Douglas FloresJust in time for the epidemic, the corporation behind Advil and other consumer products shifted their strategy on social media.
A large portion of consumer-brand discourse takes place on social media sites. That’s why Haleon built an in-house squad to dominate the social media landscape on behalf of the company’s multiple OTC offerings.
GSK and Pfizer’s consumer goods, such as Advil, Excedrin, Robitussin, Tums, and others, came together to become Haleon last year.
The firm has built an in-house social media intelligence (or “social intelligence”) team to monitor and analyse customer feedback on companies online and utilise that data to inform marketing plans.
Intelligence as it relates to social media
Haleon needed to first explain what it meant by “social media intelligence.” As its meaning varies from company to company, it’s crucial for each enterprise to define its social intelligence strategy and the outcomes it hopes to achieve.
At The MarTech Conference, Danny Gardner, analytics manager U.S. and North America social intelligence lead at Haleon, explained that “social intelligence is folding in all these different data sources and really trying to figure out what this data is actually going to do and what [it] tell us.”
According to Gardner and his colleagues, social intelligence is just a more refined kind of social media monitoring and listening. Social intelligence is an alternative to simple social media monitoring in which insights are drawn from data without any connection to marketing activity.
“Insights are at the heart of it. We can take use of this information and arrive at conclusions more quickly than any other department in the firm.
Companies that monitor social media can learn how their products stack up against the competition. In addition, they learn more about their demographic thanks to comments on promotional efforts.
Using social media analytics to learn where customers are making purchases is another useful application of this data. Understanding whether customers are more likely to purchase Advil from Costco or an online shop is useful information for Haleon as it formulates its ecommerce strategy.
According to Gardner, a business that is aware of unfavourable consumer sentiment expressed about it on social media may better implement a crisis management plan.
The Big of Social Media Analytics
The social media landscape is huge, so it’s important to organise your data into distinct “buckets” before you start listening.
Gardner and his colleagues decided to divide the information they gathered from social media into four primary categories. Social conversations about their brands, rival brands, industry subjects, product usage, and “macro and cultural” trends were the focus of their analysis.
Making and expanding social media platforms
Haleon didn’t officially launch until 2022, but the company had been developing its marketing plan, which included its approach to social intelligence, for much longer than that.
Here is a timeline detailing their approach to introducing social intelligence mechanisms.
According to Gardner, “there was this significant discovery phase around what data is available, how can we get to it, what does data mining look like,” and so on. “They started building the case that, hey, we actually think we might be able to do this in-house a couple years before I was hired.”
Haleon considered both developing and purchasing a solution, and ultimately decided to use Meltwater’s social intelligence technologies.
Using data gleaned from social media to guide response to the epidemic
The globe evolved just as Haleon was about to launch a trial programme for its social media intelligence skills. Many people increased their usage of digital channels during the first several years of the COVID-19 epidemic, both to shop and to educate themselves.
“We came out of our 12-month pilot, and at the end of the tunnel was COVID-19,” said Gardner. This boosted the interest in social listening and brought us to the forefront of the industry.When [customers] needed information but couldn’t get it elsewhere, they turned to social media.
To that end, he elaborated, “So at the time this is actually what inspired this macro trend tracking capability and we now know we can do this pretty well around our brands.”
Because of this, Haleon has a more nuanced picture of how customers feel about the products they carry. And they may participate in the discussion on broader problems in a way that resonates with their target audience.