NUREMBERG, Germany, January 17, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

GfK has successfully established consistent standards for their truly global and integrated Social Media Analysis (SMA) offer, thus addressing a long unmet need of marketers.

Dr. Ralph Wirth, a global innovation and digital specialist within GfK, said, "International marketing experts are often frustrated by the fact that there are hardly any truly global offerings in the field of social media analysis. This situation forces them to work with several different providers, which complicates the aggregation of results and the extraction of global insights."

GfK's new offering leverages the company's global network to deliver flexible web content gathering and analyses in any language at market leading quality. Local specifics of the web landscape are taken into account, and the bigger picture is derived by integrating SMA insights with other essential context specific information available to GfK, such as survey data or knowledge on purchase behavior.

GfK piloted their new SMA standards in a recent 'status quo' study, run in the People's Republic of China, identifying, collecting and analyzing the online buzz for four leading smart phone brands. The success of the methodology has established GfK's global standard for SMA analysis; delivering a unique, language-agnostic and fully scalable solution.

Wirth explains, "We chose China because it is the most challenging social media market available, combining strict regulations and a unique online landscape. Insights from our highly successful study have already been integrated into several ongoing projects in China. And we have proven that, by using human coders that are supported by automatic algorithms, we can deliver superior quality results and correct for nuances, such as irony and sarcasm - which is absolutely crucial for the way people talk online."

GfK's global SMA standards are the product of numerous projects run across their global network, including a broad range of commercial projects, as well as various 'research on research' studies.  

About GfK

To find out more, visit http://www.gfk.com or follow GfK on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/gfk_group

Research contact:
Ralph Wirth, Global Innovation & Digital, T. +49-911-395-2812, Ralph.Wirth@gfk.com

PR contact:
Amanda Wheeler, PR & Communication, T +44-7919-624-688, Amanda.Wheeler@gfk.com