The Olympics of Social Media Data

Today marketers can view each of their various social media stats much like Olympic judges can test for doping There is nothing private or that canamp8217t be found out or inferred about a person with social data if you dig deep enough vs steroidlike botfarm audiences that are found in other media like digital and mobile publishingIn an era of automation adblocking and programmatic there has never been a greater need for figuring out who is real and who is juicing And with social there have never been analytics with a higher purity count than Ivory soap As bot farms have contaminated digital and mobile audience counts in the high double digits smart marketers are moving their focus on to socialIn addition to the purity test they can in reality overlook the political correctness of amp8220NonPIIamp8221 nonpersonally identifiable information promoted by the IAB the NAI and the MRC and tap into the wealth of real individual profile specificity of socialamp160 Each social media reaction allows advertisers to learn more about an individual than 99 of social media followers ever thought they would be allowing anyone other than their friends and family to know about themselvesSocial media data is so superior to virtually every other media data analytics tool that it wins the Gold Silver and Bronze medals of data analytics every day Depending on the social network one can confidentially view the personamp8217s name family situation cultural preferences job title photos network of friends feelings about life politics shopping and almost anything else each of us is posting onlineSmart consumers still can manage their privacy settings like worldclass sprinters check their timing and can still maintain a few privacy walls However even at their most stringent their photos tell a thousand Olympiclevel data stories Like for example how they have changed over the yearsamp160 As facial technology grows in leaps and bounds combined with how companies like Sprout Social can help analyze cross social media network deliveries messages tags and other social metrics other media will soon be in danger of being cut from the 2017 brand team media plan and beyondThis past monthamp8217s annual media analysis by Mary Meeker speaks volumes about privacy namely that privacy concerns are quota ticking time bombquot That said if an agency or a marketer isnamp8217t immersed in social there is no way for them to understand what they are missing or gainingamp160 They are simply not in the competitionThe data engineers of the future are going to all come out of socialamp160 Itamp8217s not hard to imagine the level of knowledge and new tools in the next cycle that we will be sifting throughamp160 And since social requires a daily diet of posts to maintain effectiveness or risk lapsing into obscurity there has never been a greater tool to pivot based on the attitudinal shifts in various segmentsamp160 This has always been the dream of digital media optimizing in nearreal time though until social came of age it has been elusiveWhy Itamp8217s simplePart of the social ecosystem requires you to keep your message fresh so if you are posting out 2030 individual messages a week against 45 social networks you need to be talking about your brand its category current promotions and other seasonal purchase funnel factors that keep the social campaign relevant by segmentamp160 Thereamp8217s no need onesize fits all in socialamp160 Itamp8217s made for segmentationHereamp8217s just one simple B2C brand exampleamp160 Quotes are always useful with or without a visual to go with itamp160 One interesting learning that we at our Madison Avenue Social division can point to is that people who amp8220likeamp8221 quotes are generally big quote posters themselvesHereamp8217s another If your brand can leverage sentimentality or romance by skimming through all the individual profiles it doesnamp8217t take a Mohammed Alilevel Olympics data person to see that amp8220Birds of a feather flock togetheramp8221 in matters of the heartamp160 People engage with what talks to them up close and personalFor B2B marketers the same differences are found but are even more important to the bottom lineamp160 Granted that followers of B2B social pages are largely made of industry specific audiences However corporations are run by people and choose to engage with posts that are relevant to their specific job responsibilitiesamp160 Thatamp8217s where the lead generation triathlon will ultimately be played in the next eraamp160If youamp8217re social data capability is still considered amateurish donamp8217t wait until the Tokyo Olympics in 2020 to get your team in better shape You wonamp8217t make it to the starting line let alone the finish lineThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet management or associated bloggersamp160

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The Olympics of Social Media Data

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