Tracking Product Buzz Around the Web

If you’re just using the Nielsen results to look at how you think about placing your [advertising] spend, you’re ultimately going to be flawed because we need to take account of the different activities that are taking place on the Web.

- Dan Neely, CEO and founder of Networked Insights

In Jon Lafayette, "Cracking the Code’ to Put Online Dollars Where They Belong," TV Week, October 29, 2008

Neely's company represents a growing business that speaks to marketers' desire to learn as much as they can about the people they want to reach online. Based in Madison, Wisconsin, Networked Insights "says it measures not just the 15% of people who post content online at social sites, but also the other 85% who are interacting with that content by reading, ratings sharing, linking or inviting." The company analyzes more than 17,000 social media sites (such as MySpace) and social networking sites (LinkedIn is an example), which include more than 120 million unique users and 3.5 million interactions per day.

Networked Insights works with clients to figure out where conversations are going on online around certain products or topics. For example, Neely says that television shows with a lot of conversation tend to have more "engaged" audiences when they are viewing. It's useful to know that, he says, because "those engaged viewers are also likely to be paying attention to ads."

Moreover, Neely contends that his company database can tell his advertiser-clients how many people they can expect to reach with social media." “We believe we’ve cracked the code with regard to how do you actually measure this stuff,” Mr. Neely said. “It’s been a trial-and-error approach. We’ve said we can actually tell you where to place and when to place, because this is where they’re going to be and this is what they’re going to be talking about.”