Social Media Portal interview with Agmon David Porat

Social Media Portal profiled interview with Agmon David Porat, CEO at 12mass

Social Media Portal (SMP): What is your name and what do you do there at 12mass?

Agmon David Porat  (ADP): Agmon David Porat. I am the co-founder and CEO of 12mass.

SMP: You recently presented at Useful Social Media?s Corporate Social Media Summit Europe ? what were the main things that you?ve taken away from the event?

AGP: I showed a method to increase engagement in a significant way: by simply applying a conversational decision tree and then A/B testing responses to optimize this tree, brands can increase engagement by 100 times.


SMP: What did you hope delegates took away from your presentation?

ADP: I hope they realise that they have no choice but to join conversations with them and about them on the social web. Not only listen, but to engage. Not only engage with super-fans, but also engage and talk with everyone.  And to do this they have to do more than just increase the team; they have to use conversational decision trees and optimize them for effective and meaningful engagements.


Corporate Social Media Summit Europe 2012 presentation from Agmon David Porat



The presentation is also available at http://prezi.com/9ji0pmbhx3dx.

SMP: Briefly, tell us about 12mass (for those that don?t know), what is it and what does the organisation do?

ADP: We help companies talk in a more efficient and effective way on social media by using a dialog decision tree and optimizing using A/B testing. In this way brands can engage with more people in less time and know that the conversations are generating desired outcomes.

SMP: What other social environments does it monitor?

ADP: We started with Itweetlive, which is a solution dedicated to twitter. If your brand is being mentioned a lot, or you are monitoring more tweets than you can ever respond to, try it out. It has a smart clustering system that helps you segment your audience. This helps build boilerplate responses that will be sent and measured (for clicks, if there is a link, RTs and mentions back.)

We will launch the same solution soon on 12mass , which will also manage fan pages on Facebook and Weibo, one of China?s largest social networks.

SMP: Who are your target audience and why?

ADP: Brands that are being mentioned or are monitoring more messages than they can ever respond to and SMBs that use the Itweetlive platform for marketing and engagement with customers.

SMP: How did you initially attract users to your site and services, and how do you do it now?

ADP: Well, we initially used the system to attract and engage with community managers. We simply made a search on the Itweetlive platform for community managers? profiles and started engaging with them; then we A/B tested the responses. We also targeted tweets that said: ?thank you to all our customers? or ?contact our support team.? Clients that started using the system were prompted to send out a promotional tweet about us every 50 messages they sent out. Alternatively, they could buy credits to use the system.

SMP: Why was there the new website design and new name 12mass (formerly itweetlive)?

ADP: Itweetlive is dedicated to Twitter. This was our first product, but now we?re expanding to integrate Facebook and other platforms, so we changed the name. At the same time we learned a lot from our users about the difficulties they had on the Itweetlive platform. So we improved the user experience and the infrastructure to enable a much faster, more user-friendly site.

SMP: Why has Facebook been included here?

ADP: Facebook is the largest social network in the world. If I write, ?I love Starbucks? on their fan page, why shouldn?t they like and want to respond to this post? But, with hundreds of millions of fans and thousands of updates a day, they simply can?t respond to every one. This kind of a solution is needed.

SMP: What other social networks and resources are being considered?

ADP: We are also expanding to Weibo, and Facebook comments.  

SMP: What?s the connection with Itweetlive?

ADP: 12mass is the new Itweetlive ☺ It?s the same company, just a different brand name. We will transfer all the users of Itweetlive to 12mass in the following months.

SMP: Why was Itweetlive created (when did it launch) and what does it offer users?

ADP: Itweetlive was created as a marketing tool. At the time I was managing a medical device product called eardoc and I used Twitter to find and engage with potential customers. And it worked amazingly well, so we developed it into a product, which has grown to fulfil a bigger need: engaging and responding to a mass of people on social networks.

SMP: What will happen to itteetlive when 12mass launches?

ADP: We will gradually move the users to 12mass.

SMP: What are the low moments of what you have been doing so far?

ADP: Twitter briefly shut us down about 8-months ago. But we were able to quickly adapt and change the product to meet their requirements.

SMP: What are the high moments of what you have been doing so far?

ADP: Seeing customers engage in levels way above average. We know that we are changing the way brands talk on social networks, facilitating more efficient and effective engagements. This will help all of us as consumers and that?s a great feeling.

SMP: What do you see as your biggest challenges and opportunities?

ADP: Increasing our user base and improving retention levels. This is a great opportunity as well, as the more users we have, the smarter the system gets and the better value it will provide to each user. Together, we?re building the world?s largest conversation tree.

SMP: What are the next moves for 12mass in terms of social media?

ADP: Launching the site, optimizing it and integrating Facebook fan pages.

SMP: What?s the next big step for social media and networks?

ADP: The way I see it, social networks are the manifestation of the virtual social matrix that, up until now, was hidden from our eyes. Every day, we?re witnessing social communities getting stronger by taking advantage of social media platforms.

Businesses that have been passive online until now are going to prioritise engagement by actively joining online conversations. By strengthening weak connections they have with their customers, they will in turn enjoy better, faster and more personal attention from the brand.

SMP: What was the most challenging part of building on your brands presence in digital environments (including social media)?

ADP: Creating reliability and transcending the noise in this market. This market, which did not exist just a few years ago, is already a more than a $3 billion market (corporate spending on social software). Many companies offering engagement and monitoring solutions appeared. It is a challenge to stand out. However, as we are the only platform that offers one to mass engagement, our unique and considerable value is quickly apparent to everyone who uses our system.

SMP: What?s going to be the most interesting aspect regarding social media / technology for the next 12 to 18-months?

ADP: Brand to customer engagement.

SMP: What are your top predictions for social media for the next 12 to 18-months?

ADP: Brands will provide far more customer support on social networks - they have no choice - customers are more likely to send a tweet or post to the brands fan page than calling the call centre.

Social media is going to be more mobile. Users are on the move and are connecting with Brand over social networks using mobile devices.

SMP: What are your top social media tips for brands?

ADP replies with:

• Have a clear strategy for each network (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube)
• Integrate social sharing and actions in your products; let it be a share button or a QR code on the product itself that sends a status update.
• Build a conversational decision tree and optimize it using A/B testing. This way you?ll not only be able to talk with more people in less time, you?ll also get control over the content that your brand is sending over social platforms. And you will be able to utilize statistically-validated dialogue in every conversation you participate in.

SMP: Is there anything else we should know, or is there anything that you?d like to share?

ADP: Our platform is free to use. If people are sharing and clicking the share button on this article, we will probably engage with them ☺

SMP: Best way to contact you and 12mass?

LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook.


SMP: What did you have for breakfast / lunch?

ADP: Coffee and pizza for breakfast and now I am going to make lunch for the team ☺

SMP: What?s the last good thing that you did for someone?

ADP: I should do more good for others.

SMP: How many hours do you work a week?

ADP: More than 48 hours

SMP: If you weren?t running 12mass what would you be doing?

ADP: I am running it ☺

SMP: When and where did you go on your last holiday?

ADP: Tuscany, Italy, about a year ago with my wife.  

SMP: What?s the first thing you do when you get into the office of a morning?

ADP: Open the computer and go over emails, Google analytics and internal matrix stats.

SMP: If you had a superpower what would it be and why?

ADP: Controlling things with my mind, I don?t know why, I?ve wanted to do this for a long time.

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