Global acceptance of social media makes it a viable medium for businesses to grow their operations and engage the intended audience segments.
People not only use social media to connect with their friends and family but also to learn more about their preferred brands. It serves as an opportunity for businesses to reach out to the right people on a mass level and generate quality leads for their sales funnel.
However, to get the desired results from your efforts on social media, you should know how to access relevant insights from the platforms that resonate with your niche.
Social media facilitates your access to valuable information that you can use to make data-driven decisions. You can learn about the sentiments of your audience, your competitors’ strategies, and market dynamics, which help you build a sustainable business.
In this article, we are going to talk about social media business intelligence in detail and its implications for your business.
So, without further ado, let’s start.
What is Social Media Business Intelligence?
Before diving deep into the discussion, let’s understand social media business intelligence first.
People research products or services through different information sources before making a buying decision, and 43% leverage social media to conduct their research.
They also help each other make smart purchase decisions by sharing their experiences or encounters with different brands.
It makes social media a reliable source of information when it comes to understanding diverse audience segments. You can get to know the interests of the intended audience and the factors that dictate their buying behavior.
Moreover, industry experts and thought leaders also share useful information through social media channels, covering the latest trends and market dynamics.
Social media business intelligence encompasses the effective use of relevant insights or data you access through social media platforms.
It’s a process through which you collect and analyze social media data representing customer insights, industry trends, and dynamics of the competitive landscape. An efficient use of such data can set you apart and pave the way for you to be a market leader.
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It enables you to know what your customers expect from you, see if your content marketing strategy is working, and make informed decisions that enable you to outperform your competition.
Questions that Social Media Business Analytics Answer
Research requires a well-defined problem statement. It serves as the foundation for identifying solutions to the challenges encountered. In fact, even the process of finding a problem requires thorough investigation and analysis.
Hence, businesses that seek continuous improvement often try to find answers to the following questions:
- What happened in the past?
- What caused it?
- What will be the outcome?
- What should be the plan of action?
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Social media facilitates your access to descriptive, diagnostic, predictive, and prescriptive analytics, enabling you to seek answers to the questions above.
The information you access helps you discover the areas for improvement and devise efficient strategies to optimize business outcomes.
Significance of Social Media Business Intelligence
Social media has over 5.04 billion users around the globe. People use their preferred platforms to interact with one another and tell their stories. These stories may encompass their experiences with different brands.
It makes social media an ideal place to access customer insights. You not only get to assess the sentiment of your target audience but also see how others react to it.
You get to know what your audience expects from you and identify their pain points. You identify the roadblocks that add friction to the customer journey and are able to come up with effective countermeasures.
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Through social media, you can also track the progress of your competitors and keep an eye on the strategies they deploy to engage the intended audience.
You’re all participants in the same race. So, knowing the trick up your competitors’ sleeves may give you an edge. You can also take inspiration from their strategies and devise better ones for yourself.
Plus, seeing how people interact with competing brands helps you know your current standing in the competitive landscape. Use social media to track the latest industry trends. New problems demand new solutions, which may serve as an opportunity for you to grow your business.
You can conduct your research through social media. For example, if you want to partner with an influencer or content creator, you can explore their page, check their content, and assess their audience to determine whether or not they’d be the right fit for collaboration.
Ways to Leverage Social Media Business Intelligence
Social media business intelligence has diverse uses and fuels a variety of data-driven strategies. The following are a few useful ways you can leverage social media business intelligence and get optimal results from your efforts.
Establish a Strong Connection With Your Audience
Social media business intelligence makes you capable of knowing your audience better. You keep an eye on their changing needs or interests and understand what they prefer.
It helps you devise effective communication strategies and formulate a deeper bond with your target audience.
Social media gives you the power to personally reach out to your customers and inquire about what they want. Such interactions cultivate trust and help you ensure lasting customer relationships.
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Social media business intelligence not only helps you generate traction by promoting your solutions in a way that clicks, but you can also solve your customers’ concerns.
You can identify the problems your customers encounter when using your products or services and provide proactive customer support.
Ensure Continuous Improvement
Social media is one of the best sources to identify the room for improvement in the products or services you offer.
Your customers likely share their positive or negative experiences on social media, providing you with useful insights to make necessary adjustments.
The data you collect through social media makes it easy to tailor your products or services to your customers’ changing expectations.
You can analyze the market demands and introduce new features in your solutions, ensuring seamless product development.
Manage Your Brand’s Reputation
Social media insights also help you manage your reputation and avoid potential PR crises. Through sentiment analysis, you can gauge how your target audience perceives your brand and devise the best course of action.
People are generally vocal about their interactions with brands throughout the customer journey on different social media platforms.
Some act as your brand advocates, whereas others can be your adversaries. It’s their experiences or encounters with you that shape their opinions, which may have a significant impact on your brand’s image.
With the help of social media, you can identify people who have had poor experiences with you and make things right with them.
Leverage Social Proof
As said above, social media insights help you turn the negative experiences of your audience into positive ones and avert potential reputation-related problems.
However, that’s not the only thing you can achieve. You can also benefit from the positive experiences of your customers.
People rely on the reviews and recommendations from others when making buying decisions to minimize the risk of making a bad purchase. They often use social media platforms to inquire about different brands.
You can leverage the reviews or testimonials from your satisfied customers and fuel social proof. It helps you get more eyeballs and convince potential customers to try your solutions.
Improve Content Performance
Social media insights also help you with content optimization. You can keep an eye on the engagement of the posts you share and see if your content strategy is generating desired results.
By analyzing your reach and audience’s interaction with your posts in the form of reactions, comments, and shares, you get an idea of what’s working and what’s not.
Using this information, you can make necessary adjustments to your content calendar and acknowledge enhanced engagement through relevant social media platforms.
Devise Growth Strategies
Social media helps you keep an eye on emerging trends. Plus, industry experts readily share useful information through a variety of social media platforms.
It helps you identify untapped markets and discover new opportunities to grow your business. You can use this information to launch new solutions and start generating more revenue through different streams.
Best Social Media Business Intelligence Tools
Extracting useful insights from social media manually can be time-consuming and a daunting activity. Even if you pull it off, the analytics dashboard of different social media apps gives you access to information that represents very limited performance indicators.
So, we highly recommend leveraging a social media business intelligence tool that best aligns with your goals. You may find a variety of alternatives out there. You can choose to go with the one that best meets your needs.
Here are some of the leading social media business intelligence solutions that serve diverse purposes that you may want to consider using for relevant insights.
Bulk.ly
Bulk.ly is the ultimate social media analytics and content scheduling solution. The tool makes it easy for you to schedule, publish, and manage your content. Plus, it facilitates your access to advanced social media analytics to track your performance.
Bulk.ly makes it easier for you to see how the intended audience interacts with your brand through relevant social media platforms. You can effortlessly track your engagement and make necessary adjustments to your content strategy.
The following are a few of the benefits that you get when you choose to manage your social media profiles using Bulk.ly:
Mention
Mention is a leading business intelligence tool that helps you access useful information and relevant insights through different social media platforms.
You can use this tool to track brand mentions and assess audience sentiment. The following are a few noteworthy features that the solution offers:
- Mentions tracking
- Reputation management
- Sentiment analysis
- Competitor analysis
- Market research
Hootsuite
Hootsuite provides you with easy access to a variety of useful social media insights that can help you operate at optimal efficiency.
You can not only use Hootsuite to manage your social media pages but also conduct thorough research using platforms of your choice.
The following are a few of the salient features that Hootsuite offers:
- Social listening
- Engagement monitoring
- Social advertising management
- Content scheduling
Sprout Social
Another social media management and analytics tool that you may want to consider using is Sprout Social. The tool is quite beginner-friendly and provides you with access to all useful insights that can help you grow.
With Sprout Social, you can devise stellar strategies that enable you to cultivate a strong bond with your target audience through relevant social media apps. You can also find potential partners and collaborators who believe in your vision and help you explore additional revenue streams.
Here are a few of the features of Sprout Social that may pique your interest:
- Social media analytics
- Social listening
- Engagement tracking
- Advocacy
- Content publishing
Keyhole
Keyhole is another useful analytics solution that helps you make the most of relevant social media platforms.
The tool makes it easy for you to manage your reputation in your respective industry and engage the intended audience segments.
You can monitor your social media campaigns, discover partners worth collaborating with, and keep an eye on the latest industry trends.
Keyhole is somewhat of an underdog in the race for top social media business intelligence solutions. However, it packs all the necessary features and capabilities that you may need to explore useful social media insights for your business:
- Brand monitoring
- Social listening
- Campaign management
- Competitor analysis
- Market research
The Way Forward
Social media enables you to know your customers better and keep an eye on the latest industry trends. The information you access through social media makes you aware of the audience sentiment and the strategies that your competitors are using.
Moreover, you get familiar with the market dynamics and discover new opportunities to grow your business.
When you track useful metrics that align with your goals through relevant social media platforms, you become able to make informed decisions that set you apart from other players in your industry.
Social media business intelligence paves the way for you to ensure continuous improvement and maintain lasting relationships with your target audience.
