New Research Project Hopes to Tame Big Data Explosion
A European Commission-funded project is looking to develop an innovative analysis tool that will help SME marketing agencies and their customers, particularly large brands, improve the efficiency of their social media actions. Marketing and corporate communications have experienced a paradigm shift in the past several years which are contributing to the emergence of the Big Data Era, with millions of social media posts being generated per day, around the clock. However, what user activity actually translates into value-generating actions for a company or a brand remains a mystery, resulting in ineffective measurement of campaign impact and return on investment. Given the increase in social media as a part of the marketing arsenal, new tools for analysing, measuring and visualizing social media content are in high demand. The OPTIMIZR project will combine information technology, marketing data and modeling capabilities that enable the system to provide predicted outcomes from various scenarios and social media marketing strategies. The project’s scientific objective is to understand social network structure and its impact on information diffusion, in order to develop analytical tools for campaign optimization. OPTIMIZR is funded by the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme, concretely under the “Research for the Benefit of SMEs” (Capacities) programme. The project began in September 2013 and will last for 24 months. The 1.138.994€ contribution from Brussels brings together 8 European organisations from 5 different countries: Belgium, Hungary, Italy, Malta and Spain. About the Project Partners Maven7 (Hungary) – maven7.com Maven7 Ltd. is the leading Network Analysis, Data Mining, Research and Consulting Company. Maven7 utilizes business applications of the latest research and innovations, and through two of its distinguished scientist co-founders, Albert-László Barabási (Northeastern University, Harvard University - US) and Tamás Vicsek (Eötvös Loránd University - HUN), has close working relations with the prime academic think tanks of the discipline. Maven7 provides deep analysis in three main fields: Social media analysis with influence mapping (Facebook, Twitter, Blogs), Key Opinion Leader mapping and community analysis for the pharmaceutical industry, and Organizational Network Analysis for consulting companies and OD practitioners. Accurat S.R.L. (Italy) – www.accurat.it Accurat is an information design agency, founded in 2011, with offices in Milan and New York. Accurat analyzes data and contexts and designs analytical tools and visual narratives that provide awareness, comprehension and engagement. It envisions and identifies new ways to structure information, revealing and addressing latent needs, desires and opportunities. Basing its methods on the design thinking approach, Accurat specializes in providing its clients with consultancies, services and products, such as: static and interactive data visualizations, user experience for services and products, web, tablet and mobile interfaces, analytical tools and dashboards, information management platforms, interactive maps and urban assessment tools and social media data analysis and visualizations. Overence Social Commerce S.L. (Spain) – www.overence.com Overence offers social media marketing tools and services for business. By using strategy, technology and analytics, Overence helps companies to engage customers, boost their sales through social media campaigns and monetize their digital channels. Overence commercializes technological products and consultancy services to make grow organizations social media presence and make it profitable. Next Wave Europe Kft. (Hungary) – www.nextwaveeurope.com Next Wave Europe is part strategy consultancy, part creative agency and part Communications Company. It is a multidisciplinary team of strategic, analytic and creative talents of many backgrounds. A new breed of agency - that is dedicated to the challenge of creating connected brands and connected organizations. With dual headquarters in Berlin, Germany and Budapest, Hungary and business activities across the Central European region, the company is a fast expanding brand and strategy agency focused on digital content creation and the social experience. Established in 2008, Next Wave Europe is an award-winning boutique brand and strategy agency focused on digital content creation and the social experience. Active across the CEE-region, clients include Nike Inc., L'Oréal Paris, UPC, Danone and Fressnapf. Icon Studios LTD. (Malta) – www.icon.com.mt ICON is an innovative web and mobile application development company with specialist knowledge in e-business and social-marketing techniques. Setup in the year 2000 and with 13 years of experience, ICON has consistently created remarkable user-centred interactive solutions for world-class brands. Through its’ operations, ICON has provided consistent, results-oriented technology for the business community and has offered high-value consultancy on ways to maximise business results through the better application of technology. Its clients come from a broad range of industries giving us the opportunity to work in different industries and markets. ICON’s principal experience lies in the tourism and e-business sector. Cink Shaking Business S.L. (Spain) – cink.es Cink is a Spanish social media company located in Barcelona and London. It is focused on the research and development of social-based tools and platforms, providing technology products and strategy consultancy services to help companies make the most of its digital assets. Cink provides support starting from the conceptualization of strategic planning on Internet presence up to its execution, going through the development of social platforms, multi-platform technological solutions and training. Among other works, Cink has recently released Social-Buy.com a social-based e-commerce solution, and BS2C a product recommendation engine based on users information on social-networks. University of Namur (Belgium) - xn.unamur.be The research group on Complexity and Networks (xN) belongs to the Namur Center for Complex Systems (naXys), an Interdisciplinary research center of the University of Namur, Belgium. Based on empirical observations, its research aims at developing computational tools to uncover and visualize information in networked systems, as well as building a theoretical framework for dynamical processes on dynamical networks. Its areas of interest include: cascades of information in online media, structure of large-scale social networks and patterns of human mobility, with their implications for the modeling of epidemic spreading. Ateknea Solutions (Spain) – www.ateknea.com Ateknea Solutions brings together four research and innovation companies operating at a European level for over 15 years. Ateknea aims to assist European SMEs in transforming their innovative ideas into real marketable products and services that are crucial for their success. By offering tailor-made services for innovation, such as technological development and coaching, Ateknea’s experts cover a wide range of engineering and scientific areas. Ateknea has locations in Barcelona, Brussels, Budapest, Krakow and Valetta.
Countries
Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czechia, Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Spain, Finland, France, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, Slovenia, Slovakia, United Kingdom