Big Data is the buzzword of the business world these days and its benefits are being touted by every business professional. However, to some it seems like all this talk about Big Data is just speculation. People don’t think that Big Data can be more useful than other manageable forms of data that organisations are already using these days. For some, the cost of analysing, transmitting and storing big data does not seem worth the meager benefits that they have attained from it.

As technology advances and we are able to gather increasingly complex information, Big Data may soon become the norm. Also, if used correctly, Big Data can have huge benefits for any business. Big Data analytics can give insights that can be very profound and highly profitable when used correctly. This is why Big Data is now being used extensively by companies when it comes to marketing and it has proven to be extremely useful when it comes to social media marketing. Don’t believe us? Here are some ways that Big Data can be very useful for social media analysts.

Better understand and appeal to target customers

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Every business wants to understand their customers better because if they are unable to give customers what they want, there will be no business for them to run. The Holy Grail for all marketers and business people is to be able to predict what customers want before anyone else so that they can fulfil that demand first over all their peers. The use of the data is to predict customer preferences and to predict their behaviour down the line is the most touted advantages of big data analytics. However, analytics software and predictive tools are getting increasingly sophisticated and the big data gathered is becoming more accurate, which can give companies a certain edge.

One of the avenues that is proving to be quite successful in gathering more data about customers is social media. Companies are now adding big data sets from social media to their conventional data sets regarding information about their customers. The final goal for companies is to be able to use this combination of social media big data sets and conventional data sets to create a predictive model that allows them to predict with increased accuracy customer preferences and behaviors and then target them with the kind of products that they need. Telecom companies and big brand retailers are already using such data sets to accurately predict customer behaviour.

Streamline business processes

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Imagine the amount of money, time and effort companies can save if they know exactly what customers want in the future and focus all their energies on fulfilling this demand that invariably turns out to be accurate. This is exactly what big data can help companies achieve. There are many retailers who are trying to use big data sets and big data analytics from social media to predict what customers need so that they can stock those products in their stores if they already exist or create such products beforehand to meet customer demand.

Most people – especially the younger generations, spend most of their time on social media platforms or they are always connected to such social media platforms through some means. Social media is where people reveal their desires, needs, emotions, and thoughts. Most people use these platforms to connect with one another. Such interactions and activities on social media platforms can yield so much data about customer preferences and behavior and we have only just been able to harness such data all thanks to data analytics.

Once companies are able to predict with certain accuracy about future customer behavior and demands, then they can work on streamlining their business processes towards more successful initiatives. Even the smallest increase in accuracy of such predictive models that depend on social media data sets can lead to immense savings for the companies.

Understand customer impressions better

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What if you could understand what customers thought of your brand and its marketing efforts without having to ask them directly? Using analytics can help companies understand customer impressions towards them and their brands. Such data can be gleaned off company website and social media pages by monitoring customer behavior and engagement with the web pages and their social media pages. Big data analytics can help companies measure objectively how well they are doing in meeting customer demands and where they are failing.

Such data is invaluable and can help companies improve their business and marketing processes to get better reactions from their customers and to please their customers better. By being able to understand what customers feel about you and your brand and its marketing campaigns by their behavior on your websites and social media platforms, not only makes your brand less intrusive but also allows it to improve its campaigns for better results.

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