This document discusses tools and tips for issues monitoring. It introduces the authors and their backgrounds in digital reputation and PR. It then discusses the costs of crises for several major companies. It provides examples of how issues can damage reputation quickly online and the importance of monitoring. The document gives tips for getting started with issues monitoring, including doing a vulnerability assessment, setting up proper tracking and keywords, and creating a dedicated team and process. It discusses whether to use Asian-centric or US-centric tools and the benefits of both human and machine analysis. Finally, it outlines options for keeping monitoring in-house, outsourcing it, or using a hybrid model.

1. Issues Monitoring – Tools and Tips

2. Introduction
Max Sim
• Vice President, Digital Reputation Strategy
• 10+ years digital including
• Accenture, News Corp subsidiaries,
• Experian Hitwise (Asia, Middle East, Europe)
James Hacking
• Vice President, Public Relations Strategy
• 6+ years corporate and technology PR
• British Airways, RIM, Bosch, Tata
Consultancy,
• Fox Networks

3. Crisis response teams in over 80 offices
worldwide
Crisis clients:
• Airlines
• Pharmaceutical companies
• Food companies
• Toy manufacturers and importers

4. The cost of crises
Perrier (Benzene incldent) $263,000,000
Union Carbide (Bhopal) $527,000,000
Pan Am (Lockerbie) $652,000,000
Barings Bank $900,000,000
Occidental Oil (Piper Alpha) $1,400,000,000
Exxon (Valdez spill) $13,000,000,000
Source: Managing corporate reputation through crisis – Adam Jolly
-includes cleanup costs, days of lost production, boycotts, recalls, falling share price, brand damage

5. $10 million reputation damage in 10 days
• A forum was used to seed the complaint about Kryptonite
• Blogs, Search Engines and Social Media spread the negative message
• Because Search Engines record everything, one forum contributor had a viral audience of
millions. The negative reputation is archived forever until you actively neutralize it
• A reputation was destroyed online in 10 days
• The cost of ignoring online = 10 million USD product recall
> Source - Fortune

6. The reputation of a market leader destroyed
• Kryptonite has had over 500,000 viewers on one channel alone
• Blogs and Search Engine results continue to damage the reputation long after the crisis is
resolved
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8XxcOj3Seo

7. San Lu crisis: Chinese netizens get creative
12 September 2008
Source: http://www.chinasmack.com

8. Lenovo crisis averted because of issues monitoring
• In 2006 Battery catches fire in LAX United Airlines lounge
• Forum post on somethingawful.com
• Lenovo monitoring team picked up the discussion
• Within 1 hour Lenovo scientists flew to LAX to examine the issue
• Sony battery determined to be the issue
• Sony issues recall
• Lenovo reputation saved

9. Remember - Search engines record all kinds of media and
store it forever
Source – seomoz.com

10. Key Question
• Why spend millions building your brand if you won’t spend a few
thousand dollars on a monitoring its reputation?
Big brand with a multi-
million dollar
marketing budget
Unhappy customer
grumbling in an
internet cafe
http://www.solarnavigator.net/history/explorers_history/david_and_goliath.jpg

11. ISSUES MONITORING –
HOW DO I GET STARTED?

12. Tip 1 - Villain Avoidance:
Vulnerability Assessment Audit
• An honest examination of every aspect of your
business
• Skeletons in the closet?
• A list of possible crisis areas…

13. Tip 2 - With All Monitoring Make Sure that You
Cover Off Audiences
Customers
Distributors General Public
Vendors Media
Employees Financial Institutions
Government Industry Analysts
NGOs

14. Tip 3 - Create a team, don’t rely on the entire
Company
Monitoring should be done by a
dedicated team but all parts of
Human
the business need to be in the Resources
loop when deciding action
Marketing and
Legal
Communications
Team
Monitoring
Solution Customer
Finance
Service
Operations

15. Tip 4- Create a process, so that everyone is on
the same page
US air force

16. A blueprint for manual issues monitoring
Set up Web analytics
Set up tracking of video
Hire a full time analyst (sudden burst of traffic
and image channels
from one source)
Have a policy of how to
Set up keywords for your classify and allocate
brand’s known Set up tracking of responsibility to the right
weaknesses, competitors, competitors websites team
each of your products
Identify where discussions
about your industry/brand Set up page change alerts
take place
Set up Google alerts and
Set up RSS feeds
media monitoring

17. Sample manual sentiment analysis sheet
Sentiment Positive Negative Total Month on
analysis month
change
Forum 30 45 75
comments
Blog 21 32 53
comments
Product 11 15 36
review sites
Total for the 62 92 154
month

18. What you can miss with manual monitoring
Missed!
Non mainstream sources e.g.
Jeff Jarvis a media-industry
blog
The catalyst of Dell’s
reputation issues of 2005.
12 blog posts, 100,000’s of
readers
1000’s comments
Indexed by Google
Captured
Buzzmachine.com

19. A better solution? Tools to monitor issues
• A few key decisions to make
– Asian vs.. US centric
– Human vs.. machine
– Outsourced vs.. In-house
– Presentation of data

20. ISSUES MONITORING –
ASIAN OR US CENTRIC?

21. Is there a big difference
• Does it matter that they are saying good things
about you in English?
Source: Semiocast

22. US versus Asian tools – there can be a huge
difference
US centric tool Asian centric tool
5,000 conversations
60
Conversations
(and other forums and discussions) (and other local forums and
discussions)

23. Key lessons
• Ensure that your tool measures your local
market or you could miss an issue that
becomes a crisis
• Ask what channels the tool monitors
• Verify the tool is tracking by having a human
monitor and test against what the tool picks
up
• Be prepared to adapt the themes and words
you are monitoring daily

24. ISSUES MONITORING –
HUMAN OR MACHINE?

25. Human vs. machine
• Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a complex technology
• NLP engineers have PHDs in artificial intelligence
• It involves teaching a machine to know the difference between good and bad sentiment
– Remove false positives
– Retain variations like spelling and synonyms
Source: Semiocast Source:
http://yokotechspace.blogspot.com/2009/04/cb
2-child-robot-with-biomimetic-body.html

26. Automated sentiment scoring can be very
inaccurate.
• Human analysis vs. machine WARNING!
• analysis can have much as 50% variation
• > “Positive” could actually be “Negative”
• > “Negative” could actually be “Positive”
Positive Negative
http://www.cbs.com/primetime/ncis/

27. Greater meaning - Machine sentiment analysis
with human analyst
• SONAR uses a propriety artificial intelligence Human analyst
solution for understanding sentiment of
conversations. Machine
– Doesn't just understand polarity
(negative/positive) but also emotional
states (sadness) and actual emotions
(angry)
– Understands that language varies by
industry e.g. “Tony Hawks is wicked”
– Understands that there are specific
expressions around a single brand e.g.
“Apple’s iPad2 is a re-skin”
– Analyst friendly – no programming
required
Source:
http://yokotechspace.blogspot.com/2009/04/cb
2-child-robot-with-biomimetic-body.html

28. ISSUES MONITORING – WHAT
CAN YOU DIGEST IN A CRISIS?

29. High level snap shots of issues/crises

30. Purchased brand x
Purchased brand x Purchased brand x
Recall Products From Guangzhou
Recall Products Is HK brand x baby milk Recall Products
Disappointed at brand x
14 powder in the recall list?
Female 3
(75%) 4
(4%)
(100%)
How can I get my refund?
4
(4%)
4
(100%)
1
(100%)
Total Audiences 14 Anger towards brand x
China refund process Purchased brand x
(13%) Recall Products
From Guangzhou
Female 12 4
Mother
150 Why China consumers are
(12%) (100%) 1
treated differently (17%)
(100%) 110 Post 70s
104 1
(73%) From Zhuhai
(95%)
(1%) 1 From Shanghai
Praise of brand x's recall
(100%)
1 1
Unidentified initiative (17%)
(8%)
Can brand x still be trusted? The impact of
brand x's recall 2 Purchased brand x
6 55
Recall Products
Post 70s (2%)
(5%)
(36.67%) The truth behind every
5 1 Post 80s
(20%)
1 Purchased brand x
baby milk powder
brands
(5%)
1
Updates of recalling
(100%) Recall Products brand x power Purchased brand x (100%)
39 2 Recall Products From Dongwan
From Shanghai (71%)
2 (2%)
1
(2%)
(20%)
1
2 (100%)
(5%)
From Zhuhai
Teacher
From Nan’ning 1 From Zhenzhou Post 80s Gender
From Chengdu
(3%)
1 1 1 Parent ID
1
(3%) (3%)
1 (50%)
(100%) Themes
(50%)
From Maoming From Guangzhou
Occupation
From Guangzhou
Generation ID
1 7 From Beijing
(3%) (18%) 1 Location
1
(100%) Purchased brand x
(3%)
Recalled Products

31. Buzz/Time
酩悦香槟是一种历史悠
久的珍贵的酒类品牌，
港口边缘的当代辉煌气 香港洲际酒店与酩悦香
质和风格，香港洲际酒 槟进行了合作，并将筹
店属世界级商务及休闲 划一场独特的庆祝晚宴。
酒店
"从酒店可以看到维多尼
亚港，
另外交通也非常方便， 房间设施以及无敌海景
门口就有地铁入口" 一流：早上起来打开窗
帘（电动的啊）维多利
亚港尽收眼底，当然晚
上的维多利亚 港更漂亮
Mentions
17th January – 16th February 2011

32. Audience Fears
Too Expensive: few consumers expressed that the venue in Hong Kong is timeworn and cannot justify
their high prices.
Room too small: few consumers traveling with family complained the rooms are so small that they
couldn't even put in an extra bed.

33. More depth – influencers, emotions and actions

34. Purchase Intent – Real-time Focus Groups
(large scale)

35. Deeper Insights – Real-time Focus Groups
(large scale)
• SONAR report

36. Search insights
Competitor attack!
36

37. Key lesson
• If you do not have a full time analyst make
sure that your tool is supported by a human
analyst
• Make sure the interface can create custom
reports that answer exactly the questions
you need answered
• Use custom reports to inform
communications and business strategies

38. ISSUES MONITORING –
IN HOUSE OR OUTSOURCED?

39. Option 1 - Keeping Issue Monitoring In-House:
DELL
• Dell’s social media listening command centre
• Covering 11 languages
• 22,000 daily topic posts related to Dell
• Monitoring of Twitter mentions
• Conversation, sentiment, share of voice, trends
• Machine sentiment analysis + human analysts
Dell’s team engages 1000 customers
a week
Source: http://mashable.com/2010/12/08/dell-social-listening-center/

40. Option 1 - Keeping Issue Monitoring In-House:
Gatorade
• Gatorade has 4 full time staff
• Gatorade hopes such coordination will help head off potential crises like
PepsiCo's slow response to consumer complaints that an Apple iPhone
application for its Amp energy drink was sexist
.
Read more:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703466704575489673244784924.html#ixz
z1FEoTYoFI

41. Option 1 - Keeping Issue Monitoring In-House:
Gatorade
• Whenever someone uses Twitter to say they're drinking a Gatorade or
mentions the brand on Facebook or in other social media, it pops up on a
screen in Mission Control.
• The staff jumped into a Facebook conversation to correct a poster who said
Gatorade has high-fructose corn syrup.
• The team has had more than 2,000 one-on-one conversations with consumers,
while the brand’s likes on Facebook have skyrocketed to 1.2 million
Source:
http://mashable.com/2010/06/15/gatora
de-social-media-mission-control/

42. Option 2 - Hybrid model: working with your
agency
• In-house plus agency is often an easier transition
– It is cheaper
– Fewer costly mistakes by the company
– Faster learning because of expert agency involvement
– Easier to digest for the company
Agency
Source: http://mashable.com/2010/12/08/dell-social-
listening-center/

43. Option 3 - Outsourced solution
• The outsourced solution is the easiest to start with
– It is the cheapest solution
Human
– It is often the easiest to digest Resources
Marketing and
Legal
Communications
Team
Agency runs
monitoring and
analysis and
liaises with Customer
Communications Finance
Service
team
Operations

44. Key lessons
• Deciding whether to fully outsource or do it in house depends on
– how much money you have
– how ready your organization is
Partially
Fully outsourced outsourced, Fully in-house
issues partially in- issues
monitoring house issues monitoring
monitoring
• Suits a organization • Suits an organization
dabbling in issues where executive
monitoring. The team has fully
concept still needs bought into the
to be proven in- importance of the
house to the information and can
executive team see the usefulness
• Cost = low of the data beyond
crisis
• Cost = high

45. ISSUES MONITORING IS
MULTI-YEAR JOURNEY

46. Structuring the organization for issues
management
• Social engagement does not happen overnight

47. Issues monitoring readiness checklist
Do I have an accurate sentiment analysis tool (is it machine or
both)?
Have I got a plan for organizational education?
Have I got a procedure to escalate issues?
Have I got the roles and responsibilities in place for issues
management?
Who is my issues/crisis team?
Have I run an issues/crisis fire-drill in the last 3 months?
In case of an issue or crisis who is my first point of contact?

48. • Where possible choose a sentiment analysis platform with machine based sentiment
analysis AND human analyst support
• Start with an experienced partner who will teach you
• Think long-term, invest in the right skill sets, build a team
• Get professional training….regularly and prepare the organization for change
• Ask the right questions about your issues monitoring tool
• Questions to ask
– What services do you provide ?
– What format do you deliver in ?
– How much does it cost ?
– What sources do you monitor ?
– What types of analysis do you do ?
– How do you analyse the data – human vs. machine ?
– Which countries and languages do you cover ?
– Will you work with my other agencies ?

49. Contact
Max Sim James Hacking
Vice President, Digital Reputation Strategy Vice President, Digital Integration
10 years digital including 6+ years corporate and technology PR
Accenture, News Corp subsidiaries, British Airways, RIM, Fox International Networks,
Experian Hitwise (Asia, Middle East, Europe) Huawei, Bosch, TCS, Pfizer, BMS, Motorola
Max.sim@fleishman.com James.Hacking@fleishman.com
Ph: 9388 5181 Ph: 9474 6682
http://cn.linkedin.com/in/maxsim
@therealmaxsim