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Digimind partners with Ditto to add image recognition to social media monitoring

Social media monitoring has usually focused on text-based messages only. Now a new partnership aims to bring more context to our social conversations.
Written by Eileen Brown, Contributor

New York competitive intelligence software company Digimind has announced a partnership with Ditto Labs to take social media monitoring "to the next level with image recognition".

Due to the growth of image-based social networks like Instagram, Pinterest, and Snapchat, images have become one of the most popular pieces of content shared on social media.

Posting images across social networks boosts engagement rates for brands and users.

About 3.2 billion photos are published and shared online every day, yet many social analytics packages ignore images and instead focusing on text-based statuses.

Digimind has integrated image recognition into its social media monitoring software, Digimind Social.

The Ditto integration lets brands identify the use of their logos across Twitter no matter the item or context.

The detected images are then collected and processed on Digimind Social in the same way textual references, articles, or social media postings are analysed.

Logos that are small, obscured, upside down, or in cluttered image montages are recognised. Object and scene recognition means that brands can position their products exactly where there customers are using them.

Sentiment is measured by the amount of people in the image and counts how may of them are smiling. It even identifies objects such as bags, cars, car logos, or shoes.

Understanding how images are used will help companies get a clearer understanding of consumer habits and sentiment toward the brand's products and services. Images convey more powerful meaning than plain text and contextualise status messages.

Brands will be able to "maximize their online reputation and capture hidden brand messages", according to the company.

The tool provides performance analysis of a sponsorship or partnership during a music, sports, or cultural event, as well as measure brand exposure in terms of visual posts that do not mention the brand within the text.

It also lets brands discover new influencer communities or potential brand ambassadors who post images of the brand but do not mention the brand name in the associated status message.

It could even help brands protect against fraudulent products by identifying misuse of logos.

Paul Vivant, CEO of Digimind, said: "80 percent of pictures, including brand logos do not mention the brand in the associated text.

"Brands that do not take this data into account through competitive intelligence and social media analysis miss out on significant amounts of information."

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