Abstract

Social media analytics is the current buzzword in online marketing and advertising but
it lacks qualitative research that encapsulates the techniques and applications. This
paper explores social media analytics through a qualitative manner that seeks to
understand how expert users engage with it to manage online consumer needs. A
breadth of discussion on topics relating to social media analytics, starting from the
boom of Internet, to Web 2.0 and how the wealth of data kick started Big Data
technology to extract information for socio-economic purposes. The paper analyses
information exchange from expert informants in the software-vendor, mathematics, and
e-commerce sectors. The results are grouped into data-based themes and summarized
in the discussion section using a conceptual approach by Information Systems Research
(ISR).

Chapter

Subtopic/Title

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 2: Literature Review

No
1

2.1 Social media: more than a social relations tool

2.2 Big Data: An Overview

10

2.3 The Need for Social Media Analytics

15

2.4 Using IS Research to Conceptualize Social Media Analytics

28

2.5 Criticism of Big Data

31

Chapter 3: Methodology
3.1 Qualitative Approach
3.2 Data Collection Strategies

34
35

3.2.1 Unit Analysis

3.3 Theoretical Perspectives

36

3.3.1 Epistemological Standpoint

3.2.2 In-depth Interview

37

3.2.3 Purposive Sampling

3.4 Data Collection and Analysis

38

3.4.1 Thematic Analysis

4

Chapter 4: Findings & Discussion

RQ1 - What are the relevant computational methods used to compute social data

40

into insights for brands to manage online consumer experience?

4.1 Extracting insights using sentiment analysis
4.1.1 Enabling brands to keep up with continuous flow of data
4.1.2 Discovering purchase intent
4.1.3 Problems with ambiguity
4.2 Combining Analytical Methods for Higher Accuracy
4.2.1. Hybrid approach of content and structural based analytics
4.2.2. Employing human assisted knowledge to fine tune end results

RQ2 How do brands apply social media analytics applications to improve

43

online consumer experience?

4.3 Measuring Impact of Online Reviews
4.3.1 Monitoring online reviews using volumes and reach
4.3.2 User reliance on online reviews
4.4 Determining Influencers in the age of Big Data
4.4.1 Tracking opinion formation in social networks
4.4.2 Targeting the right influencers for the right audience
4.5 Proliferation of Social Analytical Tools
4.5.1 Optimisation of different technologies for different channels
4.5.2 Segmentation of tools by expertise
4.6 Different Social Media, Different Purpose
4.6.1 Discovering purposes of social networks for consumers and
brands
4.6.2 Engagement of specific content on social network
RQ3 What are the challenges in social media analytics in facilitating brands

50

to manage online consumer experience?

4.7 Critical Questions for Big Data
4.7.1 Moving Forward
4.7.2 Question of Skills
4.8 Collaboration for the Enterprise
4.8.1 Transactional vs social data
4.8.2 Data value for consumer insights

Chapter 5: Conclusion

55

References

56

Table of Figures
No

Figure

Figure 1 - Eras of Social Web by Jeremiah Owyang (2009)

Figure 2 Evolution of social web effects on consumer and brands

Figure 3 - List of big data analytics methods

Figure 4 Social media analytics techniques list

Figure 5 Node-link graph

Figure 6 Example of social graph

Figure 7a - Conceptual Activity Graph (using Office graph

Figure 7b - User (fans) activity graph of e-commerce pages

Figure 8- Homophily clustering to detect influencers

10

Figure 9- Opinion Formation (how opinions are formed)

11

Figure 10 - Opinion formation (result)

Chapter 1 Introduction

The plethora of technology available to users in this digital age reflects how far they have
evolved as digital consumers. One would argue that the lovechild of the World Wide Web,
social media is the prime speeding factor of the evolution. The user-generated content (UGC)
websites and applications exist in many platforms that include blogs, forums, photo-sharing
sites, business networks, social gaming, microblogs, chat apps and most importantly, social
networks (Statista, 2016). According to online statistics by a company called Statista (2016),
the number of worldwide social network users are estimated to reach 2.95 billion by 2020
taking over one-third of Earth's entire population. The report also states that the current ratio
of users with one social networking profile in the United States is at 3 to 5 users.

The numbers above prove that social media continues to evolve and become even more
ubiquitous than ever. Hoffman, Novak and Stein (2012) weighs in this factor as a prime
influence on the (re)shaping of consumer behaviour. Watkinson (2012) accepts that the
evolution of internet from existing as a series of linked static pages into a dynamic bilateral
platform has changed the face of commerce and communication tremendously for many
reasons. Oywang's (2009) notion of the era of social commerce reviews the change happening
in the era of social commerce. He commented that social networks would turn (at his time of
writing) into repositories for identities and relationships will be powered by online consumers,
resulting in a tremendous increase in Internet data. He added then, the period becomes the
golden era for brands to collect market intelligence from the wealth of data available on the
Internet. This opens the door for presentation on how big data analytics could capture social
data for brands to manage its consumer experience.

There is no definite meaning of Big Data as in the present. Hence, many scholars tend to adopt
IBM's take on Big Data, which are broken down into four dimensions, known as volume,
velocity, variety and veracity. According to Ularu, Puican, Apostu, Velicanu (2012), volume
refers to the magnitude of data gathered by a particular company. The data remains
insignificant if it is not analysed further to create actionable insights. For example, Price (2015)
reports that Amazon, world's largest e-retailer, and an eminent cloud services provider pulls
data from 152 million customers' purchases to supply information into their recommender
system for users to decide on items to buy. Price (2015) added that Amazon is estimated to
store around 1 Exabyte1 of data. Velocity, on the other hand, deals with the pace at which data
is processed and flows in from Internet applications such as payment gateway, machines,
networks, two-way communication on social applications, mobile devices, online retailer sites,
etc. The speed of data is continuous, and the flow per speed is massive. Putting the study in the
context through example, marketing executives equipped with insights that are rich, latest and
relevant could formulate a better decision rather than relying on intuition or focus-group
consumer research (Erevelles, Fukawa, Swayne, 2016). The authors add, instead of just relying
on in-house data such as census data and consumer data (transactions, product, styles,
merchandise colours), marketers could use data extracted from customer postings on social
networks. According to Erevelles et al., (2016) both will provide brands with rich insights but
the latter gives a marketing edge on the opportunity to make current and evidence-based
decision surpassing competitors without Big Data insights. According to Gandomi and Haider
(2015), the aspect known as variety relates to structural heterogeneity in Big Data. Structural
heterogeneity can be explained by reviewing the data formats that exist in Big Data. The
contemporary Big Data that exists now according to Erevelles et al., (2016) begins with
structured transactional data, unstructured data, and non-textual data. The authors defined

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structured transactional data as a group of records, files, and databases retrieved and archived
from time to time. Unstructured data is a composition of textual data and non-textual data
which consist of blogs and comments for textual and videos, audios and images for non-textual
(Erevelles, 2016). Most unstructured data are captured through social media, where individuals
exchange information and share behavioural data in the digital realm (Ularu et al., 2012). Last
but not least, the notion of veracity in big data represents the uncertainty in decision-making
that is held by managerial positions who might be contemplative of computed results rather
than human-based insights, specifically with regards to consumer behaviour. Delays in
decision-making could render the results to be insignificant as they are extracted in real-time,
causing a drop in the return of investments (ROI) when insights becomes irrelevant to current
market experience (Ularu et al., 2012). Aside from uncertainty, it also deals with the
unreliability and quality of data (Ebner, Buhnen and Urbach, 2014), underscoring the need to
be aware that not all consumer data are accurate and need to be extracted in a precise manner
(Erevelles et al., 2016).

In being the best of knowledge, this is a novel attempt to contextualize big data through the
lens of social media analytics as a tool for brands to manage online consumer experience. To
realize this, researcher is backed up with THREE rationale/objectives as guidelines for the
research questions:

RO 1: To explore the types computational methods used to compute social data into
insights for brands to understand online consumer experience
RO 2: To investigate the ways social media analytics can help brands to improve
online experience

RO 3 - To assess the challenges in social media analytics for brands to manage online
consumer experience

Despite the hype over Big Data among professionals and academics, there is a qualitative
research gap on social media analytics that focuses on brands and consumer research. There
needs to be a level of theoretical approach in explaining the methods of social media analytics,
or big data in general (Stieglitz et al., 2015). From the discussion, this research then proposes
THREE (3) research questions within the context of assessing social media analytics as a tool
to facilitate brands in managing online consumer experience:

RQ1 - What are the relevant computational methods used to compute social data into
insights for brands to manage online consumer experience?
RQ2 How do brands apply social media analytics applications to improve online
consumer experience?
RQ3 What are the challenges in social media analytics in facilitating brands to manage
online consumer experience?

The study aims to create a ground for preliminary discussion on big data through the lens of
social media analytics. This research presents a comprehensive view of social media analytics
starting from social media and big data analytics to the review of computational techniques in
social media analytics and the results it aims to deliver towards helping brands to manage its
consumer experience.

The research is conducted in London. This research employed a qualitative method, using
semi-structured interview via face-to-face and email. The sections that follow will start with a

literature review on social media, big data, components of social media analytics (overview,
methods, and applications), criticisms and theoretical framework that underpins the conclusion
of this study. The methodology is presented next with a review of qualitative approaches based
on Information Systems research, followed by a presentation on epistemological standpoint
that guides the breakdown of methods, data collection, and analysis. Chapter four covers the
analysis of interviews grouped according to generated theme-based data using thematic
analysis. The final discussion will summarize the themes according to the theoretical
framework proposed earlier.

Chapter 2 - Literature Review

REVIEW AND BREAKDOWN OF BIG DATA
2.1 Social media: more than a social relations tool
The increase in user engagement provides a bigger market potential for worldwide brands to
engage with the consumer. Owyang (2009) illustrates this change through his representation of
five eras in social web depicted below:

Figure 1 - Eras of Social Web by Jeremiah Owyang (2009)

Figure 1 describes the five eras of social web where at the time of writing, online users have
now traversed to the last era, which is social commerce era. According to Owyang (2009), the
years in the 1990s mark the first era of the social web, where communities and AOL start to

10

mature. The second era in the early 2000s evolved itself to go beyond "friending", as social
functionality provides new meaning and utility to communities in the form of interactive social
applications. The era of social colonization blurs the boundaries of social networks and
traditional sites as technologies like OpenID and Facebook Connect becomes an avenue for
users to explore the Internet along with their connections turning it into a social experience.
The fourth era is about personalization, as context provides content, and sites make use of the
content to recognize user identities and their social relationships to tailor their experience based
on preferences, behaviour, and connections. This is also an opportunistic era for brands to start
engaging with consumers synchronously, consequently able to build up new consumer profiles
based on the data available at that point. As we reach the fifth era, social networks that exist
now has become repositories for identities and relationships powered by online consumers who
have matured tremendously. Owyang (2009) then opined that social applications would be
powerful than corporate Web sites and CRM systems as it gets more community-driven than
before. This has resulted in a power shift from the traditional one-way communication from
brands toward the connected consumer, to a two-way communication where online consumers
are no longer just users but are also active in defining their needs towards their brands of choice.
The newfound self-generated consumer data paves a way for brands to revolutionize the
information into valuable insights to enhance their understanding of customer needs.

11

2.1.1 Revolutionizing behavioural data into insights

Figure 2 Evolution of social web effects on consumer and brands (Forrester Research, 2009)

A comparison in terms of the flow of information exchange can be made between the fourth
and fifth era based on the Figure 2 above as portrayed in Forrester Research (2009) report. The
roles of consumers have shifted from sharing to working in defining their product preferences,
and relying on opinions from others to inform their purchasing decisions. This pushes brands
to start referring to groups to collect data. Social networking sites, on the other hand, act as a
feature provider to facilitate with product design and vendor management. Based on the new
roles adopted by social networks, the study of consumer behavior is now widened for brands
to focus specifically on social media (Forrester, 2009) as therein lies the information portal for

12

consumers to seek confirmation and exchange opinions with one another. Hence, a bigger
technology is needed to successfully capture relevant insights to be able to significantly
improve their customer experience (Mostafa, 2013). According to Montoyo, Martiniz-Barco,
and Balahur (2012), the low level of bias is what makes knowledge obtained from social
networks to be valuable due to its volume of opinions expressed by users from different walks
of life (Mostafa, 2013). Mostafa (2013) further illustrates that insights retrieved from social
networks such as Twitter and Facebook have proven to be precious to marketing research
companies to understand the ever-evolving consumer behaviour and allows businesses to be
one step ahead to analyze hidden patterns in data. This just does not just stop at opinions
expressed in social networks, connections amongst social consumers could also be converted
into behavioural insights. The computational technology that promises all the above comes
from a technological revolution known as Big Data analytics (Erevelles et al., 2016). According
to Erevelles et al. (2016), Big Data revolution is the result of today's unprecedented size, speed,
and dynamism of primary data available from individual consumers. The wealth of data is
readily accessible for brands, companies, governments, institutions to open the door for a new
approach to understanding the world and facilitation of decision-making. The following
paragraph will delve into the roles of Big Data in more detail and present a framework that
focuses on how social data analytics could be used in managing consumer experience.

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2.2 Big Data: An Overview

According to Oberhofer, Hechler, Milman, Schumacher, Wolfson (2013), Big Data
technologies emerged from the companies aim to take advantage of information on social
media, blogs, and other UGC-based web applications. However, a report by Navint papers
(2012) argued that Big Data is not to be confused with a particular set of data but to be regarded
as an effort to define the unstructured nature of data from the byproduct of modern technologies
listed below, but not limited to:

"[generated] from weblogs, radio frequency ID (RFID), sensors embedded in devices,

machinery, vehicles, Internet searchers, social networks such as Facebook, portable
computers, smart phones and other cell phones, GPS devices, and call center records."
Navint 2012

Ularu et al. (2012) simplified the definition of Big Data as a concept consisting of highly
sophisticated and huge data sets with a variety of formats stored and computed using specific
technologies and techniques used to facilitate decision-making and business processes.

2.2.1 Big Data analytics: breakdown of methods

From the simplified meaning of Big Data, the discussion can then be expanded further to
understand more on analytical techniques behind it. According to Sammut and Sartawi (2012),
there is a limit to human mental capacity to decipher and interpret ever-evolving occurrences.
As the data increases in size and becomes more sophisticated and inexplicable, a shift in
scientific method takes place as data is now used to re-frame occurring theories instead of
fitting data to preconceived opinions in consumer research (Firestein, 2012). Lycett (2013)
agrees that the patterns identified in Big Data could be identified without forming hypothesis

14

due to technological and methodological advances. However, to unlock its potential value to
drive decision making (Gandomi and Haider, 2015), firms need to invest in appropriate
physical, human and managerial capital resources to Big Data (Erevelles, 2016) as data in
nature are worthless in a vacuum.
This section will review a subset of the tools available for big data analytics relevant to the
study. The list is structured as a chart based on Gandomi et al.'s (2015) review of big data
analytical techniques for structured and unstructured data.

15

Information
extraction (IE)
Text
summarization
Text Analytics
Question
Answering

Sentiment analysis

large vocabulary
continous speech
recognition (LVCSR)
Video Analytics
Phonetic-based
systems
Big Data analytics

Server-based
architecture
Audio Analytics
edge-based
architecture

Content based
analytics
Community
detection
Social Media
Analytics

Structure based
analytics
Social influence
analysis

Predictive Analytics

Link Prediction

Figure 3 - List of big data analytics methods

Research focus

16

Components in yellow boxes are the main analytical research techniques relevant to this study.
This section will briefly summarize the main techniques in big data analytics before going
further to discuss the analytical techniques that are social media analytic-specific.
According to Heisterberg and Verma (2014), big data has transformed the techniques in data
analysis parallel to the changes in database management techniques. The maturity of Internet
usage has catalyzed the implementation of big data, dating back in the first generation of
"software-based parallel database architecture" in the 1980s (Heisterberg & Verma, 2014).
This solidifies the research intent to focus on analytical techniques for social data only, as the
Internet usage and communication is a fairly new field in the realm of big data analytics.
According to Stieglitz, Dang Xuan, Bruns, Neuberger, 2014), there are two drivers behind this
shift. The authors added that technological advances direct brands to a new possibility of
continuous, real-time monitoring providing rich social media insights based on the analysis of
social media content and interactions. The change in online engagement among users has led
to a birth of massive social data on the Internet, therefore, increasing the number and
heterogeneity of communicators (Stieglitz et al., 2014).
2.2.2 Making sense of unstructured data using text analytics
Text analytics is fundamental in consumer research and brand listening as it refers to techniques
that derive information from textual data (Gandomi et al., 2015). According to Institute for the
Future report (2015), in a community of global digital citizens, consumers are more engaged
online than ever, and information exchange takes place 24/7. This results in an influx of written
content as everyone is entitled to become significant contributors in their online ecosystem.
For brands to create a competitive edge in the markets, they will have to deliver a unique,
personalized experience. Data-driven understanding of consumers can be realized by utilizing
big data analytical methods. According to Chung (2014), text analytics allows businesses to

17

compute large volumes of opinions into meaningful summaries, enabling brands to take actions
and deliver a customized solution based on the data-driven understanding of consumer needs.
Text analytics is included in the research focus as social media analytics adopts most of its
techniques to conduct content-based analytics (Gandomi et al., 2015). Content-based analytics
deals with the processing of unstructured texts to create actionable insights for businesses to
understand customer sentiment (Navint papers, 2012).
2.2.3 Using social media analytics to drive real-time results
Gandomi et al. (2015) argue that smartphone interactions have increased the need for social
data analytics. As social exchanges usually happen on mobile, brands have to deal with an
exponential amount of streaming data sources that demand real-time analytics. The existence
of social media analysis is an emerging field, born from the birth of connectivity and interactive
tools and applications connecting to lifestyles and activities in the online realm (Sponder,
2014). Sathi (2012) added that social data was geared as a fuel for early research to the
academic community, only to be engineered for marketing and consumer research as it started
to branch into different techniques for various purposes as displayed in Fig. 3. Ultimately, he
argues that social data is yields many opportunities to develop compelling hypotheses on
behaviours and trends and be used for various marketing purposes. The following section will
focus on the technology behind social media analytics that informs its roles in helping brands
to manage consumer behaviour.

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SOCIAL MEDIA ANALYTICS IN CONSUMER RESEARCH

2.3 The Need for Social Media Analytics
2.3.1 Review of existing literature
In an in-depth interview by IBM to investigate how enterprises are coping with the
fundamental shifts, they identified four challenges. The respondents who are also CMOs
revealed these four challenges are to seen as pervasive, universal disruptors: the data
explosion, social media, the proliferation of channels and devices and shifting consumer
demographics (IBM, 2014)

The four themes identified by IBM proved Sathis (2014) justification on the need for social
media analytics to cater the needs of a new breed of sophisticated consumers. He added these
consumers are far more inquisitive, savvier in using a variety of technology and far more active
to seek collaboration from virtual strangers to extract and form a collective opinion from others.
According to Gandomi et al. (2015), social media analytics takes on structured and
unstructured data from social media channels and compute the data into actionable insights for
companies to facilitate their decision-making in planning new strategies. Others like Fan and
Yan (2015) sees social analytics (SMA) as informatics tools with developing and evaluating
capabilities as follows:
[built] to collect, monitor, analyse, summarize, and visualize social media data to facilitate
conversations and interactions to extract useful patterns and intelligence (Zeng, Chen, Lusch,
Li, 2010). Social media analytics involve three stage processes: capture, understand, and
present (Fan and Gordon, 2014)"
Therefore, with the advent of SMA, businesses can extract UGC in real time and be at the same
pace as how trends proliferates in the online realm (Sathi, 2014). SMA also monitors

19

relationships and interactions between various level of network entities, from people,
organizations, and products. This allows brands to formulate strategies with a competitive edge
and connect with the right influencers for their marketing strategy (Fan and Gordon, 2014).
The section that follows aims to distinguish between social data and transactional data, which
was formerly the primary source of data in consumer research.
2.3.2 Social data versus transactional data
This section is structured to highlight the characteristics of social media by comparing it with
transactional data. McGilvra (2008) describes transactional data as a byproduct of other
transactions that takes places as organizations conduct its business. Examples of transactional
data that is generated from an internal or external transaction include sales orders, invoices,
purchase orders, shipping documents, browsing logs and credit card payments (McGilvra,
2008). The range of transactional data could also stretch to customer histories interaction
records, such as recorded customer service calls and email archives (Oberhofer et al. 2013).
Historical data as such is usually mined to compute a standard pattern used for operational
customer insight to be deployed in operational systems. According to Oberhofer at al (2013),
transactional data is also extracted to determine product placement through product
recommendation and contribute to the creation of complex predictive models, such as Amazon.
They retrieved the data from the customers historical purchasing data to create accurate
recommendations of their shopping needs (Price, 2015). However, Oberhafer et al. (2015)
argued that transactional data portrays a restricted view of the customer as the data cannot be
expanded and is only maintained within company's firewalls. Although it supports macro level
marketing, transactional data does little in developing individual customer insight.
Social media data on the other hand is generated real-time and lies in the public sphere. There
is various metadata that is attributed in a single data such as user, location, likes, time, and

20

most importantly, the sentiment that is embedded (He, Shen, Tian, Li, Akula, Yan, Tao, 2015).
Brands can leverage on the opinions provided on a broad range of issues and products on these
platforms (Oberhofer, 2014). However, Gundecha and Liu (2015) argued that the continuous
flow of social media data could pose a problem to brands because most organizations are not
equipped with sufficient capability and human resource to analyse such huge chunks of data in
real-time. The authors added that without latest technology to compute the data, it would be
difficult to track accurate data, and gaining values from these insights would be tricky. Even
so, the wealth of social data promises to deliver much more than brands can imagine. Gundecha
et al. (2015) states that social data can help businesses to determine key influencers specific to
target market, detect networking groups and attribute network data to develop
recommendations systems. In addition to that, social data could facilitate in informing
organizations on network evolutions and the changing of entity relationships. Ultimately in
context of consumer experience, social data is important for brands to produce marketable
insights by sensing user sentiments through social media analytics. The upcoming section lists
out key social data analytical techniques that are used to produce insights to facilitate some of
the processes above.
2.3.3 Key social media analytical techniques
The main analytical techniques in social media analytics are classified into two, and they are
content based analytics and structured-based analytics. The classification is categorised under
two sources of information in social media (Gandomi, 2015) which are user-generated
content and the connections and communication between different network entities. The
general breakdown of the techniques is shown as below:

21

Information
extraction (IE)

Text
summarization
Content-based
analytics
Question Answering

Sentiment analysis

Social Media
Analytics

Community
detection
Structure-based
analytics
(SNA)

Social influence
analysis

Link Prediction

Figure 4 Social media analytics techniques list

2.3.3 Understanding content-based analytics
According to Gandomi et al. (2015), the prime focus of content-based analytics is the user
postings on social media platforms. The authors added in examples such customer feedback,
forum discussion, product reviews, image and video updates on Instagram and Youtube
respectively. The nature of these content is often unstructured, dynamic, noisy and voluminous,
but able to yield rich consumer insights (Mostafa, 2013). Techniques used to address the data
processing challenges are adopted from one of the big data technologies, known as text
analytics. For the purpose of this study, sentiment analysis will be the only technique picked
up due to its technical relevance in analysing consumer behaviour in social media.

2.3.3a. Sentiment Analysis

According to Liu (2012), the rise of sentiment analysis is caused by the increase of data
capturing of customers sentiments by businesses. Sentiment analysis or opinion mining,

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according to Gandomi et al. (2015) looks at opinionated contexts which carry people's
perception towards entities such as products, organizations, individuals, and events. Major
application areas of this technique are marketing, finance, and the social science. Sentiment
analysis has a three tier level of investigation which are document level, sentence level and
aspect/entity based level (Liu, 2012).

2.3.3b. Breakdown of sentiment analysis

In document level, the task is usually to classify the binary sentiment of a whole opinion
document, whether it is positive or negative. An example application would be Amazon's fivestar system where the sentiment is expressed on a single entity controlled by the rating system
(Feldman, 2013). Document-level analysis is not able to evaluate or carry contrasting opinions
on multiple entities (Liu, 2012). The second level is sentence-level where the polarity of a
single sentiment of a known entity could be rendered in a single sentence (Gandomi et al,
2015). According to Liu (2012), this level goes to the sentences and contemplates whether it is
expressed positively, negatively or in neutral form (no opinion). She adds, there is no
fundamental difference between the sentence-level and document-level but the latter sentiment
classification may be too unrefined for most applications. However, sentence-level might
contain more than one opinion and can be classified computationally using subjectivity
classification (Ravi and Ravi, 2015). According to Liu (2012), subjectivity classification deals
with factual information and personal views, which are objective and subjective respectively.
Ravi et al. (2015) add that subjectivity classification emphasizes on "a term that encloses
sentiment, opinion, emotions, evaluations, beliefs and speculations before indicating it to be
positive, negative or neutral. Below is an example review to highlight the previous discussion

I bought a Motorola phone two weeks ago. Everything was good initially. The voice was

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clear and the battery life was long, although it is a bit bulky. Then, it stopped working
yesterday. (Liu, 2012)

According to Liu (2012), the first sentence is regarded as a fact as the consumer had not
expressed any opinion. She justified that the sentences that follow are void of opinions as it
only describes the condition of the phone, with no explicit or implicit sentiment. Therefore,
this review is regarded as neutral under subjectivity classification (Liu, 2012). If classifying
opinion texts at the document level or sentence level is deemed insufficient for applications
due to inaccuracy in identifying opinion targets, aspect level aims to classify sentiment with
regards to the closest meaning of an entity. Aspect-based or feature based level covers both
entities and aspects, therefore introducing a set of problems to be computed by deeper
Natural Language Processing (NLP)2 capabilities. In return, a richer set of results will be
produced. There are six tasks to be performed shown below, simplified as a review based on
Lius (2012) work on sentiment analysis.

1. Entity extraction and categorization Entities are broken down and categorized into
entity clusters. Each entity expression is marked as a specific entity
2. Aspect extraction and categorization The aspect manifestations of the entities are
extracted, and these aspects are categorized into clusters, each representing a unique
aspect like in Step 1
3. Opinion holder extraction and categorization Opinions are derived from opinion
holders, and the data is categorized analogously to the above two tasks
4. Time extraction and standardization Extract timing of the opinions posted and

2

a term that encloses sentiment, opinions, emotions, evaluations, beliefs and speculations

24

standardized different time formats, simultaneously with task 1-3

5. Aspect sentiment classification Opinion on an aspect is determined to be positive,
negative or neutral by assigning a numeric sentiment rating to aspect
6. Opinion quintuple3 generation The final task sounds simple, but it is in fact
extremely complicated to produce all opinion quintuples (summary) that are
expressed in a separate document.

According to Leskovec (2011), vendors can obtain valuable information about various features
of the entity that could only be attained using aspect-based techniques. He added, customer
product reviews or booking reviews usually carry opinions about varied aspects of an entity.
The next paragraph looks into the network structures and the techniques used in SMA to extract
valuable insights for brands to establish better connection with consumers

2.3.4 Making sense of social networks using social network analysis

Gandomi (2015) refers structure based analytics as social networks analytics. This technique
synthesizes the structural features of a social network and extricate intelligence from the
interactions between the participating entities. According to Adedoyin-Olowe, Gaber and
Stahl (2013), social network is a graph translated into nodes and links to represent social
relations where nodes include entities and the links form the relationships (as presented in
Fig. 5)

5-set component used to categorise an opinion

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Figure 5 Node-link graph

Heidemann, Klier & Probst, (2012) listed two types of social graphs and activity graphs (Fig.
6 and Fig. 7a & 7b). The authors describe social graph to have an edge between a pair of
nodes to signify the existence of a relationship (link) between connecting entities. Social
graphs are mined (Gandomi, 2015) to identify communities discover users with a
comparatively large number of direct and indirect social links.

Figure 6 Example of social graph

26

Whilst in activity graph the edges portray the actual interactions between any pair of nodes
(Gandomi, 2015) and interactions that take place could be in a various form of information
exchange (likes, email, comments) based on users who are interacting rather than be
connected merely on social links (Heidamann et al. 2012). Heidamann et al. (2012) assert
that activity graphs are more recommended than social graphs because the display of activity
carries higher research relevance than the mere connection on a social graph.

Figure 7a - Conceptual Activity Graph (using Office graph)

27

Figure 7b - User (fans) activity graph of e-commerce pages

Both graphs have created opportunities for different levels of techniques to emerge (Gandomi,
2015). Two emerging techniques that have been identified are social influence analysis and
community detection.
2.3.4a. Social Influence Analysis
Gandomi (2015) justifies social influence analysis (SIA) as techniques that model and evaluate
the influence of actors and connections in a social network. Haidemann et al. (2010) added that
actors in a social network would usually be affected by the behaviour of others. SIA would be
able to measure level of influence, quantify connection strength and detect patterns of influence
diffusion in a network (Adedoyin-Olowe et al., 2013). This technique could then be leveraged
in viral marketing to increase consumer awareness and target specific brand influencer for
endorsement purposes. A closer look on the homophily clustering would provide a brief review
on how influencers can be detected in a particular network (Fig. 8).

28


Figure 8 - Homophily clustering to detect influencers

2.3.4b. The rise of blogosphere

Average consumers are now empowered with the ability to influence brand perception and
inform the public due to the rise of blogosphere (Melville, Sidhwani, Lawrence, 2010). It is
imperative for marketing organizations to be mindful of the social chatter in the digital realm
as expressed opinions that carry huge influence are able to affect the decisions of other users
on diverse subjects (Adedoyin-Olowe et al., 2013). As in with the case of blogs and microblogs,
homophily clustering in opinion formation is a technique to model opinion formation through
the assessment of affected nodes and unaffected nodes. Adedoyin-Olowe et al. (2013) describe
this as homophily in social networks where users with similar opinions are linked under the
same nodes. The opposing opinions are grouped in other nodes as shown in Fig. 9:

29

Unaffected
Affected

Figure 9- Opinion Formation (how opinions are formed)

The nodes are dependent on the level of influence a particular participant exert, and if one has
a large following or is known as a professional in the field, the graph will change just as
illustrated in Fig. 10:

Unaffected

Affected

Figure 10 - Opinion formation (result)

2.3.4c. Community detection

According to Gandomi et al. (2015), community detection is concerned with the implicit
communities within a network, as community (Adedoyin-Olowe, 2013) is a denser small group
within a bigger network. Aggarwal (2011) justifies community detection as a technique to help
in summarizing huge networks, playing an important role in identifying existing behaviorial
patterns and forecasting emergent properties of the network. Adedoyin-Olowe et al. (2013)

30

mirror Aggarwals (2011) view on adopting a data mining technique called clustering to
categorize data set into subsets based on the similarity of data points. There are currently three
standard diverse clustering techniques and hierarchical clustering being the most common
technique as it reveals the strength of individual groups (Adedoyin-Olewe, 2013). The other
two are vertex and structural equivalence measures clustering. The latter method concentrates
on the similar connections found in a network connection shared by two nodes, as their several
mutual friends are most likely to be close than two people with lesser mutual friends on the
network (Adedoyin-Olewe, 2013). This technique is essential in enabling firms to develop
cutting-edge product recommendation systems based on network systems (Gandomi, 2015).

Figure 11 - Social network community structure

31

THEORIZING SOCIAL MEDIA ANALYTICS

2.4 Contextualizing social media analytics in the Information Systems research
A new form of theoretical attention must be given to the technology behind the practice to
provide a larger context for it. According to Stieglitz et al. (2014), social media analytics is still
at an infancy stage in the development of research, therefore poses some academic challenges.
Their study indicates that SMA requires an interdisciplinary research co-operation as it lacks a
theoretical core. Similarly, social media analytics could follow social network analysis in the
research spectrum by borrowing theories from other disciplines such as "network science,
sociology, statistics, and graph theory" (Stieglitz et al, 2014).

For this paper, researcher adopts the IS qualitative stance following Markus and Robeys
(1988) contextualization of technology in the IS discipline (Orlikowski and Iacono, 2001). The
authors theorized technology to play different roles as an independent variable, a dependent
variable, or entity in some systems placed in an emergent process of change. Social media
analytics is seen as an entity in a particular operation (consumer research, business intelligence)
to engage in an ongoing process of management, regulation or improvement. However, this is
not justified enough to provide a strong theoretical base to expand the discussion. This leads to
the presentation of five categories of IT artefact based on a seminal paper by Orlikowski and
Iacono (2001), issued as a call to action to theorize IT artefact (Goldkuhl, 2013). IGI Global
(n.d.) a leading academic publisher of Information Science and Technology defines IT artefact
as a specific bundle of hardware and software that is assembled to fulfill information needs.
Further research by Orlikowski and Iacono (2001) has conceptualizated IT artefact using
inductive reasoning via a grounded theory approach. They identified the labels reflective to the
collection of IS literature which is backed by computer science, organization studies, and
sociology. The labels inform the primary theorization of technology and are broken down into

32

five meta-categories: the tool view, the proxy view, the ensemble view, the computation view,
and the nominal view (Orlikowski et al., 2001).

The researcher chose to ground the study by conceptualizing social media analytics as a tool
to manage online consumer needs in accordance with the definition of tool view' by Orlikowsi
and Iacono (2001). From this perspective, big data is seen as the engineered artifact, a system
that is human-controlled to do what its user intend it to do. This view mirrors big data's wide
range of uses that can be engineered differently according to different sectors for example
marketing, politics, healthcare, and research (Marr, 2013). As such, this practice itself and how
it operates are seen to be human-controlled, separate yet precise in its uses (Goldkuhl, 2013).
The tool character will be further broken down in the analysis and discussion chapter to explore
social media analytics in consumer behaviour sector informed by expert opinions in their
respective fields. According to Orlikowski et al., (2011), the tool view could also be interpreted
into four different ways existing as tool for labor substitution, tool for enhancing productivity,
a tool for information processing, and tool for changing social relations.

2.4.1. IT artefact: classifications of Technology as a Tool

In technology as labour substitution tool, social media analytics is seen as the technology which
is organizational, tool[s] for downsizing and restructuring" (Orlikowski et al., 2001).
However true it is regarding reducing consumer research work and marketing efforts, Navint
report (2012) states that there is an ever-growing need for deep analytical individuals including
data-literate managers. But the notion of labour substitution could also refer to the shift in the
demand for IT skills in media, advertising, communications departments substituting research,
crisis communications skills (Shin and Choi, 2015)

33

The second category is concerned with technology as advancements (Orlikowski et al., 2001)
that enable individuals and brands to extend their reach and realize performance benefits
through the course of using social media analytics to manage online consumer experience
accordingly. Goldkuhl (2012) asserts that technology here is viewed as productivity tool that
replaces older technology and makes room for more efficiency, accuracy in providing results.
The third category is related to information processing tool that does best to revamp and
enhance the ways humans and organizations process information (Orlikowski et al., 2001). As
in the case of social media analytics, it is placed at the center of the Internet as the technology
that collects information from the Internet repository to search, track, extract and compute
social data used for socio-economic purposes. The characteristics of social media analytics to
be continuous, real time and able to calculate interactions fits well in the realm of information
processing tool (Stieglitz et al., 2014).
As for the final tool, social media analytics as a social relations tool would relate to the change
of customer-brand relationship to be smoother and more personal. Through real-time access to
consumer opinions, brands can directly engage with particular customers with strong opinions
and proceed to solve it in a personal manner. At the same time, brands can now use key
influencers to be their "brand ambassadors" therefore creating a different persona that is
relatable to the consumers (Corrigan and Craciun, 2014). The boundary in social networks
between brands, gatekeepers and consumers become blurred providing room for more
opportunities to convey social context and presence in an enriched manner (Orlikowski et al.,
2001).

34

CRITICISMS IN BIG DATA

2.5 Big Data Challenges
While social media analytics provides a wealth of opportunities for study and improvement in
consumer behaviour, criticisms can also arise from a few aspects.
2.5.1. Nature of Data
Based on boyd and Crawford's (2012) study, the issues faced by social media are inaccuracy
and the level of objectivity. The large datasets are often regarded unreliable because of its
inconsistency and incompleteness factor. This is especially a case multiple data are paired
together, for example, using social media content and location-based data at once. Stieglitz et
al. (2014), stressed that the size does not diminish any biases or limitations if it is engaged
without executing a proper strategy.
2.5.2. Data Collection
Due to the vast amount of social data that exist in a highly dynamic and complex nature, the
datasets cannot be processed quickly using traditional data management as well as visualization
and statistics packages on a desktop. The data gathered does not come in standard formats as
many social media platforms do not provide a standardized way to allow access to data, such
as application programming interfaces (APIs). There are often plenty of obscure restriction of
data access even when APIs are provided, and the case of obsoleteness occurs as business
models of the platform change. Ultimately, privacy issues are ever-present in the collection of
public data and always needs to address when data collection takes place.
2.5.3. Analysis and Mining Methods
This is a budgetary challenge that requires investment in large computing capacities where
sophisticated sampling, extracting, and analysis methods are exclusive to cutting edge

35

technology that requires proper budget allocation. In regards to data analysis and mining, the
case of efficient text mining is still exacerbated by the inaccuracy in extracting context-rich,
"private states4 social media texts (Ravi et al., 2015).
2.6 Case of Predictive Analytics
According to Gandomi et al. (2015), predictive analytics are concerned with predicting future
outcomes by computing historical and current data to predict actions. Authors added, predictive
analytics at its core is set to identify patterns and capture relationships in data. In real-life
applications for the study, predictive analytics look at consumer purchasing decisions, trends,
and their expected reactions on social media.
In an interview with Wayne Williams, a senior scientist from Boxever Dominik Dahlem
(2015) states that predictive analytics are able to provide individual answers to each customer
as such a personalized campaign could be run in a continuous fashion through a deployed
solution. He illustrates this using an airline campaign example presented below:
Each day, as the summer holiday season approaches, the campaign would segment a
different set of customers that would receive a personalized email based on inferred
destination preferences. Along the way, the system could keep track of which customers
booked summer destinations to avoid spamming (Dahlem, 2015)
Predictive analytics can be classified into two categories which are moving averages and linear
regression. The former attempts to extrapolate discovered historical patterns in the outcome
variable(s) to the future. The latter technique is concerned with capturing the interdependencies
to exploit outcome variable(s) and explanatory variables to realize new prediction sets.
However, these categorizations prove that predictive analytics techniques are rooted in

36

statistical methods, which differ in the distinctive features in big data, known as heterogeneity,
noise, accumulation, spurious correlation, and incidental endogeneity (Fan, Han, & Liu, 2014).
Heterogeneity relates to the variety of sources of Big Data and the types of information from
different sub-populations, making big data highly heterogeneous. This would require
sophisticated statistical techniques that are beyond conventional statistical rooted in small
sampling significance. Noise accumulation deals with the level of accumulated error for
different parameters that are estimated from big data simultaneously using predictive models.
The cumulative noise could distort the magnitude of variables hence affecting the model from
within. Spurious correlation, on the other hand, regards to the error in variable identification
being falsely identified to be correlated due to the sheer size of big data (Fan and Lv, 2008).
Last but not least, the existence of incidental endogeneity challenges the validity of the
statistical methods used for regression analysis, causing the explanatory variable to be
correlated with the error term. This review represents the challenges in predictive analytics to
stress the need to develop new relevant statistical techniques to gain insights from predictive
model related to the features of Big Data.

37

Chapter 3 Methodology

This section provides the techniques and method that were used to conduct the research. It
gives the definition and details of the study in depth through the introduction of sample sizes
that were interviewed for the paper.

3.1 Qualitative Approach

A qualitative approach was chosen the method of inquiry for this research. Ritchie and Lewis
(2003) points out that the general consensus of qualitative research is based on a naturalistic
and interpretive approach. Both authors share the same views with Wyse (2011) as she
suggested that the method is brought to enhance the understanding of underlying reasons,
opinions and motivations, therefore allowing generation of ideas in problem solving to result
or provide insights for potential quantitative research to happen. However, Wyse (2011)
simplifies qualitative research to be exploratory, that explores the phenomenon by asking
questions in order to understand a study that is relatively new whereas Ritchie and Lewis
(2003) suggests that the method is a way to explore peoples views of their experiences through
inductive reasoning. Considering that the umbrella topic of the study revolves around Big Data,
it is important to bring up the discussion on using qualitative research in information systems.
According to Sarker, Xiao and Beaulieu (2013), there is a significant proportion of favourite
IS scholars up until the mid-1990s who regards IS research to be explicitly quantitative and
excluded studies that use the so-called non-scientific method. Qualitative research in IS is a
scholarship established by Michael Myers in 1997 when this method of inquiry was relatively
new within the Information System (IS). He aims to provide a focal point of resources for the
upcoming research qualitative community of said discipline (Myers, 1997). Through this
method, researcher proposes to construct a level-playing field discussion on social media

38

analytics by talking to expert users with different expertise and develop an understanding of
the particular discipline (Rudestam and Newton, 2015). The following sub-chapter aims to
outline researchers epistemology in conducting the research and presents the theory that will
contextualize the body of the analysis and discussion.
3.2

3.2.1

Data Collection Strategies

Unit Analysis

The unit analysis in this research is social media analytics as a tool for brands to manage
online consumer experience.

3.3 Theoretical Perspectives

3.3.1 Epistemological Standpoint

Throughout the years in applied science research before the proliferation of qualitative research
methods, positivism has taken the place as the dominant epistemological paradigm (Gray,
2014) which converges with Sakkar's (2013) assertion on the previous IS scholars emphasis
on using only scientific methods to carry out IS research. The link between two points is
affirmed by positivism's argument that inquiry should be tested using scientific methods,
therefore relying on empirical studies (Gray, 2014). According Guba & Lincoln (2000) IS
research paradigms can be classified as positivist, interpretive and engineering (Sidi, Selamat,
Ghani and Ibrahim, 2009).
This research adopts the interpretive paradigm as a grounding perspective for the researcher to
explore how expert users (society; groups) make sense out of social data analytics (information
technology) to improve digital customer experience (action in social and organizational

39

contexts) (Klein et al., 1999). While the main epistemology is interpretive, this paper will take
the exploratory route in formulating questions to conduct the research. According to Gray
(2014), just as suggested by the name, exploratory studies seek to start an initial discussion of
the topic to explore a phenomenon and ask questions about it. As suggested by Saunders et al.
(2007), exploratory studies can be realized through either extensive literature review, in-depth
interviews with experts in the field or conducting focus interviews.
3.3.2

In-Depth Interview

According to Opdenakker (2006), qualitative research interview comes with a purpose to

gather insights of a phenomenon on interpretation and experiences of the interviewees. The
researcher employed semi-structured in-depth interview due to some influence it brings on the
kind of data collected. Boyce & Neale (2006) states that in-depth interviews are advantageous
to explore new research issues in depth. The authors added that it helps to offer a complete
picture of a particular issue and the reasons behind the conception.

Informants gave relevant answers and justified their answers with examples, and case studies
they can relate from past experiences being in their field. Exchange of thoughts on the questions
has been made. This interview is conducted synchronously and asynchronously. Out of four
respondents, two interviews were held face-to-face (FtF) in London, while the other
respondents supplied their answers via email due to timing and location challenges to set up a
FtF interview. It is important to note that researcher has lost some samples after getting
confirmations to participate in email interviews. Opdenakker (2006) justifies that email
interviews can cause interviewee to lose interest in the research, due to the long waiting time
and no form of verbal contact. For face-to-face interviews, the researcher used semi-structured
approach to probe questions to make room for a focused yet conversational two-way
communication. It is also to provide a detailed explanation of their responses (FAO, 1990).

40

3.3.4

Purposive Sampling

According to Marr, (2002) purposive sampling is chosen as it involves identifying and

contacting individuals or groups of individuals with expert knowledge of the study. Marr
(2002) adds that in addition to expertise and experience, participants must be available and
willing to participate with ease to communicate experiences and opinions in an eloquent and
reflective manner.

Using the research method above, there are four samples chosen based on their expertise in the
fields related to this study. The respondents for this study are structured as follows:

Sample

Position Level

Sector

Company

Location Method

Respondent A

Management

Internet/Services

Just Eat

London

FtF

Respondent B

Researcher/Analyst Marketing

London

FtF

& Pulsar

Advertising
Respondent C

Management

Marketing &

Brandwatch Brighton

Email

Toshi Stats

Email

Advertising
Respondent D

Founder

Information

Malaysia

Systems
Table 1 Respondent Sampling List

3.4

Data Collection and Analysis

FtF interviews have been recorded using Microsoft OneNote and NVivo is used to produce
both transcripts. The generation of codes were done using NVivo as well. All interviews were
conducted from June 2016 to August 2016. Respondents were discovered on LinkedIn, a

41

business-oriented social networking service. Initial contact was made through email or
LinkedIn messaging and interview request was confirmed on the same platform.

3.4.1 Thematic analysis

According to Braun and Clark (2006), thematic analysis is defined as a qualitative method to
identify, analyze, and reports pattern within data. Thematic analysis can be used across a range
of theoretical and epistemological approaches, therefore providing a flexible and practical
research tool to welcome results that are rich and detailed yet sophisticated account of data
(Braun and Braun, 2003). Ruggunan (n.d) justifies that the steps in thematic analysis are
focused on identifying interesting features of the data in a systematic fashion. He added that
the codes could be generated solely based on the data or be informed by the research literature
covered in the study. Therefore the codes can either be "data driven or theoretical driven".

The thematic steps in this research will first start from the extraction of codes based on the
transcripts and then grouped according to the meta-categories of the governing Information
Systems theory in the discussion chapter.

42

Chapter 4 - Analysis
The interviews assessed social media analytics as a tool for brands to manage consumer
behaviour across eight data-based generated themes illustrated in Fig 12. These themes will be
further grouped under four meta categories of the IS tool view theory in the discussion section
that follows next.

Measuring online
reviews
Differentiating
social network
for different
purposes

Finding rich
insights in
unstructured
data

Increase of
analytical tools

Social media analytics

as a tool for brands to
manage online
consumer experience

Questions for big

data

Determining
influencers in the
age of big data

Collaboration for
the enterprise
Extracting
insights using
sentiment
analysis

Figure 12 - Data-based themes

43

RQ1 - WHAT ARE THE RELEVANT COMPUTATIONAL METHODS USED TO

COMPUTE SOCIAL DATA INTO INSIGHTS FOR BRANDS TO MANAGE ONLINE
CONSUMER NEEDS?
4.1 Extracting Insights using Sentiment Analysis
4.1.1 Enabling brands to keep up with continuous flow of data
Respondent A acknowledges the high engagement rate of consumers on social networks and
explained that social analytics could leverage on the interactions to identify the types of
sentiment that is circulating around a particular brand.
It is usually Twitter thats most important [in terms of customer opinions]
People really actively tweet and engage with the brands. Thats actually quite useful for
brand to look at on a continuous basis just by looking at who is talking about brands, who is
supporting or complaining [..] We can use that data to randomise it, sample it and code it to
be able to tell if the sentiment is positive or negative, what are the points to improve on. It is
a continuous type of reporting.
Respondent A
Respondent C highlights the speed of an analytical platform that enables brands to be one step
ahead in its crisis communication or campaign plans as it analyzes real time data and send
email alerts if it detects any significant changes concerning a particular brand.
We use Signals (a Brandwatch product). It automatically scans all social data about your
brand, looking for unusual increases in negative conversation. If it spots this, an email alert
will be sent and we can find these negative stories and quell them before they grow out of
control.
Respondent C
4.1.2 Discovering purchase intent
Although the success rate is low, Respondent C provides a review on how social data can be

44

tracked to discover purchasing intent using sentiment analysis.

Social data can uncover purchase intent language online. For example, brands could look for
consumers using terms like I want or I need, near words like buy or have, in the
same sentence as the brand name. This reveals a number of customers or prospects. Its
extremely valuable data as marketers can contact these prospects to secure a sale. However,
the number of customers expressing intent online is still very low (less than 1% of all sales, I
guess).
Respondent C

4.1.3 Problems with ambiguity

Both respondent C and D agreed that sentiment analysis constantly struggle with the polarity
of words and are adopting to new methods to increase contextual information of opinion words.
As a vendor, Respondent C uses a hybrid method where brands supply a list of markup
mentions to be utilized in natural text of the machine and used to track sentiments accordingly.
Whereas respondent D relayed his idea via Bamman and Noahs (2015) paper by justifying
lexical cues and their corresponding sentiment as predictive features with higher accuracy.
According to Bamman and Noah (2015), the inclusion of extra-linguistic information such as
properties of the author, audience and resulting communicative environment allows higher
accuracy in analysis.
Sentiment analysis is not always reliable. All vendors in the space struggle to attribute
sentiment properly. Over years of analysis, weve found that the best approach is by using a
hybrid model. Getting customers to markup mentions they know to be positive or negative,
and then utilise machine learning to copy their methodology across thousands of other
mentions.
Respondent C
I agree that it is very difficult to handle mockery and sarcasm with current NLP (Natural
language processing) . It takes time to solve this problem by computers effectively. This is
one of the example of research results [link to article].
Respondent D

45

4.2 Combining Analytical Methods for Higher Accuracy

4.2.1. Hybrid approach of content and structural based analytics
Respondent D suggested on a hybrid approach of sentiment analysis (content-based analytics)
with structure-based analytics to increase accuracy of recommender system. The contextual
data on SNS could be used to enrich information processing tool in the recommender systems.
Respondent D added that Google has been the only corporation that made their recommending
systems algorithm public therefore suggesting that it could be modeled together using SNS in
an attempt to move forward.
As Amazon and Netflix use recommender systems as strategic systems of the companies,
recommender systems are beneficial for customers. When SNS are available, it means that
more context data can be used for recommendations. I believe it enables us to provide
recommendations in a timely manner. In a simple way, key words in SNS can be used. In near
future, it is expected that computer can understand the meaning of sentences in SNS so more
insights can be obtained and used for recommendations. About recommender systems used in
industries, their algorithms are not publicly available as far as I know. However, Google made
their algorithm public as open source software called "TensorFlow" at the end of June 2016.
I believe it is worth developing predictive models by using SNS data going forward.
Respondent D
4.2.2. Employing human assisted knowledge to fine tune end results
As a vendor, the hybrid method used by Respondent C requires human assisted knowledge
because the current technology on contextual meanings could not surpass human level yet,
therefore brands supply a list of markup mentions beforehand to add on the technology.
Sentiment analysis is not always reliable. All vendors in the space struggle to attribute
sentiment properly. Over years of analysis, weve found that the best approach is by using a
hybrid model. Getting customers to mark-up mentions they know to be positive or negative,
and then utilise machine learning to copy their methodology across thousands of other
mentions.

46

Respondent C
RQ2 HOW DO BRANDS APPLY SMA TO IMPROVE ONLINE CONSUMER
NEEDS?
4.3 Measuring Impact of Online Reviews
4.3.1 Monitoring online reviews using volumes and reach
Respondent B and C agree that online reviews will only be impactful if the amount is
significant enough to the total audience a particular brand has. However according to
Respondent B, the prime factor in measuring online reviews is by reach, therefore the level
of influence is regarded highly in measuring the sentiment of online reviews. A review from
an influential consumer would be able to attract far more audience and consequently cause a
direct impact on brand reputation and sales.
If it is a brand who has an audience of 2 million people and one single customer review it
does not have that much of an impact. We source all these by reach, if someone influential has
posted a really bad review, it would therefore give a bad impact to the brand. Influence factor
is important in looking at online reviewsI guess it goes by volume, if that person could reach
to many audience OR there are a lot of negative reviews then that is going to skew the
sentiment to be negative and therefore will impact the brand negatively. Its social data, one
single review will not create any impact, because social data is all about quantity. And
obviously using the [Pulsar] platform were able to track sentence by volumes, reach by
online users.
[Respondent B]
Word of mouth referrals through online reviews can super-charge a companies marketing
efforts. As such, investments in martech [Marketing Technology] tools that promise to improve
influencer marketing have grown immensely. However, for reviews to be impactful, large
numbers are needed. A single review is never enough to convince a customer due to the sheer
number of reviews online.
[Respondent C]

47

4.3.2 User reliance on online reviews

The reliance of consumers on online reviews is emphasized by Respondent A as their analysis
proved that other consumers have the power to alter consumers purchasing decision by a
posting simple review.
We understand that it is really important for some customers to make up their mind.
Interestingly, weve done analysis on the pages that people view and theyre likely there to
purchase. We see that if someone views the reviews section of restaurants, theyre actually less
likely to purchase we think that reviews could be a way for you to decide if you should try
this place out, and when you see a bad review youll go, Maybe not! what we are
currently doing is to try and revamp our reviews and make it more useful for customers
[Respondent A]
4.4 Determining Influencers in the age of Big Data
4.4.1 Tracking opinion formation in social networks
Respondent B provides an extensive commentary on the impact of influencers in forming a
collective opinion within a particular social network. Key opinion leaders with large followings
would be able to inform and influence the opinions of networked users around them to think,
decide and possibly react to it the same way. Even if networked users do not share the same
sentiment, they will be engaged in the same conversation started by the influencer, therefore
increasing the amount of voices that picks up a particular topic.
We source all these [online reviews] by reach, if someone influential has posted a really bad
review, it would therefore give a bad impact to the brand. Influence factor is important in
looking at online reviewsI guess it goes by volume, if that person could reach to many
audience OR there are a lot of negative reviews then that is going to skew the sentiment to
be negative and therefore will impact the brand negatively
Respondent B
It is also really useful to really look at again, influential people in that segment. If you have
like really influential blogger or like celebrity theyre usually setting the tone just by saying,
"Oh this is great!" and then, I dont know THOUSANDS of people will retweet that person

48

and it is hugely influential

Respondent B
We do influencer study as well [] We have all our channels on the same platform and you
can definitely see if someone important influences that conversation youll see it peak [on the
platform]. From the channel breakdown you will instantly find the opinion leaders who
influenced that conversation... or maybe it is a succession of events and we do all that by
keywords and a cluster of keywords will appear grouped around a certain time
Respondent B
4.4.2 Targeting the right influencers for the right audience
Respondent B recalled an example on the importance of targeting the right key influencers to
increase brand awareness at a particular target audience. Through social analytics, influencers
from the networked users of the brands target audience could be easily discovered. The key
information is that Respondent B managed to figure out the problem through text mining and
extract brand new information of prospective influencers using the same method. Respondent
D adds input on influencer determination by providing a technical explanation on how users
could become influencers, by getting connected (link-ed) to user from other networks where
eventually it merges to become a huge interconnected network with key influencers in the
middle.
Users which receive many links from others are considered as authorities. Because links
are considered as "Votes". By following such users, it is possible to take separate opinions.
Respondent D
[There was a] car brand looking to increase their brand with a music festival. The first year
we tracked the earned media around the #hashtag at music festival to see how their brand was
mentioned in that conversation. It didnt work well; the brand did not get enough exposure to
these music fans. Thus we tracked the influencers for that specific event and we found that
discussions about the brand were small during that event our results show that the
influencers they partnered with have nothing to do with music. So they picked the wrong
influencers for the wrong target, and when we tracked the [right] influencers for that festival
we were able to say, "Look these are the people who talk about this festivals, these are the
people you need to partner with, because if they talk about your brand during the festival, there

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would be 2 million people who will see your brand. Thats what they did a year later. They
completely changed their partners, they only partnered with people influential amongst the
music festivalgoers. It was a completely different story for them, it was really useful.
Respondent B
4.5 Proliferation of Social Analytical Tools
4.5.1 Optimisation of different technologies for different channels
Respondents were asked to provide three social analytical tools that they are aware of.
Respondent C provided a list of tools of various intelligence with different targets. Bigger
technologies would be able to uncover bigger insights and the measuring of impact or success
differs on every channel, bringing the need for a different application of analytics.
Brandwatch: to collect and analyse social web data and uncover insights. Also, to activate
on these insights through reports, alerts and visualisations. Brandwatch is extensive and covers
the whole public web. Buffer is used to measure the success of our owned channels. Buffer is
specific and only looks at owned channels. Finally, Google Analytics is used to measure our
marketing impact. Google analytics is specific to web data for our own site.
Respondent C
4.5.2 Segmentation of tools by expertise
Although asked the same question, the tool list provided by Respondent A and D are
completely different in terms of technology and methods. Even though the nature of both
expertise deals with data, one is more inclined to analysis and the other is analytics
respectively.
SocialBro: The leading Twitter analysis tool. Analysis of specific Twitter accounts, lists and
hashtags. Provides the ability to create specific audiences and see everything those
Audiences talk about. Discover nexus points between a brand and influencers (who do the
followers of a brand interact with the most).
Minter.io: The leading Instagram analysis tool. Monitor specific Instagram accounts and

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hashtags. See the leading contributors by engagement to a hashtag. See leading content
posted about a brand or using a hashtag. Discover best times to post.
Full Contact API: Provides the ability to append additional data (such as name, location,
other social network handles, influence score, bio) to an email, a Twitter handle, a Facebook
ID, or a phone number. Discover more about specific influencers, about our own community,
or the community of a competitor
Respondent A [sent via email as a follow up answer]

There are tools which are famous and used by data scientists all over the world. R Python
SASR&python are open source software and SAS is a proprietary software. R is originally
developed for statisticians and python is initially developed as general programing
languages.
Respondent D
4.6 Different Social Media, Different Purpose
4.6.1 Discovering purposes of social networks for consumers and brands
The mixed input from collating various responses from Respondent B, C, and D shows that
social networks are engaged differently for different type of consumer or brand data they are
dealing with. Respondent B and C shares the same views on Twitter being the busiest social
network when it comes to public consumer chatter. There is also an overlap in their opinions
on video and image networks in which Respondent B provided a slightly extensive
commentary. Respondent B added that Youtube is a great channel to track in depth product
reviews from consumers.
It is usually Twitter thats most important [in terms of customer opinions]. People really
actively tweet and engage with the brands. Thats actually quite useful for brand to look at on
a continuous basis just by looking at who is talking about brands, who is supporting or
complaining [..]
Respondent B

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Twitter, its public and full of chatter. Other platforms like Snapchat, Facebook and
Whatsapp are private or anonymized. Nevertheless, the future for social analytics probably
lies in anonymous data as users drop on Twitter.
Respondent C

If you want a more specific product review, Youtube is a great channel. So if someone is
doing a haul, people will vlog on their haul, you can then go on Youtube and filter certain
keywords by pulling a language or brand keywords and it picks it up immediately. It is really
interesting to see an in-depth understanding of one product or their competitors products
[through Youtube]
Respondent B
Video and image networks are also valuable to firms as their rich content provides richer
insights.
Respondent C

4.6.2 Engagement of specific content on social network

Respondent Bs implication on Instagram as a trendy platform for bloggers suggests that it is
a successful social network to create more followings based on specific interests, for example
food and beauty enthusiasts would be engaged on Instagram based on this context.
Instagram is also a good platform for products in food and beauty sector [] I guess it is a
case by case basis depending on the project [entity to analyse on] if you look at Instagram
data you would see a blogger trend there, it is a very trendy platform that is geared towards
beauty, health and [noise]
Respondent B
As for Facebook, the sheer amount of users engages more with advertising as stated by
Respondent A implies the fact that advertising can generally cater to more than one target
audience. Respondent Ds statement could mirror the implication made on Facebook with the

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biggest user base all over the world. Therefore, it attracts more than a specific group to engage
with it. At the same time Respondent D added that LinkedIn has its following among
professional personnel where different types of information are available catered to
professional.
Because [Facebook] is bigger, it has more consumers there. They are not as vocal [on
Facebook] but they do engage with advertising more there
Respondent A
Facebook is the most powerful SNS as it has the biggest user base all over the world.
LinkedIn is powerful among professional personnel as many kind of information about
professional are available and is now part of Microsoft
Respondent D
4.6.3 Privacy and regulatory considerations
Respondent D outlined the privacy concerns in mining data on social networks and addressed
on the regulatory that applies in different countries. Due to the global nature of social accounts,
precautions and risk management should be taken before proceeding with the data mining of
social network.
Tweets are considered as public data so they are available from data vendors as paid
services. On the other hand, some of SNS (including FB) is considered as private data.
Therefore, it is considered to be illegal in many countries to obtain such data without consent
of owners. Operational risk management, compliance and internal audit department should
have inspection processes to ensure no private data without consent is used in
companies/organizations.
Respondent D

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RQ3 WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES IN SMA IN FACILITATING BRANDS TO

MANAGE ONLINE CONSUMER NEEDS?
4.7 Critical Questions for Big Data
4.7.1 Moving Forward
Respondent A mentioned some of the main drivers to move forward following the pace of
Big Data advancements which are 1) the joining of transactional and social data to create
social CRM 2) revamping technology to allow smoother flow of data to improve consumer
experience
What we dont do for example, social CRM, and that might be the sort of thing that we
would look into in the future [] the joining of social data and customer behaviour data is
an idea [to think about] as well []
Respondent A
We see that if someone views the reviews section of restaurants, theyre actually less likely
to purchase we think that reviews could be a way to you could be thinking when you go
there Im not sure about this place, and when you see a bad review youll go, Maybe
not! what we are currently doing is to try and revamp our reviews and make it more
useful for customers
Respondent A

4.7.2 Question of Skills

Respondent A and D illustrates the need for individuals with computational skills as the field
of big data is growing. Respondent D suggested on employing a third party service provider
that could help in analyzing big swathes of data. In his view every marketer needs have a
basic knowledge on programming to fully grasp the effectiveness of the insights and argued
that research on data could not be qualitative seeing that the data sits on a digital realm.

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BI [Business Intelligence] analysts increased from 6 this time last year. We are rapidly
growing, use of data is rapidly increasing. [..] There is an exponential growth in the amount
of data and it is problematic for the BI team therefore I expect BI teams to grow
Respondent A
When non-data experts are defined as persons who do not know programming language
such as R/python, non-data experts cannot quantify effectiveness of strategies of brands
social media [insights]. Since social media data is inherently "digital", it should be analysed
in a quantitative manner. Qualitative analysis is not enough to analyse social media when we
have a massive amount of social media data.
Respondent D
But in my view, every marketer/sales person should know the basic of R/python as it enables
them to perform many kind of analytics. This [Cortana Intelligence Suite] is one of examples
of service provided by a third party (Microsoft). This is currently in the preview and only
available in the US.
Respondent D
4.8 Collaboration for the Enterprise
4.8.1 Transactional vs social data
Respondent C views customer transactional data as insights for marketing strategies as they
are executed to increase sales, whereas social data act as insights to understand their reactions
on any form of communication towards the brands. Respondent A differentiates social media
data to transactional data on a qualitative basis, seeing social data as descriptive ideas on who
their customers are
Consumer transactional data helps fuel marketing efforts by uncovering what consumers
purchase at what time, whereas social media data can help uncover how users respond to
marketing efforts.
Respondent C

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Social media data is where you find information about the consumer that is more qualitative
in nature because it is what they are talking about, what they are interested on, who they
follow [..] it is sort of a broader descriptive piece around who are our customers are
Respondent A
4.8.2 Data value for consumer insights
In light of social data, Respondent C believes that transactional data retains its value only when
both are mixed as the fusion provides brands a valuable lifecycle view of customers through a
different lens. Respondent A however, feels that the link between social insights and
transactional data could not be drawn easily as transactional data is very profit and value based
Its still valuable, but only when mixed with social data. The mix of transactional and social
data provides a holistic view of a customers journey that leading brands cant live without.
Respondent C
Transactional data are about what they do, is I suppose useful developing a relationship
profit or otherwise [..] I think social has a value particularly around insights and
transactional data would be on sales value, it is not possibly easy to draw the link between
insight and transactions
Respondent A

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Chapter 5 - Discussion
The discussion of the results will focus on the characteristics and functions of social analytics
in helping brands to manage online consumer experience, therefore, concluding the research
study.
Social media analytics as an information processing tool to increase efficiency in
consumer decision-making
According to Belk and Llamas (2012), user empowerment catalyzed by the ease of access to
information and offering of price comparison have resulted in many product reviews
circulating on the internet. The notion of the informed digital consumer means that they will
make sure that their purchasing decisions are backed by the opinions on the Internet and are
convinced by it (Belk and Illamas, 2012). One way to incorporate customer expertise is by
using a smart online review system that is tracked by sentiment analysis which then helps
brands to improve their recommender system by copying the sentiments into the methodology.
This helps the recommender system to provide suggestions that would facilitate consumers to
make decisions that are more informed and quicker than usual.
Social media analytics as a social relations tool that enables brand to determine key
influencers better
Through social influence analysis, social media analytics can help to provide the level of
influence, connection strength and detect patterns of influence for brands to target their
influencers efficiently (Adedoyin-Olowe et al., 2013). From this technique the authors added,
influencer events or viral marketing could be planned in a more efficient and targeted manner.
Also, this proves social media analytics as a social relations tool to improve customer-brand
relationships by selecting key influencers that their target audience could relate to. The key
influencers would also feel that they were selected because the brand or products speak for
them and not just simply selected to do the job just because of they are influencers.
Social media analytics as a productivity tool that helps brands to improve in real-time

57

Based on the interview social media analytics can provide real-time updates on issues across
all channels for brands to take immediate actions to solve any issues. According to Leskovec
(2011), immediate actions can be taken by just gleaning the data extracted using social media
analytics to find out the root of the problem, consequently providing more time to solve the
problem as the main part of the incident or customer dissatisfaction has been found out.
Social media analytics as a labour substitution tool to restructure management of a
team or plan a change management
This section is concerned with the change in labour demand and prioritising of skills as the
application of big data analytics would require a team with specific skills and knowledge to
manage this. Social media analytics acts as a labour substitution tool that inspires change
management in a team to allow restructuring of organization members roles and job scope.
The incorporation of new skills is also part of the change management catalyzed by this
technology to help brands manage their focus in improving consumer experience efficiently.

58

Conclusion
The discussion of social media analytics as a tool to help brands manage online consumer
experience has illustrated methods and applications relevant to proving its capabilities. While
the discussion is based on a contextual theory, businesses need to make sure that their
experience are aligned well with the uses of the technology as it requires a high budget and
operational procedures to work the technology.
The interviews have provided justifications on its relevance towards managing customer-brand
online relationships in areas like product reviews, consumer sentiments, product
recommendation opinion formation and influencer determination. Relevant techniques
pertaining to managing consumer experience are sentiment analysis, social network analysis,
and recommender system. More areas could be investigated upon such as video analytics as it
has been described to provide rich insights on consumer needs.
This research sets out to provide a novel attempt in contextualizing big data using social media
analytics due to its interdisciplinary nature. However, in the future there is a recommendation
for another interdisciplinary research that emphasizes on building solution frameworks for new
social media based analytics and information systems.

59

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