Making Social Media Intelligence More Actionable: Germin8

Germin8 is a Social Media Intelligence company founded in 2007 and headquartered in Mumbai. The firm is focused on building products that improve social media customer engagement and influence brand decisions via marketing insights, thus enabling brands to become more customer centric.

The emergence of social media has led to the introduction of various new and innovative methods of marketing. The ability to engage with countless users, regardless of their proximity, has immensely revolutionized the marketing sphere. The global market appears to be promising and lucrative to most business leaders. The social media marketing space is becoming crowded since people are offering a plethora of services. According to Gartner’s hype cycle, social analytics and big data are on the downswing. This reduction in hype is a positive sign that suggests that the field is maturing, with an increased focus on actual business value.

“Unless the desired business outcome is defined and articulated by the decision maker, the analytics will not be actionable and relevant. Conversely, it is important that social media tools be more tailored to the industry they are serving, such that the insights they deliver are actionable,” states Ranjit Nair, CEO and Co-Founder at Germin8.

Ranjit is a PhD in Artificial Intelligence from University of Southern California and has served as a research scientist in the field of Decision Theory and Artificial Intelligence for Honeywell Labs in Minneapolis. He returned to India in 2006 to establish Germin8 because of his strong passion for analytics and building software products. Ranjit believes that a robust industry-specific approach plays a vital role in making social media analytics actionable in real time.

Germin8’s listening and monitoring product helps marketers and brands understand customer experiences, preferences and needs, in real time, thus enabling more relevant and effective engagement with their customers.

The Germin8 Edge
Germin8’s impeccable service offerings have set a high bar in the technology space. The company takes special interest in developing solutions that will enhance the industry.

The first product from the Germin8 suite of social media intelligence products is called Germin8 Social Listening. This product helps brands make sense of huge volumes of conversations in social media about their brand, products, competitors and campaigns, and converts them into actionable industry-specific insights. The product was launched in 2012 and is currently being used by over 130 brands, directly or through partner agencies. Germin8 Social Listening allows its users to directly engage with customers and prospects on social media through a uniform interface, regardless of which site the customer is on. This direct response module helps with online reputation management, social customer care and lead generation, by collecting conversations that deserve a response quickly and allows the user to respond via one interface.

The newest product launched by Germin8 is called Social Metrix. This product helps a brand manager measure the effectiveness of his or her social media content and engagement strategy, and provides actionable insights to make real-time tactical decisions. The product measures channel performance in terms of key metrics around audience, content and responsiveness. The product provides insights on what worked and what did not work compared to one’s competition, making sure that one can stay ahead of the curve.

Germin8 products are being used by leading brands in sectors like banking, financial services, FMCG, consumer durables, and media and entertainment.

Some of the factors that differentiate Germin8’s offerings are its gigantic index of social media sites that go beyond the traditional social media platforms as well as the clear actions one can take via their industry-specific insights.

“Real-time social media listening coupled with a uniform engagement console and industry-specific analytics, enable our users to make better strategic and tactical decisions,” adds Ranjit. Many customers report measurable improvements in performance after adopting Germin8’s products, for ex. a major Indian banking client has been able to reduce its social media engagement turnaround time (TAT) with their customers by 50 percent in a short period of time.

Future Outlook
Germin8 looks forward to expanding globally across the Middle East and Americas in the days to come. The organization also expects to launch several new products powered by social media intelligence in the near future that address specific pain points faced by marketing professionals in various industries. They hope that their suite of products will become the de facto standard for when it comes to understanding customer experience.

Ranjit concludes by saying, “If you want to derive value out of social media intelligence – by knowing what customers are saying about your brand compared to your competitors, by knowing if your marketing communication is working, or by engaging with customers more effectively – I would recommend that you contact us. We’ll be happy to help you on your way to success.”