Singapore to develop social analytics for biz

The Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) has issued a call-for-collaboration (CFC) to invite proposals for the development and deployment of social analytics for enterprises.

This is aimed at helping companies gain business insights by leveraging data from social networks, according to a statement. A key objective includes facilitating the adoption of a common set of services to help firms lower costs.

Industries that will be targeted include tourism, retail, and food and beverage, IDA pointed out. It explained sectors that stand to benefit most are those which rely heavily on brand recognition, trust as well as those offering an experiential or customer-centric service.

Currently, 1.5 billion people globally interact actively over social networks on a monthly basis, noted the IDA. "Singaporeans are among the most active social media users, with 3 million using Facebook and 900,000 on Twitter. This large and growing base of consumers on social media presents a significant opportunity for business enterprises to leverage upon to drive business outcomes and growth," it said.

The CFC will focus on three areas:

• Social listening, the practice of gathering data from social media sites, and applying analytics techniques to derive insights and benchmark versus the competition and industry.
• Cross-channel analytics, which integrates social media and information from multiple customer touchpoints (eg. Web sites, mobile, in-store visits, structured market research surveys, call centres, and etc) to provide companies with a 360 degree view of the customer's experience and enable improvement through feedback.
• Social engagement, where solutions enable enterprises to deepen two-way social engagement with customers, prospects and influencers that will in turn lead to revenue generation.