The Forrester Wave Enterprise Social Listening Platforms Q1 2016reprint

For B2C Marketing Professionals
The Forrester Wave: Enterprise Social Listening

Platforms, Q1 2016
The 12 Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up
by Samantha Ngo and Mary Pilecki
March 2, 2016
Why Read This Report
Key Takeaways
In our 30-criteria evaluation of enterprise social

listening platform providers, we identified the 12
most significant ones Brandwatch, Cision,
Clarabridge, Crimson Hexagon, NetBase,
Networked Insights, Oracle, Prime Research,
Salesforce, Sprinklr, Synthesio, and Sysomos
and researched, analyzed, and scored them. This
report shows how each provider measures up
and helps B2C marketing professionals make the
right choice.
Synthesio, NetBase, Sprinklr, And Brandwatch

Lead The Pack
Forresters research uncovered a market in which
Synthesio, NetBase, Sprinklr, and Brandwatch
lead the pack. Crimson Hexagon, Clarabridge,
Networked Insights, Salesforce, and Cision offer
competitive options. Prime Research, Oracle, and
Sysomos lag behind.
B2C Marketing Pros Are Looking For
Engagement, Measurement, And Analytics
The social listening market is growing because
more B2C marketers see social intelligence as
a way to get closer to their customers. Social
listening has moved well beyond just looking for
buzz, and now informs marketing content and
product innovation, as well as measures brand
health.
Analytics And Integration Features Are Key
Differentiators
As social intelligence technology matures, more
platforms will offer improved analytics tools and
better integration with business data to help drive
business objectives. Vendors that can provide tools
that help clients better understand the preferences
of their customers and measure the outcomes of
actions resulting from insights will win.
forrester.com
The Forrester Wave: Enterprise Social Listening Platforms, Q1 2016

by Samantha Ngo and Mary Pilecki
with Carlton A. Doty, Clement Teo, Nick Hayes, and Emily Miller
March 2, 2016
Table Of Contents
2 Social Listening Platforms Now Inform The
Entire Enterprise
Clients Look To Social Listening Platforms To
Fill In The Gaps
Vendors Advance Their Analytics And
Integration Capabilities To Keep Pace
4 Enterprise Social Listening Platforms
Evaluation Overview
Evaluated Vendors And Inclusion Criteria
6 Vendor Profiles
Notes & Resources

Forrester conducted product evaluations in
November 2015 and interviewed 12 vendors and
36 customer references.
Related Research Documents

Drive Toward Social Intelligence Maturity
The Forrester Wave: Asia Pacific Enterprise
Listening Platforms, Q1 2016
The Forrester Wave: Social Relationship
Platforms, Q2 2015
Predictions 2016: Social Gets Reinforcements
Leaders
Strong Performers
Understand The Enterprise Listening Platform

Landscape
Contenders
12 Supplemental Material
Forrester Research, Inc., 60 Acorn Park Drive, Cambridge, MA 02140 USA

+1 617-613-6000 | Fax: +1 617-613-5000 | forrester.com
2016 Forrester Research, Inc. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change. Forrester,
Technographics, Forrester Wave, RoleView, TechRadar, and Total Economic Impact are trademarks of Forrester
Research, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies. Unauthorized copying or
distributing is a violation of copyright law. Citations@forrester.com or +1 866-367-7378
March 2, 2016

Social Listening Platforms Now Inform The Entire Enterprise

As the landscape of social technology develops, social listening platforms prove their value beyond
simple brand monitoring by doubling down on analytics and surfacing insights that can be used across
the enterprise. Since our last evaluation of the space, B2C marketing professionals have increased
the sophistication of their social strategies, and thus the complexity of their use cases. Social listening
vendors have kept pace through product enhancements in some areas and consolidation in others.
Clients Look To Social Listening Platforms To Fill In The Gaps
Marketers no longer see social data collection as a critical challenge.1 With that out of the way, their
use cases for social listening have evolved beyond the basics of buzz and public relations crisis
management (see Figure 1). Now, marketers look for all forms of social insights to better understand
their customer and use social listening to:
Inform cross-channel campaigns. Social listening platforms can surface insights from social
data, whether its user-generated content or images of people using a product to help inspire
campaigns 26% of customer references in this Forrester Wave do just this and the need for
inspiration is apparent. In 2015, 38% of avid social marketers stated finding or creating content
was a top problem and 53% stated measuring the performance of their brand profiles was a top
challenge.2 Only 21% of US online adults believe that brands share interesting content on social
media websites and online social tools.3
Provide customer service. Customers expect to get service through social media channels. Over
the past two years, more than 37% of US online adults contacted a company on Twitter for
service growing from 22% in 2013.4 Brands are using social media as a customer service
channel not only to meet customer expectations, but also to reduce call center expenses. Of the
client references we surveyed in this study, 22% use social data for customer service.5
Measure brand health. One-third of customer references mention understanding customers or
brand monitoring and brand health tracking as part of their current initiatives for social listening.6
Brands use social to keep an ear to the ground for new content, understand trends, and develop
a relationship with their customers. Clients are looking to understand the why behind customer
behavior and turning to social means getting data straight from the source the customer.
Drive product innovation. Social data must be tied to business metrics that make sense to those
outside the digital or marketing teams. Emerging use cases, like using social insights for product
development help brands get buy-in across the organization. Seventeen percent of customer
references surveyed in this study use social data for product development.
2016 Forrester Research, Inc. Unauthorized copying or distributing is a violation of copyright law.
Citations@forrester.com or +1 866-367-7378
March 2, 2016

FIGURE 1 Social Listening Platforms Help Solve Client Challenges
What are your current initiatives and goals for social listening?
Brand monitoring/brand health
36%
Measuring campaign success
36%
33%
Gain better understanding of customers

Customer service or customer care
22%
Inspiring content for campaigns
22%
Risk and crisis management
19%
Competitive analysis
19%
Product innovation
17%
Base: 36 social listening platform users

Source: Forresters Q4 2015 Global Enterprise Social Listening Platforms Customer Reference Phone/Online
Survey
Vendors Advance Their Analytics And Integration Capabilities To Keep Pace

As we see this technology mature, listening vendors are keeping pace by adding more features and
enhancing functionality. For instance, 10 of the 12 vendors in this Forrester Wave evaluation offer some
sort of customer engagement features. As these enhancements mature across the category, we predict
that social listening platforms will converge with social relationship platforms.7 But customers of social
listening platforms still struggle to measure the impact of social listening and validate social datas
usage across the organization.8 To support these endeavors, vendors must tie the social insights that
their platforms deliver to the real-world business objectives of their clients. Specifically, social listening
platforms must:
Integrate with other marketing and business tools. Social maturity involves tying social
metrics to business objectives.9 Social usage continues to grow, with over 70% of consumers
wanting to engage on social channels, but only 10% of marketers expanding or upgrading their
implementation of listening platforms.10 As one client told us, Ive measured impressions before
and when I presented it to my CFO at the end of the quarter, he shrugged. I dont want to be there
again.11 Marketers in search of a social platform should include in their critical selection criteria
the ease of integration with their existing CRM, customer analytics tools, or voice-of-the-customer
(VoC) tools.
Surface insights for action across the enterprise. Social listening tools enable you to parse
out influencers and audiences that matter most to cut through the noise, bubble up insights,
and take action across the enterprise. The success of Yoplaits removal of high fructose corn
March 2, 2016

syrup is just one example of a product team taking note of social insights.12 Firms can use social
listening platforms to test campaign results or find insights to inspire them. A major automotive
manufacturer leveraged social listening to find insights about consumers perceptions of electric
vehicles in Europe. Identifying five key barriers to purchase, the manufacturer used the barriers
as pillars for their messaging, getting their customers excited about electric cars and positioning
themselves as the market leader.13 Several vendors have dashboards that track predefined key
performance indicators (KPIs) like intent to buy to help surface the most valuable insights. Data
visualization features (like topic maps) have also become valuable tools.
Measure the intangible and inspire new ideas. Social listening platform vendors are beginning to
understand that theres much more to be done with sentiment than just tracking an overall positive
or negative tone for a specific product, campaign, or brand. Vendors are leveraging text analysis
methodologies overlaid with audience or topic analyses to find relationships between the two to
help clients better understand their customers. Before its new crime show aired, a television network
looked at the actress who played the main characters followers on Twitter and found that audience
had affinities for telenovelas, Telemundo, The Real Housewives series, and beauty trends not your
typical crime show watchers. Using this information to inform its marketing, the show delivered the
networks second-best A18-49 (Nielsen audience rating) result for a Thursday drama premiere in
nearly four years.14
Enterprise Social Listening Platforms Evaluation Overview

To assess the state of the enterprise customer listening market and see how the vendors stack up
against each other, Forrester evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of top enterprise social listening
vendors. After examining past research, user needs assessments, and vendor and expert interviews,
we developed a comprehensive set of evaluation criteria. We evaluated vendors against 30 criteria,
which we grouped into three high-level buckets:
Current offering. In this section, we assess how vendors compare in data coverage, how they
process data for accuracy and how they enable insights to action. We also looked at how social
listening vendors help support their clients social strategies and their current capabilities to
combine data to enable enterprise social listening.
Strategy. We evaluated each vendors vision and road map in the journey to enterprise customer
listening. Vision and future-looking enhancements that lead to faster insights to action were the
crux of this section.
Market presence. Lastly, we measured the vendors market based on the number of clients,
revenues, and growth rates.
March 2, 2016

Evaluated Vendors And Inclusion Criteria

Forrester included 12 vendors in the assessment: Brandwatch, Cision, Clarabridge, Crimson Hexagon,
NetBase, Networked Insights, Oracle, Prime Research, Salesforce, Sprinklr, Synthesio, and Sysomos.
Each of these vendors has (see Figure 2):
Revenue from social listening product. We evaluated vendors with more than $15 million in
revenue generated specifically from their social listening product. We see this revenue threshold as
an indicator of company stability and experience with client demands.
An enterprise orientation. Forresters client firms are mostly enterprise sized, which we define as
more than $1 billion dollars in revenue. Only vendors with more than 50 enterprise customers were
included, as these vendors have helped solve the problems Forresters clients are seeking to answer.
End-to-end technology for social listening. Forrester selected vendors that offer technology
that captures social data, presents it to users, and analyzes it to produce actionable insights. In
cases where vendors provide services to clients, they must use their own technology for all of
these functions.
March 2, 2016

FIGURE 2 Evaluated Vendors: Product Information And Selection Criteria
Vendor
Product evaluated
Brandwatch
Brandwatch Analytics
Cision
Visible Intelligence (VI), V*IQ,

Cision Social Edition, & Cision PRE
Clarabridge
CX Engagor
Crimson Hexagon
Product version
evaluated
Date evaluated
15.2.0
Q4 2015
N/A
Q4 2015
Clarabridge 7
Q4 2015
The Crimson Hexagon Platform
N/A
Q4 2015
NetBase
NetBase, NetBase LIVE Pulse, & Audience 3D
N/A
Q4 2015
Networked Insights
Kairos
Q4 2015
Oracle
Oracle Social Relationship Management

(SRM) Platform
N/A
Q4 2015
Prime Research
Media Insight Suite
N/A
Q4 2015
Salesforce
Social Studio
N/A
Q4 2015
Sprinklr
Sprinklr Experience Cloud
9.2.1
Q4 2015
Synthesio
Synthesio
N/A
Q4 2015
Sysomos
Heartbeat & Map
1.14.2 Heartbeat &

1.14.2 Map
Q4 2015
Vendor selection criteria

The vendor must have revenues of at least $15 million generated specifically from their social listening
product.
The vendor must have at least 50 enterprise customers. Forrester defines enterprise sized customers as
firms with at least $1 billion in annual revenue.
The vendor must offer technology that captures social data, presents it to users, and analyzes it to
produce actionable insights. In cases where vendors provide services to clients, they must use their
own technology for all of these functions.
Vendor Profiles
This evaluation of the enterprise social listening market is intended to be a starting point only. We
encourage clients to view detailed product evaluations and adapt criteria weightings to fit their
individual needs through the Forrester Wave Excel-based vendor comparison tool (see Figure 3).
March 2, 2016

FIGURE 3 Forrester Wave: Enterprise Social Listening Platforms, Q1 16
Challengers Contenders
Strong
Strong
Performers
Leaders
Synthesio
Networked
Insights
Prime
Research
NetBase
Clarabridge
Crimson Hexagon
Cision
Oracle
Current
offering
Brandwatch
Sprinklr
Salesforce
Go to Forrester.com to
download the Forrester
Wave tool for more
detailed product
evaluations, feature
comparisons, and
customizable rankings.
Sysomos
Market presence
Weak
Weak
Strategy
Strong
March 2, 2016

Forresters
Weighting
Brandwatch
Cision
Clarabridge
Crimson Hexagon
NetBase
Networked Insights
Oracle
Prime Research
Salesforce
Sprinklr
Synthesio
Sysomos
FIGURE 3 Forrester Wave: Enterprise Social Listening Platforms, Q1 16 (Cont.)
CURRENT OFFERING
Data sources
Data processing
Dashboard functionality
Integration
Consulting, analysis, and
support services
Research reporting
50%
10%
20%
20%
20%
20%
4.17
4.80
3.70
4.25
4.00
5.00
3.51
3.40
3.75
3.60
4.00
3.00
3.64
4.05
3.65
4.50
4.00
3.00
3.44
3.85
3.95
2.80
2.00
5.00
4.10
3.20
4.90
3.00
4.00
5.00
3.68
3.75
4.20
3.30
2.00
5.00
2.96
3.35
2.10
3.50
3.00
3.00
3.63
3.50
3.95
3.95
1.00
5.00
3.43
3.75
3.20
4.05
3.00
3.00
4.17
4.20
4.25
4.50
5.00
3.00
4.46
5.00
4.25
4.05
4.00
5.00
2.50
1.50
2.45
3.30
2.00
3.00
10%
3.00 3.00 2.00 3.00 4.00 4.00 3.00 5.00 4.00 4.00 5.00 2.00
STRATEGY
Corporate strategy:
Enterprise customer
listening focus
Customer retention
Product road map
50%
50%
3.80 2.50 2.70 3.40 4.80 2.60 2.30 1.70 2.70 4.00 4.60 2.20
4.00 3.00 3.00 4.00 5.00 3.00 3.00 1.00 3.00 3.00 5.00 2.00
10%
40%
2.00 2.00 4.00 2.00 3.00 3.00 0.00 4.00 0.00 5.00 5.00 0.00
4.00 2.00 2.00 3.00 5.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 3.00 5.00 4.00 3.00
MARKET PRESENCE
Customers
Revenue
Customer growth rate
0%
70%
20%
10%
4.10
5.00
2.00
2.00
2.40
3.00
1.00
1.00
4.50
5.00
4.00
2.00
2.60
3.00
1.00
3.00
2.80
3.00
2.00
3.00
3.00
3.00
2.00
5.00
2.80
3.00
3.00
1.00
2.30
2.00
3.00
3.00
4.50
5.00
5.00
0.00
3.90
4.00
3.00
5.00
3.30
4.00
2.00
1.00
4.10
5.00
3.00
0.00
All scores are based on a scale of 0 (weak) to 5 (strong).
Leaders
Synthesio. Synthesios ability to align social listening data with a firms other business data
enables its clients to quickly mature their listening programs. This is achieved primarily through the
strong ecosystem of partnerships Synthesio has built with vendors, as well as an extensive API
that supports merging all forms of business data. Lauded for its account management, customer
references speak highly of Synthesios services one said, We selected Synthesio because we
had a gut feeling wed be a number one priority. We were right. Its strategic vision and road map
are focused on the potential of social listening and on metrics that tie to business results rather
than attempting to become an all-in-one solution. This vendor is also the only one that spoke
specifically of trying to help establish industry standards, an example being the Social Reputation
Score that helps marketers track and communicate social data more eloquently by giving them
a metric that correlates to Net Promoter Score (NPS).15 Overall, Synthesio offers a well-balanced
March 2, 2016

and useful listening product, but you wont find fluid workflows to engagement with this product.
Synthesio is sticking to its core as a pure player in the social listening space, and is best suited for
research and customer insights analysts.
NetBase. Since our 2014 evaluation, NetBase has shifted its business strategy to be fully
customer-centric. After moving its executive vice president of customer success and consulting
to head up the product team, NetBase improved its platform significantly with analytics
methodologies, enhanced reporting outputs, and better business integration partnerships and
features. With Audience 3D, clients get data on an audiences interest levels in specific topics in
a clean, useable way, and can even compare how often a custom audience is speaking about
a specific topic compared to the rest of the population. The platform has advanced entity-level
sentiment analysis that gives clients a deeper understanding of how consumers speak about their
products or brands including emotional and behavioral indicators. You pay for what you get with
NetBase comprehensive analytics its an option for those willing to dig deep in their pockets,
and customer references state that NetBase is a good partner, their leadership is in tune, and
the company is forward-thinking. NetBase has an improved user interface to support digital
marketers but is still strongly suited for research users.
Sprinklr. Customers appreciate Sprinklrs full social marketing suite, which allows them to manage
social experiences with customers. Focused on workflows for social data, the vendor provides a
rules-based engine that routes flagged posts to specific agents for more comprehensive social
customer care. Sprinklr has strong integrations with its other social tools, and with business
applications like Marketo for enterprise marketing, Salesforce for CRM, and Adobe SiteCatalyst
and Coremetrics for analytics. However, despite these integrations, its metrics havent evolved
beyond counting volume and hashtag mentions. Sprinklrs audience analysis is not as advanced
as others in this group. The vendor chooses to put efforts into becoming a better suite, rather than
a collection of best-in-class point solutions and its customer references said that the platform
is complex. This platform is best suited for those looking to combine all their social marketing
teams and associated functions.
Brandwatch. Brandwatch understands the need to clarify social listenings business value and
works to disseminate social insights across organizations in a cohesive and comprehensive
way. It exhibits a strong focus on data visualization with its Vizia product, supporting enterprise
social intelligence through easy-to-understand dashboards and an intuitive distribution process.
Customer references expressed Brandwatchs commitment to being a strategic partner, saying
it follows the social to dollars mantra. With its acquisition of PeerIndex in December 2014,
Brandwatch is improving audience analysis through a planned release of advanced audience
features in February 2016. The vendor is expanding out of Europe and North America to focus on
Latin America, but its international presence is still stunted by lack of regional support. Brandwatch
lags slightly behind other Leaders in text analysis methodologies, but the platform is well suited
for large enterprises with users who might have fewer technical people like insights analysts.
Brandwatch is strong in reporting and mobile outputs and has a growing number of financial
services clients due to its commitment to privacy and compliance.
March 2, 2016

Strong Performers
Crimson Hexagon. Customers commend Crimsons efforts to make the platform more userfriendly in recent years and for continually being a strategic partner. One customer reference states,
Its the partnership with them that allows us to mature the practice. Crimson is not just providing
a tool for us to use, but a tool to do better work. Crimsons topic analysis goes beyond keyword
queries and gives clients a broader perspective on what their customers are speaking about in
relation to their brand or original query. Crimson also offers solid audience analysis. However,
a customer reference recalled getting lost in too much detail when drilling down on topic or
audience data. Customer references also reported poor satisfaction in data security, spam filtering,
and workflow management. Crimsons road map further simplifies the platform in efforts to broaden
the user base to include more marketers, rather than just hardcore social analysts. This platform is
best suited for market analysis and research and for use by analysts in unregulated industries.
Clarabridge. Historically focused on text analytics for customer experience, Clarabridge uses
these methodologies to quantify and measure structured and unstructured data for customer
service. It can ingest other forms of business data and built out a comprehensive ecosystem with
other business tools, resulting in intuitive workflow features. The platform comes out-of-the-box
with industry-tuned sentiment templates and has advanced audience and topic analysis features.
Customer references say the tool is straightforward and that the vendor is deep in the art of
social media; however, there is room for the vendor to share client best practices and strengthen
business knowledge to become a strategic partner. While Clarabridge fits the requirements for a
social listening platform, many clients use it as a customer service platform. Its customer-centric
approach makes it a valuable tool for clients looking to use social listening to enhance customer
relationships, but not necessarily to find deep insights for product development, market research,
and more innovative use cases like propensity to buy and brand health.
Networked Insights. Networked Insights product, Kairos, helps clients understand their
opportunity audiences. Its mission is to help clients invest in the right media and create content
that resonates with the right people. Networked Insights text analysis methodologies and
sentiment analysis include entity-level analysis and extraction techniques that categorize the
posters intent or emotion. Its partnership with Twitter allows for deeper audience analysis as
well. Its dashboards are simple to read and have aesthetic appeal. However, customer references
state disappointment in its reporting and integration capabilities. Networked Insights road map
lists integration plans to business tools, but the lack of any current partnerships causes us to be
skeptical of this commitment. It currently takes the vendor two to four weeks to complete a custom
integration with business data if requested by a client. Networked Insights approach to social
listening is creative focused and the vendor is best suited for media and marketing teams.
Salesforce. Salesforce has overcome most of its major integration challenges with its Radian6,
Buddy Media, and ExactTarget acquisitions. Customer references are more satisfied with the
platform, stating the Salesforce team is very supportive and responsive. The workflows in
10
March 2, 2016

Salesforce Social Studio have been simplified, making the platform more user-friendly and
customer references stated the tool was widely adopted by large teams of 30 to 50 people.
Salesforce believes in the democratization of social data and is focused on tools and workflows to
distribute reports and importing and exporting data easily. But Salesforce still has a way to go with
its planned road map many vendors already offer the enhancements in Salesforces future, such
as Instagram hashtag listening, scheduled reporting, and audience demographics data. Buyers
shouldnt be surprised to hear Salesforce Social Studio is still a great fit for clients already using
other Salesforce tools such as its CRM system or service cloud.
Cision. Cision bought Visible Technologies in September 2014 in an effort to track and analyze
earned, owned, and paid media, and ultimately, to make it a communications tool. Its technical
capabilities are still strong, and its user management and workflow features are robust. However,
its topic analysis, privacy measures, and mobile outputs still have further to go to compete in this
market. Though customer references stated their love for their account managers (who also assist
with strategic decisions), they stated a desire for Cision to innovate faster and be more prompt with
questions or requests. Cision is best suited for customers looking for a communications or public
relations tool who want to look at a wide range of media for top trends and analysis.
Contenders
Prime Research. With a strong research and analytics background, Prime Research is a tool for
enterprises looking for a hands-off approach for their social listening tool. Prime Research has
an academic feel it covers the largest amount of media of any vendor in this evaluation and
manually scans offline print sources. Prime Research has advanced text analysis methodologies,
consulting and support, and data coverage; but it remains research-focused and lacks a clear
articulation of enterprise social listening that includes integration with CRM or business intelligence
(BI) tools through partnerships. With longer lead times for technical setup and limited self-service
capabilities, Prime is best for companies wanting to outsource deep social market research.
Oracle. Oracle tells the customer-first story, as evidenced by placing the social cloud in its
customer experience suite and purposefully separating it from the marketing cloud so it intrinsically
ties to sales and commerce. Oracles biggest differentiator is its dynamic link tracking, which is the
closest to social attribution weve seen. But its text analysis methodologies, sentiment analysis,
and influencer analysis lag, indicating a lack of transparency and innovation for data processing
methods. Regarding the user interface, a customer reference stated, It would be helpful if they
could figure out how to make sentiment more digestible in the tool. Theres no doubt that Oracle
has the know-how to drive data integration across an organization- and theres trust in the social
clouds integration with Eloqua, BlueKai, Responsys, etc. Over 80% of its social listening clients
use the full social suite including its tools for social engagement and social marketing. While
Oracle offers an open API to other systems, it is still inherently best suited out-of-the-box for clients
who have Oracle deeply imbedded in related areas of their organization.
11
March 2, 2016

Sysomos. Sysomos recent acquisitions put it in a tough spot for this evaluation, as it will take
some time to stitch together the workflows to immerse Expion and Gazemetrix into the Sysomos
ecosystem. Currently, for the Heartbeat, Map, GazeMetrix, and Expion products, Sysomos fails
to tell a coherent story about the overall product design and how it will be sold, packaged, and
priced. In its current state, customer references commend the vendor for being responsive to
problems and questions, and call it a simple tool to use, and commend its account managers and
customer service. Sysomos is building out a data science layer that will support a single dashboard
for monitoring, listening/research, and action; however, it failed to give us details at the time of
evaluation. Sysomos has all the right tools in place, but stumbles because it lacks a cohesive way
to sell its value proposition. As it stands, Sysomos is a good choice for research purposes and
customer insights analysts; and eventually, for customer care.
Engage With An Analyst

Gain greater confidence in your decisions by working with Forrester thought leaders to apply our
research to your specific business and technology initiatives.
Analyst Inquiry
Analyst Advisory
Ask a question related to our research; a

Forrester analyst will help you put it into
practice and take the next step. Schedule
a 30-minute phone session with the analyst
or opt for a response via email.
Put research into practice with in-depth

analysis of your specific business and
technology challenges. Engagements
include custom advisory calls, strategy
days, workshops, speeches, and webinars.
Learn more about inquiry, including tips for

getting the most out of your discussion.
Learn about interactive advisory sessions

and how we can support your initiatives.
Supplemental Material
Online Resource
The online version of Figure 3 is an Excel-based vendor comparison tool that provides detailed product
evaluations and customizable rankings.
12
March 2, 2016

Data Sources Used In This Forrester Wave

Forrester used a combination of 3 data sources to assess the strengths and weaknesses of each
solution. We evaluated the vendors participating in this Forrester Wave, in part, using materials that
they provided to us by November 20, 2016.
Vendor surveys. Forrester surveyed vendors on their capabilities as they relate to the evaluation
criteria. Once we analyzed the completed vendor surveys, we conducted vendor calls where
necessary to gather details of vendor qualifications.
Product demos. We asked vendors to conduct demonstrations of their products functionality. We
used findings from these product demos to validate details of each vendors product capabilities.
Customer reference calls. To validate product and vendor qualifications, Forrester also conducted
reference calls with 3 of each vendors current customers.
The Forrester Wave Methodology
We conduct primary research to develop a list of vendors that meet our criteria to be evaluated in this
market. From that initial pool of vendors, we then narrow our final list. We choose these vendors based
on: 1) product fit; 2) customer success; and 3) Forrester client demand. We eliminate vendors that have
limited customer references and products that dont fit the scope of our evaluation.
After examining past research, user need assessments, and vendor and expert interviews, we develop
the initial evaluation criteria. To evaluate the vendors and their products against our set of criteria,
we gather details of product qualifications through a combination of lab evaluations, questionnaires,
demos, and/or discussions with client references. We send evaluations to the vendors for their review,
and we adjust the evaluations to provide the most accurate view of vendor offerings and strategies.
We set default weightings to reflect our analysis of the needs of large user companies and/or
other scenarios as outlined in the Forrester Wave evaluation and then score the vendors based
on a clearly defined scale. We intend these default weightings to serve only as a starting point and
encourage readers to adapt the weightings to fit their individual needs through the Excel-based tool.
The final scores generate the graphical depiction of the market based on current offering, strategy, and
market presence. Forrester intends to update vendor evaluations regularly as product capabilities and
vendor strategies evolve. For more information on the methodology that every Forrester Wave follows,
go to http://www.forrester.com/marketing/policies/forrester-wave-methodology.html.
Integrity Policy
We conduct all our research, including Forrester Wave evaluations, in accordance with our Integrity
Policy. For more information, go to http://www.forrester.com/marketing/policies/integrity-policy.html.
13
March 2, 2016

Endnotes
Thirty six customer references interviewed for the Forrester Wave: Enterprise Social Listening Platforms, Q1 2016
evaluation answered the question, What are current challenges for your social listening program?
During the Social Relationship Platform Wave evaluation, Forrester surveyed 118 avid social marketers. Source:
Forresters Q1 2015 Global Social Relationship Platform Wave Online Survey.
Source: Forresters North American Consumer Technographics Online Benchmark Survey (Part 1), 2015.
3
4
Over the past two years, more than one-third of US online adults contacted a company on Twitter for service, and
this trend is growing. For more information, see the Build Customer Relationships With Social Customer Care
Forrester report.
answered the question, What are your current initiatives for your social listening program? In an analysis of
responses, approximately 20% mentioned customer service.
answered the question, What are your current initiatives for your social listening program? In an analysis of
responses, 30% mentioned the listed initiatives as part of the goals for their program.
We see the convergence of social relationship platforms and social listening platforms on the horizon, as evidenced
by Sysomos acquisition of Expion, and the vendor capabilities we saw in this Forrester Wave evaluation. For more
information, see the Predictions 2016: Social Gets Reinforcements Forrester report.
Thirty six customer references interviewed for the Forrester Wave: Enterprise Social Listening Platforms, Q1
2016 answered the question, What are current challenges for your social listening program? 39% mentioned
understanding insights and making sense of the data. 32% talked about internal challenges.
According to our social maturity model, integrating social data with other business data is the highest level of maturity.
It isnt easy and you have to crawl, walk, and run before you fly. For more information, see the The Road Map To
Integrated Social Intelligence Forrester report.
In 2015, our Consumer Technographics Social Technographics framework found that 20% of US online adults (18+)
appreciate social interactions with a company, 25% expect social interactions, and 27% demand social interactions.
See the Social Technographics Defines Your Social Strategies And Tactics Forrester report and Forresters North
American Consumer Technographics Online Benchmark Survey (Part 1), 2015.
10
Our data also shows that 10% of marketing decision-makers companies in North America are expanding or
upgrading their listening platforms. Source: Forresters Global Business Technographics Marketing Survey, 2015.
Source: Inquiry with a Forrester analyst on February 10, 2016.
11
After a consumer posted about removing high fructose corn syrup from the Yoplait recipe, the company decided to
take action. It used this post and launched a campaign around social, showcasing its commitment to its customers.
Source: Sparked by a Post, Yoplait (http://www.yoplait.com/yoplait-in-action/great-minds-think-alike).
12
Source: Synthesios Great Big Book of Insights, Synthesio, February 5, 2014 (http://www.synthesio.com/resources/
synthesios-great-big-book-insights/).
13
Source: Interview with a Forrester client in November 2015.
14
Net Promoter and NPS are registered service marks, and Net Promoter Score is a service mark, of Bain & Company,
Satmetrix Systems, and Fred Reichheld.
15
14
We work with business and technology leaders to develop

customer-obsessed strategies that drive growth.
Products and Services
Core research and tools

Data and analytics
Peer collaboration
Analyst engagement
Consulting
Events
Forresters research and insights are tailored to your role and

critical business initiatives.
Roles We Serve
Marketing & Strategy
Professionals
CMO
B2B Marketing
B2C Marketing
Customer Experience
Customer Insights
eBusiness & Channel
Strategy
Technology Management
Professionals
CIO
Application Development
& Delivery
Enterprise Architecture
Infrastructure & Operations
Security & Risk
Sourcing & Vendor
Management
Technology Industry
Professionals
Analyst Relations
Client support
For information on hard-copy or electronic reprints, please contact Client Support at
+1 866-367-7378, +1 617-613-5730, or clientsupport@forrester.com. We offer quantity
discounts and special pricing for academic and nonprofit institutions.
Forrester Research (Nasdaq: FORR) is one of the most influential research and advisory firms in the world. We work with
business and technology leaders to develop customer-obsessed strategies that drive growth. Through proprietary
research, data, custom consulting, exclusive executive peer groups, and events, the Forrester experience is about a
singular and powerful purpose: to challenge the thinking of our clients to help them lead change in their organizations.
122523
For more information, visit forrester.com.

The Forrester Wave Enterprise Social Listening Platforms Q1 2016reprint

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

The Forrester Wave Enterprise Social Listening Platforms Q1 2016reprint

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

For B2C Marketing Professionals