1. June 9, 2011 TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR SOCIAL MEDIA RESEARCH ANALYSTS
TEN COMMANDMENTS
FOR SOCIAL MEDIA RESEARCH ANALYSTS (SMRAs)
By Virginia B. Bautista
1. Thou shall get to know relevant information about the client. We
are supposed to do prior research, i.e. a visit to the corporate website of the client can give
us an idea of the nature of the product/service. It also helps to see the client’s portfolio, and
to be aware of its target market, previous and/or currently held campaigns or product
launches. Doing so could help us in contextualizing buzz about the brand. Besides, being
particularly interested in the brand is enough motivation to fuel our curiosity about the
brand itself and its competitors in the market. Interest on the client’s brand could make us
go a long way.
2. Thou shall have a good command of business English. Our clients
come from various industries, and as such, they expect us to be proficient not only in
standard English, but particularly in written Business English.
3. Thou shall be patient in searching for actionable insights. We are
researchers. We need to make sense out of numbers by digging in qualitative inputs that
will substantiate our reports. There’s no reason to simply repeat what the charts, tables,
and graphs show. Our clients need actionable insights. This justifies our jobs as research
analysts. Numbers can’t speak for themselves. Machines can’t do the interpretation. The
netizens’ insights are already there, “swimming” in the world of social media; we just have
to find them. Let’s be patient; the “Eureka” moment will also come as we dig in for more
data.
4. Thou shall read between and beyond netizens’ posts. As researchers,
we are not supposed to accept posts by face value. We evaluate them, whether they are
significant or not. We must make inferences and learn to “listen” to what netizens don’t
literally say.
5. Thou shall know the research analysts’ jargon by heart. We are not
real SMRAs if we don’t know buzz, sentiments, social media equity, trends, channels,
Twitter, blogs, forum, etc.
6. Thou shall be familiar with the jargon in the client’s industry. If our
client is from a banking industry, we must at least know the basic jargon in banking and
finance, e.g. investment, stocks, trading, mobile banking, mortgage, etc. A background on
this helps us easily understand what’s going on in a forum, what a tweet is saying, and what
bloggers reveal. Also, knowing the industry’s jargon will assist us in preparing reports for our
clients. The clients could easily decipher whether we know what we are talking about in our
reports, or if we are just reporting without even knowing what we are talking about.
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2. June 9, 2011 TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR SOCIAL MEDIA RESEARCH ANALYSTS
7. Thou shall have effective time management skills. Let’s face it.
Deadlines are our enemies. Why not make deadlines our best friend by considering them as
challenges that could make us more efficient? To do this, we need to set goals and devise
our own techniques on how to accomplish them. We must know what technique works for
us to maximize our outputs without ever sacrificing quality. We all have 24 hours. The
difference lies on how we manage our time.
8. Thou shall be objective in writing the report. As impartial researchers, we
don’t choose information to include or to exclude in our reports based on our own built-in
biases. For example, having a bad personal experience or attitude towards the brand should
not have any impact on how we write and how we find key insights. We don’t choose
quotes to highlight based on our value judgment. Take note that our job does not include
praising or cursing the brand. Our business is to report objectively, not to editorialize.
9. Thou shall aim for accuracy and professionalism. Accuracy, accuracy,
accuracy! There is no substitute for accuracy. We shall check all facts and verify all
information. Of course, we also need to be professional. Professionalism is expressed is
many ways. The most obvious expression of professionalism is through the report’s layout
and “packaging”. A famous philosopher, Karl Marx, once said that “work is an extension of
one’s self”. Our works are reflections not only of how we value our job, but also how the
company values the clients. The clients trust the company. The company trusts us. We know
what to do – deliver accurate information in a professional packaging – nothing less.
10. Thou shall embrace diversity. We are all part of the “global village,” as what
Marshall McLuhan, a Canadian communication guru calls it. We may be operating from
different locations around the world, and speaking different languages, but as part of the
global village, we must learn to work harmoniously. We need to operate with the same
vision and mission despite our differences in our viewpoints, in our culture, our language,
and even in our time zone. Remember, here at Brandtology, we mean business. We aim for
intelligence!
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