Introducing Smarty Intel™

You can have data without information, but you cannot have information without data.

– Daniel Keys Moran

This time of year, we are working collaboratively with many of our clients on annual strategic planning for the year ahead. And as part of this process, the need for data-driven insights to fuel creativity and support program recommendations is top of mind. The social media landscape can provide a window into conversations, content trends and business climate with some of the most timely intelligence available to marketers. This is the driver behind Smarty Intel™ – the new social media intelligence offering from Smarty Social designed to use social listening to capture relevant data that leads to meaningful and actionable insights. 

Many clients have some level of monitoring, but true social listening looks beyond your brand’s vanity metrics to the broader environment and outside influences that can lead to unique opportunities. This thinking drives our Smarty Intel™ approach: 

1. First, we lead a strategic session to determine the key questions, topics and themes relevant to each client. 
2. Then, we scour the digital landscape using a combination of SaaS platforms licensed by Smarty to source all the available content and data for analysis.
3. Next, we complete a human qualitative review of the data. This step is the difference between having data and understanding what the data means to your business. This analysis uncovers otherwise hidden opportunities.
4. Then, we present an informative yet succinct report that clearly identifies the actionable insights designed to fuel creative thinking around how you approach the market to achieve your business goals. 

Smarty Intel™ is driven by Cam Steed, VP, Media Intelligence and Social Analytics who has over a decade of experience in navigating media monitoring and reporting best practices:

“Social Media is one of the most unbiased and real-time ways in which you can gather critical consumer thoughts, opinions and awareness for your brand, competitors and industry,” says Cam. “It’s market research for the 21st century.” 

To launch Smarty Intel™, we have created three introductory reporting packages that can be completed in as little as three weeks to address the most common needs and requests we receive from our clients:  

• Competitive Monitoring – a look at your brand against your competition. Where are you winning and losing and where is the opportunity to improve your position
• Reputation Management – what are the positive influences and negative threats to your brand and where can you make a difference to change the narrative
• Marketing Intelligence – a deep dive into your industry to identify economic, social and cultural trends to uncover the whitespace where your brand can have an impact 

Additionally, we love the chance to work with our clients on a specific challenge or need and build a custom approach to social media intelligence that will support it. 

Cam reminds us that, “media intelligence is one area of business where you don’t have to outspend your competitors in order to beat them.” 

As an added benefit, the core work that Smarty Intel™ delivers can be utilized as the foundation to inform a smarter social media strategy—from platforms to content to paid campaigns that aim to drive customer engagement and down-funnel business objectives. These offerings were designed to support the first phase of work that fuels Smarty’s social strategy services to take these insights and put them to work!