In Conversation with Benjamin Koe, Co-Founder of JamiQ

Yesterday, JamiQ has launched their automated social media monitoring solution to the market. While it is a competitive landscape, social media has yet to go mainstream given its lack of metrics to justify to media buyers and brand marketers. Yet, the market opens an opportunity for the team in JamiQ. We interview Benjamin Koe, one of the co-founders of JamiQ shared with us about the technology that is powering JamiQ, the challenges in a start-up environment and how their solution is distinct against their competitors.

BL: Hi Ben, great to have you here again two years later after your last interview here in SGE. So, we hear about JamIQ for a while from mainstream media. What prompted you to start JamiQ?
Ben Koe: JamiQ wasn’t founded by me alone, but by three ambitious guys from disparate disciplines, Kelvin Quee (25), Lee JiaYi (27), and Benjamin Koe (29). Between us we had the necessary passion for the social media, understanding of the industry, and technical know-how to get this product off the ground.

Although we are not the first social media monitoring product on the market, we came to the realization that Asia and other multilingual / segmented market regions could not make use of the many US-based solutions because they simply did not cover the local markets in local languages. We set out from the get go to provide a service that provides the widest coverage and to do so in every language. Today we are proud to say that we have done that with JamiQ.

BL: What is JamiQ and how does it deliver value to her customers with regards to social media monitoring?
Ben Koe: JamiQ is a professional social media monitoring and measurement solution provides the largest coverage of the social media in any language. JamiQ uses advanced data mining methods and natural language processing technology to produce real-time buzz trending, sentiment detection, influence scoring, and market segmentation, giving our customers the critical insights they need for immediate and strategic decision-making.

The need for companies to monitor the social media stems from the vast amount of conversations around brands that take place on blogs, forums, news, and social networking sites (collectively known as the social media). Listening to what’s being talked about can help companies manage their reputation, public perception, and even strengthen their communication and engagement strategies.

Social media monitoring can also be seen as a natural extension of traditional media monitoring often performed by PR agencies or corporate communication teams. While traditional media monitoring can be performed easily by humans clipping a few newspaper articles, monitoring thousands of website for millions of posts requires intelligent machines to get the job done.

The demand for social media monitoring is huge. There isn’t a single brand owner, organization, service provider, or even government department that does not care about their online reputation and the impact of the uncontrolled conversations on the social media. Monitoring the social media and analyzing the data is a crucial first step in any social media strategy.

BL: If a new customer, be it enterprise or brand will use the services of JamiQ, which are the five features that you will recommend to them?
Ben Koe: Here are the five features:

• Our massive reach. If you don’t have the full picture, how can you make smart decisions? JamiQ has found a way to provide the widest possible coverage of the social media, not just focus on particular markets.
• Multilingual monitoring. Because we can reach so far, we pick up social media posts in all languages. Including Asian scripts such as Korean, Japanese, Chinese, and even Thai.
• Intelligent market segmentation. The nature of the social media mixes everything up. A local in Malaysia could start a blog in the US. JamiQ’s intelligent system automatically identifies the location of the author based on what he/she writes about.
• Automated sentiment detection. Using our specially designed natural language processing technology, JamiQ is able to detect the sentiment of every article on the fly. The sentiment chart gives you an indicative view of the perception surrounding your brand.
• Intelligent media segmentation. Are people talking about you on blogs, forums, twitter? Do you get more coverage in the news or on blogs? These questions are easily answered through JamiQ’s media segmentation.

BL: How does JamiQ differ from existing social monitoring tools and establish its unique position in the market?
Ben Koe: There about close to 200 social media monitoring providers worldwide. We compete directly with all of them when it comes to the English language market.

The advantage of JamiQ lies in its massive reach and coverage of all languages and markets. So it does not matter if you’re in English speaking California or French speaking New Caledonia, JamiQ can meet your localised monitoring needs. Also, JamiQ has developed very advanced algorithms that can determine the location of a blog/site even if its not hosted locally. For example, if Peter from Australia wrote a blog on peter.blogspot.com, most systems will look at the IP address and determine that this blog is in the US. But because Peter constantly writes a lot about Sydney on his blog, JamiQ is intelligent enough to know that Sydney is in New South Wales, which is a state of Australia.

JamiQ also has other advanced technology including influence scoring, and sentiment detection through the use of natural language processing.

The opportunity for JamiQ is really in Asia where multiple languages and markets come together under a single region.

BL: As we understand that JamiQ has different pricing plans for users, what are the metrics that are delivered such that the users will know that the automated social media monitoring tool will deliver the information they need?
Ben Koe: JamiQ’s pricing plans work on the amount of Topics you require to monitor.

BL: Who are the profile or demographic of the customers using JamiQ?
Ben Koe: Because JamiQ a SaaS product, we are most strongly geared to be a support tool for marketing agencies and brand owners. We have found that the demand for our product stretches far beyond our expected customers to include many in government and research organizations who want to use our solution beyond the scope of marketing.

We currently have customers in government, advertising, public relations, market research, and a couple of brand owners too.

BL: What is the major challenge in JamiQ and how do your team overcome that?
Ben Koe: The development of technology has been the the greatest challenge. Creating a system this powerful and complex is no mean feat and our technology team has done a brilliant job making a product that meets the needs of the customers that need us the most.

BL: At the present moment, social media has not gone mainstream because of the lack of metrics in the industry, and yet many digital marketing and PR agencies see that it will become increasingly important. What are the conditions in your opinion that should exist in the market such that social media will go mainstream?
Ben Koe: Metrics are important to the standardization and growth of the industry, but it is still a secondary issue. The demand for monitoring the social media stems from an undeniable reality that influence, reputation, and impact is coming from conversations on the social media.

There isn’t a single brand owner, organization, service provider, or even government department that does not care about their online reputation and the impact of the uncontrolled conversations on the social media. Monitoring the social media and analyzing the data is a crucial first step in any social media strategy.

BL: Thank you for the interview. Good luck with your venture and let us know of any new developments on JamiQ in the future.

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