To Like or Not To Like

Media outlets such as newspapers, radio and television have long offered their readers and listeners a mostly uni-directional means of communication.  Until recently, recipients of their information had little means of engaging with the content or expressing their own views about a subject.

The influx of digital media has made it possible for consumers and media to engage in a rich and robust two-way communication.  Today, individuals can interact quite easily with the information and content they receive. There is a wide variety of digital platforms available, from networking sites like Facebook to video sharing sites such as YouTube. All of these platforms allow their users to share content and give them the opportunity to interact with others by commenting, liking, sharing and so on.

The needle in the haystack

This two-way communication creates opportunities for organizations to communicate with their end consumers as well. While this is a good thing, it can easily become overwhelming as the volume of user-generated content proliferates and spreads across various platforms. Without help, it would be near impossible to sift through mountains of online content to extract the most important themes.

Social media analytics offers a solution. As the name suggests, it involves analyzing data from various social media outlets and using the insights in support of business decisions. Advanced analytical tools like text mining and Natural Language Processing(NLP) techniques allow online data to be collected, analyzed and sifted to highlight the most important information.

A very common use of social media analytics is to extract the sentiment or emotion expressed by individuals. This is often used to support marketing and customer service activities. Be careful though. While doing  this might provide a level of important information, it should not be confused with proactive management of your brand.

Social media empowers customers to share their opinions and experiences in relation to a product or a brand. It is essential for businesses to pay attention to these conversations. At Ixio Analytics, we help our clients keep track of online conversations in real-time and take timely decisions based on the insights learned. 

Here are some of the benefits of social media analytics our clients have mentioned:

• Awareness generation by sharing expert knowledge within the right circles

• Find out what consumers are talking about in your industry and about your business

• Spot trends and important topics and discover your customers’ pain points

• Track sentiment about your brands and compare against your competitors

• Discover spaces where potential customers are hanging out and address their needs right there

• Uncover sales opportunities by looking for posts with purchase intent

• Evaluate and measure the performance of various marketing campaigns

It’s very easy nowadays for people to let their voices be heard. It wasn’t always this way.