Conference Recap: Bill Tancer on listening to the conversation

October 18, 2010

“Most people know me as the data geek,” said Bill Tancer in his keynote speech at this morning’s General Session at the PRSA 2010 International Conference in Washington, D.C. “I’m about listening to the conversation.”

Tancer, general manager of global research at Hitwise and author of the book “Click: What Millions of People Are Doing Online and Why It Matters,” noted how much more active people are online as compared to last year and said that PR practitioners need to “become aware of the possibility of search.”

He provided examples of how his company analyzes and monitors the data that people input when performing a search online and encouraged the audience to do the same. Using charts displaying the volume of searches in the United States people perform on one specific term, he shows how it’s possible to uncover seasonality spikes, such as an increase in searches for “diets” in January or increase in “prom dress” searches in the springtime. Tancer recommends tracking when people are searching more often and finding out how they’re searching — and then using that data to your benefit.

Tancer said that we can glean great insight from people just based on their search habits. People often go off of pre-conceived notions when forming an opinion, “but when you look at the data, you often see stories that are completely different,” he said.

“Public relations is one of the best uses for this data,” he added, “and that’s listening to the conversation and making the business case for what we do in public relations.”

Tancer stressed that analyzing data can help inform PR strategy. He encouraged the audience to take a look at search terms and paid search to see how people are listening.

“A lot of traffic is going to paid search and a brands are now buying the recall terms — this is one of the greatest uses of this data is finding out how people search,” he said. “And that gives you the opportunity when people are searching something negative [about your brand] to reinforce something positive about your brand.”

Google Trends and Insights are an easy way to keep track of things, Tancer said. He also recommended checking up on recalls frequently, and using Twitter Search and tweetclouds to see what words people are associating with your brand as well as what people are talking about the most at specific times.

Facebook coverage is also a good place to monitor changes in traffic, he said. “I want to know not just what the conversation is, but what the qualifiers are, so that I can frame my business, frame my search program and counteract that negative publicity.”

In closing, Tancer offered the following takeaways from his speech:
 • The Internet has become pervasive in our lives.
 • The e-trail we leave behind is rich with potential insights.
 •  Listen to the conversation.
 •  We are what we click. — Amy Jacques

 

 

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