Big Data is developing as the world’s newest source for competitive advantage. And social media marketing too is no exception. Social media also being one of Big Data’s most significant sources. Social Media user count worldwide is ever-increasing thanks to the increased worldwide usage of smartphones and mobile devices fueled by improved Internet penetration. In 2017, 68.3 percent of Internet users are social media users and these figures are expected to grow.

Social media offers business organizations with lots of new growth opportunities with big data playing a vital role in it. Here we will discuss four ways on how big data aids in social media marketing:

Identifying New Customers

Big data helps deliver insight into who your customers are in social media. Traditionally, marketers only considered the demographic aspect to identify their customers. Now, thanks to social media insight platform marketers are provided with new and more effective parameters to identify new customers. Marketers can take into consideration factors like household income, interests, lifestyle to have a clear understanding of users and target them accordingly.

Prediction of Customer’s need

Social media is now a primary platform for users to express themselves. Here, they express their preferences, likes and dislikes, personal taste, interest, etc. Marketers can collect a big amount of data about customer’s preferences from the pages they follow, their interaction, things they talk about, places they visit and current trends, which will help them to predict customer’s needs. Big data from various social media platforms will empower marketers with the ability to make effective marketing decisions to appeal to users.

Enhanced Customer Service

Big data helps in identifying new customers and their needs. Only then the Social media marketers can easily come up with the best possible product or service which will make the users happier. Big data analysis in social media helps to answer customer questions and solve problems. It allows a business to easily address common customer complaints by collecting and analyzing numerous post comments or feedbacks and tweets over a period of time.

Accurate ad placement and measurement of results

Big Data analysis in social media allows you to target your ad campaign to a more specific audience. Marketers can consider various parameters to make their advertising more effective. You can consider user’s age, status updates, posts, comments, likes to make more accurate ad placement to reach your potential customers. Finally, it helps to measure how effective your marketing strategy was.

Author: Niresh Lamsal

*Note: This post was a part of the author’s personal blog post from 2014*