Social Media Analytics: Using Social Data to Tackle 3 Biggest Business Problems

My earlier posts "Digital Analytics: Unlocking the Power of Social Data" and "Social Media Analytics: The Key to Knowing Your Customers" covered the importance of social data and how to use it to bring you closer to your customers than ever before. Now, let's take a look at how it can help solve specific business problems.

You see, digital data gives us the opportunity to go beyond social media hype and get to the heart of virtually any business problem.

What are the biggest problems your brand faces today?

Let's Google "business problems for brands" and see how social analytics can tackle them.

Top of the list is a study that identifies credibility problems for brands using telephone surveys.

Surveys, any surveys, generally have their limitations. For one, self-reporting isn't very reliable. Secondly, sample sizes can be too small to see any trends. Thirdly, you are not getting real-time data. And lastly, you are probably spending too much money and too much time collecting it.

If we use social data instead, we can avoid most of these limitations. We can listen to real conversations that happen naturally, in real time. We can find out who these people are, and the relationships they have with your brand and others.

It also allows you to open a two-way conversation with the very people that have a problem with your credibility. A one-way survey is replaced by a two-way conversation, a conversation that can lead to a longer-term relationships and eventually build trust.

How to tackle credibility issues with social data:

Score your brand on credibility and compare results with competitors and famous credible brands. Harvest and analyze all public conversations that mention your ethical endeavors: employee satisfaction, your environmental impact, charity work, your marketing efforts, etc.Build a list of credibility issues, based on the most common problems voiced by the most influential users.Then list the initiatives that competitors and other credible brands get praised for.Compare these lists and outline the changes that you can make to get the most gain in credibility (in terms or financial cost and the impact that it is likely to have on the social audience).

The next relevant result is a list of twenty brand problems. The first on the list is a lack of understanding for the consumer's needs.

How to get a deeper insight into the consumer's needs using social data:

Using email-matching and other techniques, locate your actual customers on social media.Harvest all the available public data: positive or negative mentions of your brand (sentiment), profile information, the devices they use, how active they are, reviews they've written and more.Create unified social profiles of your customer segmenets: the things they like, the topics they talk about, their interests, and any needs that your brand can meet.Distribute the findings to all appropriate departments within your company, updating regularly.

This may not seem like a problem that data can help with, but branding starts with the customer. Social data is our link to the customer's thoughts and feelings, which are vital to help forge a brand promise.

How social data can help strengthen brand image:

Follow the suggested steps for business issue #2.Outline the brand promise as you see it internally.Use the data from the consumer report to help shape your brand promise with the customer in mind.Create a plan to build and nurture your brand communities to help boost your brand credibility and authenticity.

Social media analytics is your direct connection to the voice of the customer and their needs. It is a massive opportunity to make the customer the focus of your business and use the data to improve your products, your customer service, your marketing, and every aspect of your business. But, most importantly, it is a great way for you to form long-term relationships with just your customers, but your partners, stakeholders, and beyond. The best way to do that is to provide remarkable consumer experiences across every touchpoint, every interaction with your brand, building loyalty and advocacy as a result. And isn't that the ultimate goal of any business?

For more examples of common business problems that digital data can be used to solve, as well as what you need to do to take your first steps to helping solve them with social insights, take a look at Sprinklr's Social Media Analytics 103 eBook.

This is part three of a three-part series on social media analytics. Here are Part I and Part II.

View the original article here

Original source: Social Media Analytics: Using Social Data to Tackle 3 Biggest Business Problems.
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