
81% conversations
0,6
0,5
con Pappano
With the initiative senza Pappano
Without it
We elaborated two indexes aimed to understand how much the analyzed initiative impacted on the total
number of conversations involving the brand (it is represented as a share).
Stemming from this share, we use a weighted average to calculate which is the sentiment around the
analyzed initiative compared to the other conversations involving the brand and how much the first one
has a positive or negative impact on general brands perception.
In the example above, the initiative related conversations represent – during the analysed time range –
19% of total conversations on brand. The tabular chart shows the contribution that the initiative gives to
the positive perception of brand.
We apply these indexes both to properties and to partners and spontaneous conversations.
Corporate Communication 17

18. Big Data and Social Monitoring: Building Meaningful Relationships
[EXAMPLE] Facebook: growth and performances
A B C D E
A B C D E
A B C D E A B C D E
During the last month all the accounts constantly increased their fan bases.
The B account hits the best Relative Net Growth score.
B and C improved their talking about, which decreased for other properties.
The number of organic and viral impressions is stable for all the other properties except A, which declined during
last week.
Corporate Communication 18

19. What’s next?

20. Big Data and Social Monitoring: Building Meaningful Relationships
Online and offline: who talks inside and outside digital world?
Who are our fans? Who is uninterested?
What do rejectors think?
 We have an articulated set of research for on and offline
channels monitoring, aimed to better understand our audience
and interpret their perception of the brand and the company,
through a constant strategies redesign process
 Our team work involves communication area, business lines,
customer satisfaction and market research
Corporate Communication 20

21. Big Data and Social Monitoring: Building Meaningful Relationships
How can we conjugate online and offline?
► Through Social Network Analysis we
want to find a correspondance
between users behaviour and the
categories of fan, rejectors and
interested for which we have
historical time series coming from
offline research
► These analyses can give us both
strategic insights – useful for
example to address our digital
communication activities – and
suggestions about the online
perception of the brand
Corporate Communication 21

22. Big Data and Social Monitoring: Building Meaningful Relationships
Socio-demographic characteristics
At the moment we aim to
correlate the results of our
online analyses with socio-
demographic data coming
from offline research.
These are the main
categories that we will take
into account:
• Age
• Gender
• Location
Corporate Communication 22

23. Big Data and Social Monitoring: Building Meaningful Relationships
Enhance and export our experience
C People •Influencers, connectors
L
U •Themes
S Topics •Fan, rejectors, interested
•Unique indicators
T
E
R Brand •Engagement type
► We are developing a model aimed to conjugate offline surveys and online
monitoring by using uniform KPIs
► We are collaborating with the Top Client business line to export our knowledge
and experience to Italian large companies, and we are working with them to include
RMR services in Telecom Italia’s Top Client offer
Corporate Communication 23

24. Big Data and Social Monitoring: Building Meaningful Relationships
Next steps
Our reporting processes are part of Telecom Italia’s digital communication
strategies measurement.
In the next months we are going to improve the analysis model and the monitoring
tools.
These are our main focuses:
Research area
 Social Network Analysis and advanced influencer analysis
 Cluster representation
 Text analysis as a competitive factor
 Users’ behavioural patterns analysis
 Collaboration with research institutes (MIT, Santa Fe Institute and others)
Model evolution
 KPI optimization
 Influencers’ weight definition
 Integration of third party data to evaluate and weight sources
Corporate Communication 24

25. Big Data and Social Monitoring: Building Meaningful Relationships
Process innovation
Model integration
Tool Flexibility
Corporate Communication 25

26. THANK YOU!
Find me here:
http://about.me/emanuela.zaccone
emanuela.zaccone@guest.telecomitalia.it
http://www.linkedin.com/in/emanuelazaccone
http://twitter.com/#!/Zatomas
http://www.facebook.com/emanuela.zaccone
https://plus.google.com/112470516981949999904/
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