New York-based advertising agency TBWA has pioneered in Kenya a social media monitoring application that helps firms track consumer sentiments made in online platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.
The mobile phone based tool dubbed PRPro analyses news headlines, mentions and posts on news sites and social media regarding corporates or brands and classifies them as positive or negative.
The solution provides a direct link between businesses and social media; a growing avenue where consumers take to air comments, complaints and compliments about goods and services they have accessed or bought.
“In essence, the app connects clients with market sentiment on their brands in real time allowing them to have better conversations with consumers and media,” said Mr Tim Smyth, the chief executive of TBWA East Africa.
“It offers a technical solution at a fractional price to manual monitoring; additionally gathers hitherto unreachable information and offers analytics,” said Mr Smyth during a presentation of the app’s functionality last week.
TBWA set up its regional hub in Nairobi in February this year and will provide the solution free of charge as a value-addition product to corporate clients under its stable. The firm handles high profile accounts in Kenya including Kenya Airways, Standard Bank, VISA, Aquafresh, Heritage Insurance and Pepsi
The media buying company partnered with African Laughter, a local PR firm to develop the application at a cost of Sh10 million.
PRPro uses social search engine optimisation and smart filtering tools to monitor and fetch data on online sentiments about corporates, brands, trademarks; as well as the levels of buzz and source breakdowns.
For example, in February this year, telecoms provider Safaricom was forced to apologise through micro blogging site Twitter after subscribers took to online forums to bash the firm for sending Valentine’s day messages deemed ‘offensive’.
Subscriber firms can directly engage consumers and arrest the possibility of a complaint or negative remarks going viral as the solution is directly linked to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+.
Source: Business Daily