Chicago, Aug. 10, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- CHICAGO, IL (August 10, 2015) –Earshot, a precision-based social media marketing platform, today announced it has become an IBM Watson ecosystem partner and will leverage the cognitive computing power of IBM Watson to further inform Earshot’s patent pending Decibel Level™, a real-time relevancy score that helps marketers instantly discover and win new customers at the right time through social media.
Real-Time Marketing with Decibel Level Powered by IBM Watson
Earshot’s Decibel Level is a dynamic algorithm that combines different variables in real-time to compute a relevancy score between 0.1 and 9.9 for every social media post captured within the Earshot platform. Variables include things like location, keywords in the post, time of day, bio or demographic information of the user, or even logo detection in photos. Earshot clients can customize and adjust their own Decibel Level to “tune” into consumers on social media who have a higher likelihood of conversion and then engage them in 1:1 conversations or target them with additional context through precision-based paid media campaigns. More precise targeting through Earshot ultimately helps marketers realize the goals of personalization that lead to higher conversion rates and longer-lasting customer relationships.
By adding the cognitive capabilities of IBM Watson to the Decibel Level computation, Earshot will create even more opportunities for brands to uncover real-time relevance through new variables such as personality traits of users or the decoding of complex 3D images like stadiums, airports, or dogs. As an example, a major alcoholic beverage company is using Decibel Level powered by Watson to identify consumers in real-time who have personality traits that align with their specific customer persona and to improve the relevancy of their messages. Using personality traits along with image tagging is helping them discover opportunities to engage on social media when the timing is right and people are more receptive to the brand
“Earshot’s mission is to help humanize brands and bring them closer to consumers”, said David Rush, Earshot founder and CEO. “Research has shown us that younger, savvy consumers want authentic conversations and relationships with brands and that social media is the most effective place to make this happen. By leveraging the power of Watson as an IBM ecosystem partner, we can make Decibel Level an even smarter real-time index of relevancy to help our clients acquire and retain new customers at scale.”
By effectively applying Personality Insights to Decibel Level, brands and their agencies hope to see measurable improvement in the results of their campaigns. In a recent study conducted by IBM, it was shown that people that scored high on openness and low on neuroticism were more likely to click on an ad or follow a brand on Twitter, with an increased click-through rate from 6.8% to 11.3% and an increased follow rate from 4.7% to 8.8% for these people.
Custom Relevancy Scoring for Every Brand or Campaign
As millions of social media posts are captured in the Earshot social media processor every day, the algorithm is uniquely weighted and customizable for every client so the score is an indication of real-time relevancy for every brand or campaign.
For example, a sports apparel client may decide the word “runner” in someone’s bio deserves to be more heavily weighted, whereas an automotive client that is seeking user-generated content from an event they sponsor might adjust the weighting to tune in higher Decibel Level scores for posts with photos of their brand’s logo at a specific stadium. “Giving clients the flexibility to create their own custom Decibel Level score on the fly enables a more fluid interpretation of social media as it’s being authored in real-time and brings an entirely new filtering concept to social media,” added Rush.
About Earshot
Launched in late 2013, Earshot is a precision-based social media marketing platform that is changing how brands can discover and acquire new customers through social media. Earshot synthesizes data about location, the user, and other real-time conditions to compute a relevancy score for every post so brands can connect with consumers at the right place, right time. As a new approach to precision-based marketing, Earshot helps drive higher conversion rates, deeper loyalty, and new forms of earned media. Clients include Honda, Spotify, Nestle, and Bank of America among others. For more information, visit earshotinc.com and follow us on Twitter @earshotinc.
About IBM Watson: Pioneering a New Era of Computing
Watson is the first commercially available cognitive computing technology. With the help of Watson, organizations are harnessing the power of cognitive computing to transform industries, help professionals do their jobs better, and solve important challenges.
IBM has established a growing ecosystem of developers, students, entrepreneurs and tech enthusiasts worldwide by placing the power of cognitive computing in their hands. More than 25 Watson services are available on the IBM Watson Developer Cloud on Bluemix, allowing these innovators to discover, explore and create an entirely new class of apps and businesses fueled by Watson. This community of tens of thousands of tech enthusiasts and Ecosystem partners are already generating up to 3 billion monthly API requests, demonstrating the adoption of the open platform.
For more information on IBM Watson, visit: ibm.com/watsonecosystem.
Check out the IBM Watson press kit at: http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/presskit/27297.wss
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