As part of the Summer release of its platform Talkwalker, the consumer intelligence vendor has unveiled a new predictive intelligence hub. The solution, powered by Blue Silk™ Artificial Intelligence, predicts how topics, trends and campaigns will evolve and change over the subsequent 90 days. The technology uses historic data to pick out likely outcomes in a range in the future.
This enables organisations to make decisions based on the likely outcomes or inject fresh impetus into campaigns. The solution uses time series analysis and uncovers trends that a human would be only guessing at. This is not a detailed and accurate prediction of what will happen but an indication of what is likely to occur within a boundary, as shown below.
Jack Richards, Marketing Manager UK & Nordics at Talkwalker, commented: “Talkwalker has been at the cutting edge of consumer intelligence innovation, being the first to introduce visual analytics and AI-powered sentiment analysis, now predictive consumer intelligence will be the next standard.
“Talkwalker’s Blue Silk AI provides users with the latest consumer intelligence analytics, enabling cleaner data, and richer insights, with a solution tailored for each client. With a relentless focus on innovation, we can now not only offer best-in-class retrospective and real-time insights, but predictive analytics which help drive future strategy.”
What is the intelligence hub
The analysis is based on the Blue Silk predictive models, which generate over 900 billion predictions every month which are then used to guide the predictive analysis. Marketers will better understand the impact of content across multiple channels on consumers. It will measure the impact through mapping digital behaviours of individuals once they have reviewed content, did it prompt sharing, further comments or even a purchase.
Lokdeep Singh, Chief Product & Technology Officer at Talkwalker, noted: “Imagine how powerful your business would be if you already knew what will be trending next month. You’d be able to create more engaging campaigns, develop timely products that meet clients’ needs, and deliver more personalised customer experiences – and that’s just what forecasting brings.
“It’s a game-changer that will help our clients when planning their business strategies, arming them with future insights based on past consumer trends. This is just the start of what we plan to do with predictive analytics. Our mission is to steer businesses toward making data-driven business decisions that’ll drive sales and revenue, based on the data of yesterday, today, and tomorrow, powered by our Blue Silk™ AI technology.”
The intelligence hub provides dashboards. These bring together the data from different workspaces, breaking data silos and providing holistic forecasting across channels. Users can consolidate results on industry topics, brands, products, influencers, or competitors. Data from internal and external sources are cross-referenced with different products across various geographies. It also provides a place that enables a common approach to data analysis across the organisation.
What else was in the summer release
Talkwalker also updated integrations to both Instagram and two social media platforms in Asia, iaohongshu (Little Red Book) and Douyin. For Instagram, monitoring Talkwalker has made capturing relevant data easier. Users no longer have to specify every page and hashtag they wish to follow. The platform now creates a predetermined curated selection. Users can also upload their own predefined list of channels and pages. Engagement metrics are also updated daily.
In Asia, the new channels complement Weibo and WeChat. Xiaohongshu is a social and eCommerce platform with over 200 million users. Those users recommend products that are simple to purchase on the platform. It has already seen over $23 million spent on it. Douyin is the equivalent of Tiktok in China, with 600 million daily active users. It is quickly becoming an important engagement channel for those interested in the Chinese market.
The update had several other features, including:
- Quick Search and Filters are available on the Talkwalker mobile app
- A new Social Card enables the customisation of key results metrics in a single, easy-to-view display
- Improvements to security around user access controls
- TikTok and YouTube data are available on the Social Channel Measurement IQ app
Enterprise Times: What does this mean
The new consumer intelligence platform promises much, but little is explained in detail in the supporting collateral. Does it support scenario modelling? This is where it could become very exciting. It would enable marketers to understand the possible impact of launching a new content campaign on Instagram or TikTok.
The screenshots published have a degree of variance that seems difficult to justify. There is no indication of what causes the variation. AI predictions should be explainable, at least at a high level. Understanding why a trend will dip is far more important than knowing it will dip.
