One methodology for comprehensive social media monitoring across all types of sites and all languages

The WaveMetrix methodology has been designed to ensure that one comprehensive approach can cover everything. This may seem obvious (well, we think it is), but it is also quite rare. Comprehensiveness is not something automated solutions do well.

Having one comprehensive methodology has several important advantages:

• 1. Any language. WaveMetrix employs native speakers of all major languages. They have been trained to the same international standard, which means we can cover global buzz consistently and comprehensively
• 2. Any site. Our methodology for classifying and coding buzz is the same regardless of site, so we can cover all buzz comprehensively
• 3. Consistent sentiment scoring. WaveMetrix uses a normative scale of +2/-2, which is based on action and not the subjective evaluation of tone of voice. This means we can code online sentiment consistently across all languages and sites
• 4. Consistent classification of topics. Human analysts code buzz by topic manually using one classification scheme across all geographies. This ensures consistency and comprehensiveness of buzz coverage

Ensuring comprehensive coverage

Having one consistent methodology is important in ensuring we can cover all online buzz comprehensively for our clients. However, on its own this is not enough. It needs to be backed up with people and technology to effectively execute coverage.

At WaveMetrix we ensure coverage is comprehensive by using:

• 1. Search technology. We do not believe technology is any good at understanding buzz, but we do believe in using search technology to find buzz. Our platform uses a variety of cutting edge search tools to cover all the sources
• 2. Site database. Experience is everything. Having run thousands of social media monitoring projects, we have a pretty good idea where the buzz is online. Our database of sites, organised according to topic of discussion, helps us direct our search tools and our human analysts to where the buzz is most likely to be
• 3. Human intelligence. One day search engines may be able to find everything relevant online - but that day is still some way off and in the meantime we use human analysts to fill in where search engines fail. A lot of the time buzz does not mention the brand or product in question (for instance, when it has already been mentioned earlier in the conversation). Our human analysts can still find that buzz, reading the thread, when technology alone would miss it. Also, many sites, particularly review sites, block access to crawlers other than the big search engines like Google. Our human analysts can still read posts on these sites
• 4. Quality assurance. Whatever method you use to ensure comprehensiveness, checking that you have actually caught everything is essential. At WaveMetrix we have dedicated staff and procedures for quality assurance