Conventional media, such as television, radio or newspapers transmits information only in one direction. Users can consume the information which the media offers, but they have very little or no ability to share their own views on the subject.
Now-a-days, digital mediums have made it possible to have a two-way form of communication that allows individuals to interact with the information being transmitted. This is known as Social media which encompasses a wide variety of online content, from social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube etc to interactive encyclopedias.
For example, social video sites like YouTube allow users to share video content and interact through video comments etc. The two-way communication through social media has created opportunities for lots of organization to communicate with their end consumers directly.
What is Social Media Analytics?
As the name suggests, Social media analytics involves analyzing data on social media to take business decisions. Data is usually gathered from blogs, forums and social media websites (like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube etc.). It is then analyzed by converting the qualitative data to quantitative data with the help of different text mining and NLP techniques.
The most common use of social media analytics is to mine customer sentiment in order to support marketing and customer service activities. Typical Social Media Analytics objectives include:
- Amplify the business presence
- Running campaign through Social Media
- Reducing customer service costs with proper Social Media monitoring process
- Getting feedback on products and services
- Track public opinion for a particular product or business division.
What are the benefits derived from social media analytics?
Social media listening / monitoring process helps in identifying real-time conversations happening on social media about a product, or a brand so you can respond in a timely manner. Since social media has empowered customers to speak about their experience about a product or brand, it is essential for businesses to assess what is going on in the inter webs by carving out a time to listen for brand/product-related conversations. Here are few benefits:
- Any organization with proper social media monitoring process, can use Social Media as awareness generation and amplification tool by sharing knowledge or expertise – where and when needed and if appropriate.
- Find out what consumers are talking about in the target market. Spot trends, themes / topics and discover pain points.
- Track sentiment regarding own and competitor brands, or product. Identify the tone of voice of what others are saying –positive, negative or Neutral etc.
- Discover spaces where your customers and your competitors are hanging out. Where is the discussion happening? Which social media platform? What blog? What forum? What groups?
- Find key influencers in your niche market through Network and Author level analysis
- Find out if anyone from the company may be participating in discussions and is posting information without company’s approval.
- Identify old and new competitors and find out what they are doing using competitive landscape analysis. Who’s talking to them? What terms do they use?
- Identify areas in the business process that may need to be developed, or needs improvement.
- Recruit/hire right people.
- Understand the path leads to “customer loyalty”.
- Build a community of brand ambassadors.
- Determine areas that could be a “threat” to the company.
- Evaluate the effectiveness of different marketing campaigns on Social Media.
- Improve product features that the consumers are talking about.
- Find sales opportunities (lead generation mainly useful for high-cost products).
- Check what type of content is performing well
Source: Analyticsvidhya
