Social networks are an inexhaustible source of data that can provide us with crucial information about the market in which our business is positioned, competitors and, of course, consumers. However, to take advantage of this data that is generated in an unstructured way, it is essential to resort to Big Data. Big Data will allow us to analyze this data and turn it into useful information that allows us to obtain a strategic vision of the digital performance of our business. Big Data has countless applications in digital marketing and brings many advantages to any online strategy. Read on to discover them!
What is Big Data?
Big Data is a term that seems to be in fashion lately. It is the process of obtaining and then analyzing large volumes of data. A key characteristic of Big Data is that it is not only the size, but also the speed of growth and the possibilities of combining with others.
Any cloud-based tool you use (SaaS), such as your ERP or CRM, are true generators of Big Data.
Thanks to the analysis of the data and its subsequent representation in the form of Dashboard, geographical representation, etc. allow to obtain conclusions and improve the decision-making of the managers of any company.
Various studies on Big Data reveal that of all the data and information generated by users on social networks, brands manage to take advantage of only 0.5%. This is where the concept of Social Big Data appears.
This concept refers to the strategy that focuses on collecting, managing, organizing and taking advantage of all the information posted on social networks by users, in order to improve the relationship between businesses and their online communities.
Social networks and their ability to generate data
According to Google, in 2020 each user had an average of 5GB of mobile data per month; gigas that were used almost entirely in social networks.
The amount of data generated is, in any case, enormous. Managing such a large volume requires a strategy to match, as well as efficient procedures that allow you to get a real benefit from the information. Otherwise, it would not be profitable to work on Social Big Data.
According to Internet Live Stats, these are some facts about social networks:
- More than 40% of the world’s population has an Internet connection.
- Facebook has almost 700,000 articles and 34,000 “likes” every minute.
- Facebook has more than 2 billion active profiles.
- Almost 1000 photos are published per second on Instagram.
- Twitter produces nearly 250,000 new tweets a minute.
- YouTube uploads 4,300 minutes of video every minute.
Why is it important to Incorporate Social Big Data into a social media strategy
Thanks to the data, we can know the exact behavior of the consumer and adapt our social media strategies accordingly. Social Big Data will give rise to a way of communicating with our clients in a much more personalized way, as we have said and, therefore, to improve our relationships with them and their experiences and ‘moments’ with our brand.
In addition to this, having adequate data when designing our digital strategy can have certain advantages.
1. Identify the audience and the right moment to impact with our content
Have you ever observed a trend in your own social media activity? Do you use Facebook every night before you sleep or right when you wake up?
These trends or behaviors are very interesting for data analysts and especially with regard to content. We can track the activity of our audiences and segment them based on the time of day of their activity and the amount of time spent on each of the social media platforms.
In addition, we can use this data to offer the best content marketing to a potential customer at the right time.
For example, if the target we want to address is university students, we may find greater ‘peaks’ or online activity in the afternoons and evenings. Therefore, this time could be perfect for our posts to get maximum visibility.
2. Offers knowledge of the brand’s territory
We are used to understanding that our competition is always one that does the same as us and offers the same products or services.
In the data age, this has changed, since the competition of a brand is one that is in its own territory, struggling to capture the attention of the same buyer personas.
Thanks to the data that we can extract from social networks, we can obtain a competitive advantage, investigating those things that attract the attention of our consumers, in the territory in which our brand is positioned, and who is winning the battle to capture their interest.
For example, let’s imagine that our brand produces healthy smoothies and one of its buyer persona are “young women, athletes, who like to take care of themselves and have just enough time for it, since they also work”.
The logic in traditional marketing would encourage us to investigate any other smoothie brand on the market and consider it a direct competition to ours, but in the world of Smart Data Marketing (or marketing based on intelligent data), things change a lot.
Our competition will not be the manufacturers or marketers of smoothies, it will be all those brands that have already conquered those women we want to impact, within the healthy territory. For example, it could be electricity companies that sponsor women’s careers, or brands of hygiene products, which are sensitized to different pathologies that affect women.
Being clear about the territory of our brand, thanks to Social Big Data, we can listen to it and detect who are those brands that are in the upper part of that territory and discover why and how they have managed to connect with that buyer that us interested.
3. Improvement in our innovation and responsiveness
Thanks to the data, it is possible to access a history of campaigns that will make us learn from the mistakes of the past and thus we can establish more efficient actions.
Nor can we underestimate the impact that the ability to plan and anticipate trends regarding new products or services has on any strategy.
Conclusion: say yes to Social Big Data
The data provided by social networks is now an essential aspect for companies to incorporate into their day-to-day operations.
However, before doing all this, there is one main prerequisite that must be met: develop a mindset in which data, converted into information, is the main axis of decision-making.
Social networks are the main way for companies to meet and interact with their public, because what they think on the networks is the same as they can say on the street or at home.
For this reason, the analysis of the data they provide us is crucial to achieve the success and loyalty of our users and the use of Social Big Data is key when defining a successful social media strategy.
Do you want to take advantage of the data generated by your brand’s social networks? At Cute Digital Media we help you plan, structure and launch your campaigns so that you win the heart of your audience.
