Tom H. C. Anderson, CEO of Anderson Analytics
We are excited to have Tom H. C. Anderson, the CEO of Anderson Analytics with us today for the Business 2 Community Expert Interview Series.
Anderson is the foremost expert in leveraging text analytics within the marketing research industry. His firm has helped companies from StarwoodHotels to Unilever understand customer comments in both surveys and social media.
Recognized by the American Marketing Association in their inaugural 4 under 40 Market Research Leaders, his work in text analytics is referenced in several decision science text books and has won industry awards for innovation. His blog received first place in last years’ New Market Research Top Blogs Awards.
6 Questions on Social Media With Tom H. C. Anderson
1. How did you get your start in the industry?
I’ve been in market research my whole professional career and got into text analytics in graduate school. In 2005 when I founded Anderson Analytics there were no other market research firms leveraging text analytics to understand their unstructured (text) data. Because of all the work we were doing analyzing text comments in our clients surveys we were soon asked if we could do the same for customer discussions on large internet bulletin boards and other online media.
While there were several text analytics tools designed to help PR professionals, there were few if any designed specifically for consumer insights professionals. After trying to work with several tools out there we finally decided to develop our own software, OdinText, to specifically address the market research use case. It has certainly been an interesting and rewarding experience.
2. What is the biggest challenge facing your industry?
Clients are facing a more competitive environment and are swamped with data not only from CRM databases and market research surveys, but they are also being asked to incorporate social media data. The challenge usually seems to be information paralysis.
My first recommendation is to take a step back and consider the main insight objectives and then the think about the data available. Usually this means deciding what data will offer the best analytical ROI. Depending on what that answer is we may then be able to provide tools to filter out the noise and help clients focus on what’s most important and actionable.
3. What is the method to your blogging success? What inspires your blogs?
Good question. I moderate a large networking group on LinkedIn called Next Gen Market Research (NGMR). Some of what I blog about is related to discussions that take place within that board. Other times it’s either specifically about the intersection between market research and data/text mining or industry events I’m asked to take part in.
One of the things researchers need though is inspiration from outside our industry, especially from marketing and management. I’ve done several interviews with thought leaders in this are from Al and Laura Ries to Seth Godin and Guy Kawasaki.
4. What do you think is the future of social media?
Most social media monitoring focuses on Twitter simply for the reason that data is easy to get to. We’re finally seeing the walled garden from social networks like Facebook come down. This means we’ll have more applicable, representative and interesting data than ever before. The future lies in focusing on what’s most relevant for your business objectives and incorporating that data into your ongoing management and marketing process.
5. What advice would you give to someone who is just starting out?
Realize that you can’t do everything and nor should you. The first step should be to take an inventory of the data available, understanding where your customer base is most active and then developing a strategy which should be more focused initially
but will also need to change as your needs and the environment changes.
6. Where can we find you on the web/on Twitter/Facebook/etc.?
AndersonAnalytics.com and OdinText.com
Twitter: @TomHCAnderson
