Social media has changed the landscape of banking significantly within the last decade. This topic is obviously not something brand new to the industry.  It is safe to say that most of the industry understands what social media tools could potentially do for its business.

In general, what banks know about social media listening tools are typically true across the field. The banking industry can improve the way it detects and handles crisis'...

It has been nearly almost decade now since Netflix expanded its business into streaming media (2007). Since then, the company has exploded in growth by expanding quickly into Canada and now provides its services in over 190 countries.

The year 2013 was a special year. That was the year when Netflix entered into the film and television industry and released its first "Netflix Original" content, House of Cards.

Fast forward to today, Netflix now...

Most brands in the CPG industry spend a considerable amount of money on product research and development (R&D). In 2014, Apple spent 3% ($1.7B) of its annual earnings in R&D.

If you are a start-up or a small business, chances are, you are going to be spending way more than 3% of your annual earnings on R&D. In 2008, the ‘Business R&D and Innovation Survey’ revealed that small companies (5 to 24 employees) spent at least 50% more than small...

Infegy Atlas released a few new features recently and my favorite one is called, Audience Interests.

Audience interests allows analysts to discover what audience(s) of a particular subject are also likely to be interested in.

For example, people who talk about the BMW i3 are 4.9X more likely to talk about canoeing/kayaking.

To give you a deep dive of how Audience Interests can be applied to help inspire new campaign ideas, I've set up an...

Marketing to environmentally conscious consumers  isn't necessarily something new. Brands have been capitalizing on this for some time now, and much of those efforts have been abused because of the ambiguous rules of what sustainable marketing is.

The FTC has since (2012) revised its "Green Guides" in hopes of better-protecting consumers from being deceived by deceptive advertising and marketing.

However, the question is -- even with revised...

In recent years, fast fashion stores like H&M, Forever 21, and Zara have been stealing a good portion of sales from traditional fashion retailers.

Macy's, for example, a store that had a solid footing in fashion is now on its way to closing 36 stores this year. Other stores like Nordstrom, American Apparel, Wet Seal, and Kohl's are facing similar struggles as well.

We often hear how fast fashion is killing the game or how traditional fashion...

According to the PEW Research Center, two-thirds of American adults are now using social media platforms. Wowza!

Yet, it’s not just keeping up with friends and family that happen on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Consumers share pricing information, recommendations, opinions on tangibles and experiences, and other highly valuable information on their preferences, journeys, and experiences. This has become a natural way for...

Creating a survey that people will actually answer or that provides valuable answers to business questions can definitely be one of those, "sounds pretty easy, but not really" type of deals.

Pew Research says, questionnaire design is perhaps the most important part of the survey process. It is the creation of questions that accurately measure the opinions, experiences and behaviors in public.

If you're having trouble learning the fundamentals...

Who seriously doesn't love affordable makeup?!

While there are plenty of competing brands that are "budget friendly" when it comes to buying makeup, two brands have been really killing the "more bang for your buck" motto.

If you simply Google "affordable makeup", you'll run into many savvy beauty bloggers online that consistently bring up two brands in particular when it comes to buying decent quality makeup at low prices, NYX and E.L.F.

Take...

I have seen plenty of examples where new and seasoned social media monitoring users get stumped with client requests on social media research.

How come there isn't enough data on Allegra within the past year? Why aren’t parents talking about buying their kids a new Xbox on Black Friday? How are we supposed to analyze Cheerio loving moms, if moms aren't talking enough about Cheerios?!

These examples of unanswered questions in turn make it...

The highly anticipated Star Wars: The Force Awakens movie is almost here! Leading up to its release a wide variety of consumer product companies have been leveraging the Star Wars brand for their own clever gains.

For example, some brands have used the iconic movie to spark up new marketing initiatives while others used it to pitch new products.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the 'Episode VII' is projected to make $3.5billion...

Depending on what industries you are working with, planning and structuring a new report can be stressful.

A brief walkthrough of the typical process would be meeting with the client, understanding their needs, brainstorming ideas together, structuring and executing research, pulling data together, making sense of the data, writing and editing, formatting, designing, presenting data findings and making recommendations.

Don’t let the whole...

Researchers, analysts and insight teams who have adopted social media monitoring into their line of business often run into a very common problem — low content volume.

Low content volume is essentially a return of low results for the topic, subject, or brand you’re researching. This makes the task of finding interesting and meaningful insights more difficult for analysts.

But fret not fellow researchers! Here are 3 ways to overcome this problem:

Drugstores in the United States have moved beyond just being destinations for medicine and convenience items.

Prominent brands like CVS and Walgreens now serve as one-stop locations where consumers can pick up medicine, snacks, candies, toiletries, greeting cards, pet supplies, cosmetics and groceries.

Fun fact: Did you know people talk online about pizza four times more often than tacos and burgers?

According to Statista, consumers spend around $33 billion U.S. dollars annually in quick service pizza restaurants and nearly $25 billion of that total is spent on pizza takeout or delivery.

For scale, Fortune reported that in just 2013, people spent $13.7 billion on ice cream, an amount which doesn’t even come close to trumping how much money...

Whether you’re a social media analyst scrambling for data prior to pitch time or a consumer insights team working to deliver new insights, the research aspect for analyzing social media data can be daunting at times.

High expectations from your c-suite, internal teams, or clients can place extreme pressure for coming up with impressive findings. However, regardless of who the data is being provided to, in the end the accuracy and authenticity...

For many of us, the internet and social media are the first places we turn to for feedback about medicines, to make self-diagnoses, educate ourselves about diseases, explore different treatment options, and discuss our own health experiences.

Though the majority of consumer facing companies are now on social media, pharmaceutical companies remain hesitant to embrace social media in any form.

Much of this can be attributed to strict industry...

Buyer personas provide incredible value to organizations in understanding who they should be focusing on and how to sell to and communicate with these consumers more effectively.

Traditionally, these have mainly been created by conducting 1-on-1 interviews or through surveys. However, in today’s digital world, it’s hard to NOT find someone’s opinions and interests online, and this provides a great new way to approach building buyer personas.

...

With Millennials gradually replacing their parents (baby boomers) strength in purchasing power, many brands are trying to connect with this lucrative group of consumers better.

One of those brands happens to be fast-food giant, McDonald’s, which over the past years has lost touch with this particular segment.

Over a span of five years on social media, not only have Millennials’ positive sentiment towards McDonalds dropped, but conversations...