You Didn’t Just Say That

I’ll admit, I am one of those “Americans” that didn’t even realize Team USA men’s soccer team had failed to qualify for the Olympics until the final days in London (I was probably pre-occupied with the other American successes). I’m also “guilty as charged” for using youth soccer programs as a “recreational activity” to keep my children busy until they’re old enough to strap on an American Football helmet and pads, perhaps a surprising notion to some who see soccer as the No.1 global sport.


Most would agree that soccer is the 5th most popular professional sport in the United States, but may not realize momentum is increasing with the help of Generation Z and recent successes on an International stage. A ESPN-Luker poll recently found soccer as the 2nd most popular U.S. sport for ages 12 to 24 and a US Census study finds solid growth in school-based soccer programs with nearly a 50/50 split between genders. Not to mention, a spike in positive buzz over the past two weeks for Team USA soccer…our girls won gold in London and our guys just ended 75 years of frustration on Mexican turf.

Using NICE Social Media Analytics, I was pleased to see Team USA men’s soccer receive nearly as many mentions across the social sphere in the past 5 days as it had the previous month and a huge sentiment shift from negative to positive. Conversely, NFL and NCAA football kicks off in a few weeks and the soccer universe faces the daunting task of keeping its sport in U.S. headlines; furthermore, people’s uncontrollable urge to take to their favorite social outlet and broadcast their opinion will, in no doubt, impact the popularity and growth of the sport. The iron is hot, will MLS (Major League Soccer) strike before momentum is lost again!

Now, let us step back for a minute and transition from our love of sports to our business livelihood through the customers’ social voice. A recent study by Harvard University researchers concluded that people enjoy self-disclosure and will go as far as losing up to 25% of their earnings to take their thoughts public…I’d say social media provides a much cheaper outlet for this.

Moreover, a Blackberry research project of working adults between 18 and 55 found greater withdrawal symptoms from missing out on Twitter than common addictions, such as the urge to drink. So what does this mean for your business livelihood? Pretty simple, it is mission critical to know overall brand sentiment, gain lightning fast visibility into each negative influencer and engage them in real-time. With NICE Social Media Analytics, customer service and marketing organizations capture buzz and sentiment analysis, competitive insight, key issues and root cause, top sites, opinion leaders, geographical data, alerts and individual mentions through a real-time engagement platform with a robust user interface and customizable dashboards. To take it a step further, a holistic Voice of Customer (VoC) solution can be delivered by integrating with NICE Fizzback and NICE Interaction Analytics.

What are your customers saying?

Steven T. Strickland

For more info on NICE Fizzback please visit www.nice.com/fizzback