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August 03, 2017

Big Data Takes a Deep Dive into Social Media

When social media platforms, like Twitter and Facebook (News - Alert), first cropped up, they were written off as passing fads.  They were digital places for younger users to express themselves and play hashtag games until they became bored and left.



Nearly a decade later, most prominent social media platforms are not only still around, but are thriving. Facebook already has two billion users and its other service, Instagram, has more than 700 million. All the major platforms are teeming with deeply personal information. More data is uploaded to these sites every second than could have been imagined even a decade ago.  Now, tools developed to help enterprises and researchers dig through unstructured data are being applied to people’s conversations and opinions on social media with astonishing results.

Big Data Meets Social Media

In some ways, social media is the definition of big data. Every tweet, post, and picture carries valuable data about the person’s habits, location, preferences, opinions, and purchases. It’s a treasure trove of information waiting for the right tool to extract value.

Tech-savvy corporations are already using this information to drive their marketing strategies and Digital PR. Others can go a step further and build products, change business models, adjust prices, and make investments based on insights from this big data.

The results of using big data techniques on social media could be astonishing. In 2015, the European Central Bank conducted a study to see if social media posts can help predict stock prices. It concluded there was significant correlation between positive or negative sentiment on Twitter (News - Alert) and stock prices in the US, UK, and Canada.  Similar studies have concluded that Twitter and Facebook can be used to predict riots, social revolutions, and even, perhaps, a change in the weather.

Business Uses

Businesses can use big data tools to dive deeper into social content. Moving beyond the likes and clicks, enterprises can help determine their brands’ value or improve the customer experience with social data. IBM, for example, helped UK retailer Argos track customer sentiment about individual stores to see what was working well and what wasn’t. Social chatter helped shape the company’s store layout and strategy going forward.

Similarly, companies like Zappos are using social listening tools to ensure they never miss a customer complaint or grievance. Being able to respond to a negative comment or a frustrated tweet from a customer within seconds is a competitive advantage unlike any other.

The social media giants have built a business around user data. The platforms are fine-tuned to help advertisers and businesses reach out to their target audience. But with big data tools, corporations, small businesses, and even governments can move beyond the likes and retweets. Digging deeper into this data could have immense potential and contemporary tools have only just scratched the surface.

About the Author

Gareth Mooreland is a full-time writer and a content marketing expert and have previously worked for technology companies in the US, UK and Australia. He is the go-to expert to write about technology and business. When not writing, Gareth enjoys taking landscape photos around the world. His lifetime ambition is to visit every country in the world. Only 128 to go!




Edited by Erik Linask
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