How far can social media analytics help us in social media listening?

Oct 9, 2015

As we have learnt in class and tried our hands on the technology provided to aid us in our group project, a thought of “how far can such technology help companies tune in to social media listening to understand the needs of their target audiences and in turn, create business strategies that drive up revenue and sales” surfaces.

Yes, it is without doubt that with social media analytics, it can help companies to listen to conversations and obtain the general sentiment their customers have of their brand. Customers’ views often hold an important role for companies to gauge how customers perceive the brand, and often customers may then go a step further to influence the decision of the rest of the population by either showing support or going against a company’s brand. Hence, it is crucial as a starting point for companies to harness these technologies to their advantage to understand their customers before formulating their business strategies that can better fit the needs of their customers accordingly.

Though it may be a good start to tap on the customers’ views, there may be a limit as to how far the technology of social media analytics can accurately track the sentiment of the population.

Firstly, most of the younger generations are more likely to be technological-savvy as compared to the older generations and thus, the sentiment tracked by the social media analytics may be skewed towards the online voice of the younger crowd, failing to capture the opinions of the older generation.

Secondly, we have learnt previously that there are more “watchers” than “producers” in the social media hemisphere. Hence, likewise, sentiment tracked may be skewed towards the more expressive “producers” as compared to “watchers”, whom may hold a particular view but it is not voiced out on a social media platform yet.

Thus, companies have to be cautious with the interpretation and use of output generated by social media analytics.

In conclusion, I believe that having the technology of social media analytics opens the door for an opportunity to hear the voices of the customers but we need more than just the technology to get a comprehensive picture to obtain the market insights required to formulate business strategies that are favorable to the company.

So, what’s your take regarding this discussion on the technology of social media analytics? Any suggestions that can help overcome some of the limitations raised above?

4 responses to “How far can social media analytics help us in social media listening?”

Valerie Chua

October 10, 2015 at 1:47 pm

Hello guys,

I chanced upon this video that shows how AR is used in colouring books for kids-

http://www.thedrum.com/news/2015/10/07/disney-designs-augmented-reality-colouring-book-app

It makes colouring a lot more fun and engaging for children, with a simple app on the ipad.

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Janelle Ting

October 18, 2015 at 8:13 pm

Hello guys,

Any suggestion for a social analytics tool that is user friendly? I tried google analytics but cant seem to figure out how the coding works. I didnt want to use Synthesio because I am afraid that it would erase the dashboard for my group project.

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1. KyuJIn SHIM
  
  October 26, 2015 at 3:33 am
  
  You can use thoughtbuzz, on their site they have a free trial account.
  
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valdyarianto

October 23, 2015 at 5:55 pm

Hey Nina,

I do see the limitations that you have raised in your post. I do agree that the data collected via the social media analytic tools would be biased to a certain extent. However, I would consider such issues (of biased views) are a reasonable limitation, rather an inherent one, given that we are targeting the social media platforms. Generation X are increasingly tech-savvy due to the context of their job requirements as well as evolving societal cultures. Coupled with the relative simple procedure in setting up a social media account, more and more individuals, from Gen X and Y, would have certain exposures in the social media arena.

With regards to the underlying objective of organizations in using such social media analytic, is to assess the activity, sentiments, and thoughts of the online social media community. As such, the data that they would gather would only be limited to those that are “interacting” in the social media. I believe a more holistic approach that organizations should take is to use both, social media analytic and non-social media analytic, to evaluate customers opinions so as to formulate better business strategies. However, depending on the nature of the business of the organization (business sector as well as target audience), we could determine how significant such social media analytic results would be. For E-commerce businesses that are asset-light, tech-apps that are targeting young and tech-savvy individuals, the data gathered from the social media analytic would definitely be substantial in their decision-making process.

Valdy

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