Seminar Outline:  Customers build communities, influence opinions and distribute messages. While traditional metrics of engagement help to build decision intelligence, they do not give a sense of the community or communities that power these metrics. Network analysis looks at the flow of information and the structure of friendships to enable a high level overview of where the conversation is headed.

Despite its academic maturity and explanatory power, Social Network Analysis (SNA) is still underused in marketing, policy and business intelligence, planning, strategy and execution. There are three main reasons for this:

1. Lack of promotion of SNA
2. Lack of tools – solved with NodeXL
3. Lack of literacy

This seminar will provide all three: Social Network Analysis 101, the tools and literacy.

We cover the use of NodeXL, a free, powerful and scalable add-on for Windows Microsoft Excel 2007+ that enables the capture, visualization and analysis of social networks, from client email lists to Facebook fan pages and twitter hashtag conversations. We demonstrate how to present social networks that are not merely attractive, but also insightful. We give a simple primer on the statistics that power Social Network Analysis (SNA) and, finally instructions on how to read networks for decision making. The session starts with practical examples, and a mapping of audience members' personal networks (a key way to ground insights into Social Network Analysis). We then discuss potential sources of network information, and get participants to read networks collectively. We end by tailoring the session to the needs of the audience and providing pointers to future work.    

Schedule:

12.30-13.30 Optional lunch at Wallacespace

13:30-15.30 Course Part 1:

• Introduction: Who, what, why Social Network Analysis (SNA)
• Story of a single network using a Facebook fanpage
• Theory of key SNA concepts
• Practical exercise: Map your own Facebook network

15.30-16.00 BREAK

16.00-17.30 Part 2:

• Tour of three (3) case studies: Facebook, Twitter, Email
• Group interpretation
• Q&A/Wrap-up

17.30-18.30 Networking session

Learning Outcomes: During this course you will learn and perform the following exercises -

1. Download and visualize a social network from a social media site, including the use of thumbnail images, color coding and self-organizing layouts
2. Understand the three key forms of “importance” in a network: popularity, control and reach
3. Articulate the three levels of analysis: node, community and network
4. Understand why some networks look clearer than others
5. Identify key audience members both visually and numerically

All participants will get:

• PDF copy of Analyzing Social Media Networks with NodeXL: Insights from a Connected World, By: Derek Hansen , Ben Shneiderman & Marc A. Smith (ISBN-10: 0123822297) [Value £27.99]
• PDF copy of Local Social Summit 2011 Event Report, [Value £100]
• Lunch, refreshments, snacks and new knowledge

Intended Audience: The course is designed for senior business people in roles across strategy, business planning, product development, data analysis, brand and social media management. The examples and content are built around the media publishing, advertising, marketing and social application space. You should have advanced MS Excel skills.

Pre-requisite: You must have NodeXL preloaded on your own laptop. Instructions will be provided after sign-up.

Instructor Bio: Dr Bernie Hogan, Research Fellow at the University of Oxford University is a leader in the capture and analysis of social media networks, particularly Facebook. He has presented to numerous academic and corporate audiences, such as Local Social Summit, VisionBristol, UK Social Networks Association, Microsoft Research, and Google Europe and has worked with eHarmony, Nokia, and O2. His work has been featured on the BBC, including both BBC Breakfast and Newsnight, as well as numerous radio interviews. Last year, he was one of four academic mentors for Radio 4’s “So you want to be a scientist”. This past year Bernie was honoured with a prestigious Teaching Excellence Award and grant from Oxford University. Bernie received his PhD from the University of Toronto under pioneer Internet sociologist Barry Wellman, and has since worked as a researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute.

For additional information please contact:

Dylan Fuller, Co-Founder, Local Social Summit

Email: dylan[at]localsocialsummit.com

Mobile: 0797 414 4352

 

 

First published HERE on Brand Republic 23/11/11 (re-posted by permission of BR and the author – thanks!)

 

When I reported for Brand Republic from last year’s Local Social Summit, (the annual event which explores the intersection of local and social) the conference content focused primarily on the means of being social – networks, apps, access capabilities. Whilst fascinating, it was all about the mechanics and not the conversation. 

 

At LSS11, there was a definite shift; more relevance was placed on recognising that local social is about conversations between people at a local level and what this means to brands. While technological advancements remain important, this year’s summit saw the industry declaring that strategy, conversation and customer service take precedence over conversion and engagement. In addition less emphasis was placed on network selection – why debate the Facebook leviathan, or the point of Twitter – it’s less about which platform you use and more about how effectively you use it. So what did we learn?

 

Social fits the small, medium or locally managed business model in a way that CRM and loyalty programmes never have. The idea of swapping a relationship with your customers for a database is, to this audience, counter intuitive. Social allows a softer connection, but a warmer and arguably richer one. Traditionally, SMEs have served a local community, and a century ago, they knew all their customers by name. Social has given them back a degree of this trait and increased the influence of ambassadors, key community members and advocates.  

 

Who owns social has long been a highly debated industry topic, with many taking the view that it had to be all or nothing and that the ‘perfect’ agency model had not been found yet. However this year there was a shift towards more outsourcing, albeit discipline dependent. Strategy creation, platform selection, technical development, content/engagement generation and monitoring/listening & analysis were thought to be ripe for outsourcing (or centralisation in a franchised model). 

 

As Eric Partaker of Mexican restaurant chain Chilango quite rightly said, though, what cannot be outsourced is the conversation.  Social is about being genuine so the tone and quality of your local social activity needs to be real.   

 

Many came with tales of disappointment at levels of reaction to ‘engagement driving’ activity. “Why does no-one comment on our posts?” was a well-shared statement. Businesses have found that customers value speaking to real people about personal issues and subjects far more than responding to a “what are you doing at the weekend?” outreach effort. Alistair Watts, Ecommerce Manager at Hand Picked Hotels had great examples of using Twitter as an element within its customer service, perhaps picking up on someone’s hotel needs (e.g. wedding venue) and suggesting the perfect location, or identifying issues before customers had even had the chance to call reception.   The result being that Hand Picked Hotels is seen as a keen business valuing its customers – nothing new in that, but the approach is different from one a brand may take nationally.  

 

For SMEs, marketing efforts are mixed operationally and promotionally, and are quite hard to separate. This is not to say that local business managers don’t understand the need to know whether they are getting more back than they are spending. However, the balance of effort over return is gauged locally – if they can do more, they will. 

 

There was a real sense that local businesses that don’t partake in social at some level will soon be viewed in the same way that their forbears were regarded for not having a telephone, answerphone, fax machine, email address or website (delete as appropriate for the age). Deciding how and why is still the challenge, but choosing to opt-out is no longer an option.