Every social media platform relies on metrics to determine their success. Brands all over the world use social media to connect with their customers, promote their products and engage with more relevance and accuracy than ever. Brands not using social media often struggle with bad relationships with their customers and have marketing campaigns that are not aligned.
What is Social Media Intelligence?
Social media intelligence is a group of tools and technologies which allow companies to monitor social conversations and channels, respond to signals and to use the data available to better access their customers behaviour online and on social media platforms. They can gather data on trends and brands from both open and closed social networks.
Why Social Media Intelligence?
Social media intelligence has a different approach to listening to social media that goes beyond the ‘retweets’ or ‘likes’ and paints a better picture of how customers feel about brands and trends. Companies can definitely use this information to improve their marketing campaigns and take advantage of this.
Key Takeaways from Social Media Intelligence
- Trend analysis
Constantly keeping an eye on developing trends is a job of any good marketer. Trends help create products that can satisfy customer needs but also spark their interest and drive more revenue, sales and engagement. Social data intelligence helps marketers understand metrics that define a new trend and use it to suit the customers.
- Customer retention
Social media platforms are volatile and constantly changing which makes customer retention a bit harder. “This is what social media intelligence is here for – to help marketers understand what makes customers care about a product or a service. It helps create effective strategies for customer retention and satisfaction”, – says Raymond Bullard, a Social Media Strategist at Stateofwriting and Ukwritings.
- Brand analysis
Every brand has their own story and values which help them in engaging with their customers and building better relationships thus driving more sales and revenue their way. Marketing teams are constantly trying to come up with strategies which will make people care about a brand and help a brand stand out in the crowd. Social media intelligence takes this to a whole other level with the metrics, in-depth analysis and real-time insights of the public opinion and feelings in the digital ecosystem. An honest understanding of public opinion, likes and dislikes can have many benefits for a brand. Marketers can now measure responses, understand the results and the customers like never before.
- Segmentation
Social media intelligence allows users to be broken down into groups defined by more than just demographics or general information. Texts can be scanned for sentiment and emotion both positive and negative. Cynthia Hartman, a Data Manager at Essayroo, comments: “However, social media intelligence is not just about segmentation of the audience, but it’s also about tapping into the right segment. This can be of immense value to marketers when it comes to crafting marketing campaigns and targeting messages. Marketing is becoming more personalized, and it’s pushing the right products and messages to the right people – people who will respond with engagement”.
- Competitive intelligence
Marketers have two options: either follow trends through Google or Twitter or use social media intelligence to do the same in a simpler way. It provides real-time insights and it compares everything related to the products, the audience and the competitors. Factors like consumer awareness and perception of the product are important and social media intelligence allows marketers to tap into that along with what the public really wants, expects and sees.
- Influencer identification
Social media intelligence is useful because it brings the users in contact with influential people that have a huge impact on services, products and brands. “Whether it’s fashion gurus, bloggers, influential people from Twitter, politicians, writers and so on, the social media sphere is constantly and quickly evolving. Social media intelligence allows marketers to quickly pick up on the most influential voices in their niches from online conversations. This helps brands build an even better relationship with their audience by bridging that gap between customers and the influential social media world”, – explains Easter Orr, a Data Analyst at Boomessays and Bigassignments.
Conclusion
The power of social media intelligence is undeniable. It allows brands to tap into some of the most useful information on trends, customers and influencers in a simple way. This builds better products, more personalized messages, and it makes the marketers even more focused on the customers.
Freddie Tubbs is a data analyst at Academized. He regularly takes part in online data conferences and webinars and contributes columns to Paper fellows and Australian help blogs.
