Trendology: Building an Advantage Through Data-Driven Real-Time Marketing

In Trendology, Chris Kerns describes the spectacular growth trends he's seen in real time marketing usage by the world's top brands and performs a fascinating explication of why RTM performance is justified as a long term trend. Providing actionable steps for making the most of RTM, Kerns outlines the best practices for building a usable, repeatable RTM measurement strategy that will propel brands towards success to optimize their marketing tactics with each campaign. Analyzing tweets from over 100 top brands, he identifies patterns and dissects successful tactics. Trendology dissects and compares the social media campaigns of a diverse array of top brands like Visa, IBM, Oreo, Coca-Cola, Pizza Hut, J.C. Penny, Nike, Sony, and IKEA, among many others. The book details the baseline for success on Twitter by investigating success rates as they relate to language, timing, punctuation, media, and hashtags—pointing out what worked for brands, what didn't, and why different tactics and brands saw such different results. Kerns shows readers how to create a RTM methodology that includes data baked in to every step. Analyzing the game-changing advantages that data can lend to brands in terms of campaign planning, execution, and post campaign analysis, Trendology provides a blueprint for optimizing data in your RTM campaigns. Kerns identifies some of the best tools and methods for data gathering and outlines simple, yet highly effective means of drawing powerful insights from RTM.

Most people think of RTM in relation to big events and occasions, but its real power is also in its day-to-day use. To help you realize how to utilize RTM in between large-scale marketing moments, Trendology provides an overview of best practices for identifying micro-trends using the right data sources and analysis. It identifies metrics to watch for and outlines methods for gauging the success of everyday RTM, all while laying out a powerful analysis of how brands have found astounding success by getting involved in the many 'micro-events' that occur between Super Bowls.

If you ask Kerns, RTM is just getting started as a game-changing phenomenon. It's still in its infancy, and will continue to evolve, becoming more vital and powerful along the way. Trendology not only provides a comprehensive guidebook for making use of this revolutionary marketing technique; it also explores the tremendous possibilities and opportunities that the future hold for RTM. Kerns evaluates what works, what gaps still exist, and what trends are the most promising.

'Real-time marketing is probably one of the most topical and contentious marketing strategies right now. That's why Trendology is one of the most relevant marketing books for brand management and social media execs to read. Kerns provides numerous current case studies, but what is most valuable to me is the framework he provides for creating a robust real-time marketing program for brands.' - Antony Young, author of Brand Media Strategy and President of the Water Cooler Group

'Real-time marketing isn't about competing for the moment. It's about winning in every moment. This book demonstrates how creativity, serendipity, and data will help you build a winning foundation, team, and strategy to thrive in a real-time world.' - Brian Solis, Digital Analyst, Anthropologist, and author of What's the Future of Business? (WTF)

'Social data has quickly become a critical component of the best marketers' strategies. Chris does a fantastic job of breaking down the winners and losers to date and helps readers be more like the former!' - Mark Josephson, CEO, Bitly

'Successful real-time marketing requires the classic, delicate balance of art and science to create stories audiences will actually want to embrace, rather than bury. Trendology illustrates how executives can develop a strategic but pragmatic approach to RTM, leveraging data, case studies, and practical frameworks not only for major events, but also for daily social marketing programs.' - David Beck, Co-Founder, BRaVe Ventures and former Senior Vice President and General Manager of Social Media at Univision

'Chris Kerns validates real-time marketing's position as an absolute must-have for every business—taking it from a gee-whiz aspiration to a vital need with process and data to inform decision-making.' - Peter Fader, Co-Director, Wharton Customer Analytics Initiative, and Frances and Pei-Yuan Chia Professor of Marketing, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Should an airline be talking about the royal baby? What's a candy bar doing Tweeting about a soccer match? Since when does laundry detergent weigh in on TV shows? Those conversations seem crazy, right? They're mismatched, they're nonsense… and they are working.

In today's ongoing battle for consumer attention, brands have been using a new strategy called real-time marketing to engage their audience on topics that are already top of mind. In Trendology, Chris Kerns uses a data-driven approach to analyze how brands are using social media to finally answer the burning question: How should brands best capitalize on trends?

Kerns dives into the data from more than 100 of the top brands on Twitter (including Disney, MTV, Starbucks, Coca-Cola, BMW, J.C. Penney, Nike, Sony, IKEA, and many more) to uncover patterns of real-time marketing performance across huge global events, smaller pop culture moments, breaking news stories, and daily hashtag trends. Along with these insights, readers will also learn:

- What works for brands doing real-time marketing, and what should be avoided?

- How to measure the performance of your real-time social strategy

- How a brand can leverage trends on an every-day basis

- Best practices to build a data-driven approach and team

- The future of brands and social trends, including interviews with digital thought leaders from Arby's, the Boston Celtics, the Wharton School, the PGA Tour, and many more

Trendology brings insight to a topic that has, for too long, been fueled by opinion and luck. This book not only shows that real-time marketing is here to stay, but gives brands the tools and guidance to build out a smart, data-driven approach to the newest marketing trend.

Chris Kerns is the Director of Analytics and Research for Mass Relevance, a company that sifts through millions of pieces of social content per minute to uncover the most relevant, engaging content that audiences are talking about. In his role, Chris leads thought leadership and research around social data, exploring the value that can be found from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and other social content. By using advanced analytics techniques (natural language processing, social network analysis, geolocation extraction, influencer identification, etc.) and translating the results into easy to understand insights, he teaches both internal and external audiences about the power of social data and the insights that can be found through solving problems with a data driven approach.

Chris also serves as an Industry Expert for Pacific Crest Securities, a technology investment firm, to advise institutional investors and hedge funds on the newest trends in analytics and social data. He is also on the Board of Advisors to ROIKOI, an Austin startup that allows individuals to rate coworkers, where he designed and wrote the scoring algorithm.

Prior to Mass Relevance, Chris led the Social Analytics team at Bazaarvoice, which owns, maintains, and analyzes the majority of millions of product reviews seen on the internet. There he defined the global strategy towards data science, multivariate testing, and sentiment and text analysis. Prior to that, Chris headed up the Digital Analytics group for ZAAZ (now POSSIBLE, Inc.), a Seattle based digital agency. In this role he led clients such as Ford, Microsoft, Nike, and Nintendo to define success and maximize the effectiveness of their digital efforts through a data driven approach of measurement and multivariate testing. Chris has also worked at Accenture, leading early efforts in their Mobile Commerce Lab and building ecommerce solutions for Fortune 100 clients.

Introduction

Chapter 1: Relevance is Trending Up

Chapter 2: Understanding Brands on Twitter

Chapter 3: RTM Performance for Big, Known Events

Chapter 4: RTM Performance for Unknown Events and Daily Trends

Chapter 5: Laying a Data-Driven Foundation for Real-Time

Chapter 6: Aiming for Real-Time Success

Chapter 7: The Data-Driven RTM Process

Chapter 8: The Future of RTM

Chapter 9: Conclusion