Commetric - Shaping the Debate, Digging Into News Content to Spot Key Influencers
Jinfo Blog

By Chris Porter

Abstract

Chris Porter introduces Commetric, a service that mines news content to help organisations to identify the most influential voices on key business topics.

Item

FreePint subscribers will know that it can be a battle to secure budget for generic news monitoring and research solutions.

However, when news is put to very specific uses to address areas of vital business need, funds can be easier to come by.

Identifying the Most Influential Voices

One promising area for information budget growth is that of solutions to help organisations identify the most significant influencers on topics of interest to them.

Once the most influential voices have been identified, they can then be contacted directly if they are thought to be receptive to the key messages that the organisation wants to put across; or alternative and counter-balancing messages can be promoted through other voices, if the key influencer is not thought to be receptive to the organisation's view.

Commetric's Novel Approach to Key Influencers

FreePint has recently been looking at a novel approach to the challenge of key influencer identification, provided by independent media intelligence company Commetric.

Commetric mainly works with large global brands and their supporting agencies to analyse large bodies of traditional and social media and identify key influencers on particular business topics.

Its approach involves a combination of patented natural language and data visualisation technologies and human editorial expertise. It provides outputs in the form of decision-ready reports, but also gives its clients direct access to innovative visualisation tools, so that they themselves can dig deeper into the data and explore further connections.

Fighting Off Tool Fatigue

There are plenty of other solutions on the market which provide end-users with ways to try and identify influential voices on a topic, whether from traditional news aggregators, contact management databases or newer social media-focused tools.

Commetric remarks that some of its customers, having tried some of these approaches, are showing signs of "tool fatigue". Commetric instead takes a more consultative and editorially-driven approach, working with its clients to clarify underlying goals, determine appropriate content sets, add extra structure to the raw data and then work through much of the analytical "heavy lifting" on behalf of the client.

The insights uncovered from the raw data are a very potent illustration of the current FreePint theme of "Making Information Visible", as described in the Commetric mini review.

This Blog Item is part of the FreePint Topic Series "Making Information Visible".

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