With the introduction and popularity of free access to the internet, social media is becoming part of almost everyone’s daily routine. People are all connected today, whether they are texting each other on WhatsApp, posting Twitter updates, uploading pictures on Instagram, checking out videos on Facebook, etc.
Today, there is so much information you can access on the internet about anything and everything, from thousands of articles to videos on YouTube. However, the most valuable information on the internet is social media data.
All the pictures, videos, and status updates posted by people on social media platforms contain information about their likes, their demographics, their dislikes, among more. You can analyze this information and apply it in many areas. For instance, you can analyze social media data to come up with findings on the percentage of social media users that prefer a particular ice cream flavor at a particular parlor at any given time. The ice cream parlor can, in turn, identify best-sellers ice cream, and at which time. This technique is what is known as Data Analytics and it is one of the key trends of 2024.
While looking at the impact of data and analytics on social media, it is important that we touch on the impact of losing the same data on your PC due to hard drive failures. As a remedy to shocks of losing your crucial data, it is advisable that you do routine checkups on any signs of hard drive failure and how best you can address such failures.
In this article, we are going to look at the future and current applications of big data analytics on social media platforms and examine its impact.
1. Influencing Marketing Strategies (Current Application)
One of the key applications of using data analytics is the technique used for social media marketing by businesses. By analyzing demographics on different social media platforms, businesses can identify the most effective time, format, and format for their advertisements. For instance, by analyzing the demographics of their reach on multiple social media platforms, they can identify the most effective platform, time, and format for their advertisements. This is also referred to as “target advertising”. If you want to prove this, try searching for something you’ve never searched for before on the internet. When you log into your Facebook account, you will notice an advertisement for the item you searched earlier popping up first.
2. SEO Marketing (Current Application)
SEO (Search Engine Optimized) is a technique used to enhance web pages to top search results received whenever users search for certain keywords. The web pages on the first page of your search results are likely to be clicked on hence, SEO marketing can increase the number of views on certain websites.
Basically, if you use search engine optimization (SEO) marketing techniques, the search engines will boost your web page to the top page of the search results whenever a search is triggered for anything that looks relevant to your brand.
You need to be aware that SEO marketing is not just as simple as putting some keywords into an article. If your article does not make sense, then it will never rank highly on the search engines. Also, if you overuse a word, your web page is likely not to be ranked high on the search engines. You must remember that you are communicating a message to the public, to ensure that the message makes some sense.
Search Engine algorithms contemplate links from authoritative websites as top-ranking signals, increasing your PageRank metrics.
3. Predictive Analytics (Future Application)
So, we have looked at what data analytics has been in 2024. Now we are going to look at what we predict it may be in 2024.
Predictive data analytics is going to become more popular. By analyzing big data from social media platforms, companies will be in a position to identify a customer who is nearly ceasing business with the said company, and take the necessary efforts to correct this. They are also capable of identifying common behavior between customers to understand what makes them power users or get on board with the company’s principles.
Businesses can then use this rich information to convert social media platform users into their customers. This is referred to as influencer marketing.
4. Personalized Marketing Communication (Future Application)
Targeted advertisements are already appealing commonplace. When you sign in to your Facebook account, you are able to view advertisements from things you have searched for in the past and probably enjoyed browsing them on the internet. These are products of data analytics, which are likely to blow up in 2024 and become even more normalized and widespread.
Due to the sophisticated Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology we have today, creating personalized content marketing strategies is s must-do for any company. Today, customers must feel like the companies are reaching out to them, else, they will simply move to the next competing company. Twenty years ago, this idea could be ridiculous; today it is commonplace.
Basically, personalized communication means you will only view an advertisement for the things that you like. The relevance of advertisements will be determined by what you share, what you watch, what you post, etc, and only relevant advertisements will pop up for you. For instance, if you are fond of watching soccer on YouTube, you will get many soccer ads pop-ups when you log into your Facebook account.
Personalized marketing communication enables companies to engage with users personally and create a more warm relationship with them, with the aim of making them your customers.
What does data analytics mean for businesses?
The digital marketing industry is currently thriving and needs an entirely different set of skills from regular marketing. In 2024, most companies will be investing in hiring more data analysts and digital marketers, so that they can take advantage of the big data available on the internet and create more effective marketing strategies.
Nonetheless, it is important that businesses consider whether they have spent many resources on data analytics. Most companies today, have expanded their budget for digital marketing than any other budget. With many companies now investing in digital marketing, we are likely to experience the internet over-saturated with personalized marketing strategies, which may get consumers bored, as they keep on getting the same pop-ups on their dashboards.
Is data analytics on social media ethical: What about data protection?
Data protection is a growing concern among users of social media platforms. The growing concerns include: Are businesses exploiting their personal data for profits? Is their crucial personal information secure on the internet? I believe the answer here is a mixed no and yes. All social media platforms are in possession of Terms and Conditions, which dictate their data protection policy. While some social media platforms have open access to user data (for instance, Facebook and Twitter), and other platforms sell data to companies (for instance, Instagram), some social media platforms keep their data completely confidential (for instance, Snapchat).
However, even the social media platforms that share user data, still typically keep the actual identity of users anonymous. The only data accessible to the public or companies is big data, for instance, statistics and phone numbers, but no names.
Conclusion
Basically, data collection and data analytics is possibly going to exist as long as users are still giving their data on the internet. Nonetheless, thanks to data regulation bodies such as GDPR, we can have some hope for the semblance of data privacy and protection. This does not mean that we should go ahead and publish all personal information on social media platforms.
It is crucial that you refrain from posting information you are not comfortable with when accessed by the entire world. GDPR basically sets standards for how data privacy policies should be implemented effectively.
Generally, we are likely to see an upsurge in data analytics technologies currently and in the near future. Personalized marketing and predictive analytics are just but the beginning; the implications of data analytics technology for the future are limitless.
Author: Robin Jago is editor-in-chief at TTR Data Recovery. He is a data scientist and has decades of experience in writing posts on big data management and analytics.