big data

SOCIAL MEDIA… A BLESSING OR A CURSE?

Social media impedes on many elements of both traditional and digital marketing practices. It has developed a whole new level of complexity for digital marketers. As a result, marketers are required to constantly monitor and update their social media pages in order to stay relevant and at the front of consumer’s minds.

The upsides to social media

The main benefits of social media can be summarised by the following:

There are a huge range of benefits and opportunities that social media has provided to brands. The most advantageous ones surround monitoring and maintaining consumer relationships and opinions. Text mining and CRM technologies make it easier than ever for brands to gather, analyse and implement strategies based off the data they collect from social media. This enables them to target segments more accurately and therefore ensures the communications that are shared through social media are more efficient in communicating an intended message.

The downsides to social media

Social media is not as straight forward as it seems. There are also drawbacks that include:

One of the biggest issues that surrounds social media includes privacy. The Economist declared in 2017 that “The world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data”. As social media collects increasing amounts of data, there have been a number of scandals that have surfaced relating to privacy. One of the biggest being Cambridge Analytica – I highly recommend the Netflix documentary “The Great Hack” if you are interested in learning more. As a result, consumers are becoming more sceptical of the platforms. This means social media platforms, like Facebook, are losing users – 15 million to be exact.

Implications for marketers

So, how has social media changed the way brands operate?

Brands must now use various softwares to track, monitor and analyse insights from their social media channels. These may be in the form of listening tools such as Hootsuite, user trackers like Social Blade, or even measurement tools like Google Analytics. Just naming a few, there are an abundance of softwares that brands can and need to utilise in order to ensure they are getting the most from their social media efforts.

Brands must also ensure they stay on top of complaints that are posted on social media. Online word of mouth spreads like wildfire and it is vital that brands are responding promptly to avoid crises. When complaints are posted with no response from the brand, it makes them seem careless and negligent. Therefore, brands must ensure they are regularly checking social media complaints and other review sites like Yelp as well.

Furthermore, with such a concentrated environment, brands must adopt communication strategies that are creative. When consumers are faced with 4,000 to 10,000 ads each day, consumers will only properly pay attention to those that stand out. Brands need to incorporate innovative or imaginative elements into their social media posts to ensure they are memorable and worthwhile. If they fail to do so, it will result in a waste of resources.

What do you think are potential future implications of social media for marketers? Let me know in the comments!

DATA AND THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

Today’s modern business environment is saturated with more competitors than ever before. Consumers have easy access to a huge range of competitors. This creates a need for businesses to differentiate themselves from their competitors in order to stay ahead of the pack. This is where the concept of the consumer experience comes into play.

Before you can be a front runner in the customer experience you provide, there is a whole lot of back end work that needs to be done first. Big data is an incredibly valuable resource that enables a business to gain significant knowledge of their customers and market, vital to establish a meaningful customer experience. Despite the immense benefits that are associated with using big data, there are also challenges that businesses should be aware of.

A significant issue surrounds storage. IDC estimates that the amount of information stored in IT systems worldwide “…is doubling in size every two years, and by 2020 the digital universe … will reach 44 zettabytes, or 44 trillion gigabytes.” This is an insanely large amount of information for anyone to comprehend, let alone store efficiently and keep track of. It is vital for big data to be structured and organised in order to ensure it is useful and insightful for organisations.

Similarly, another issue associated with big data is being able to generate opportune insights. There is no point constantly collecting and gathering data if it isn’t being used to make decisions. When there is an unfathomable amount of information, it can be very difficult to extract insights that enable an organisation to gain a competitive advantage. Ultimately, the overarching goal of using big data is to find the pivotal chunks of data that drive your organisation’s competitive position. This requires an organisation to have a clearly defined problem early on to ensure they do not get distracted and lose sight of the issue they are trying to solve.

How does an organisation use big data to enhance the customer experience?

Previously, I have discussed the notion of customer touch-points. When discussing big data, touch-points are essentially data generating units for organisations. Each touch-point helps to create a consumer profile based on online purchase patterns, social media profiles, search terms and even banking transaction history. Firms like AXCIOM sell these personal profiles from data they have collected, providing other organisations with data to better understand and engage global audiences.

Once an organisation has the relevant big data to enhance their competitive edge, they should segment the broad customer market into smaller groups based on shared characteristics. The benefit of segmenting with big data means that organisations can delve deeper into their customer data to develop offerings that consumers really want at the right time. Similarly, this will also enable an organisation to identify and connect with niche segments that they previously would not know where or how to find.

After segmenting their consumers, organisations may wish to conduct sentiment analysis or topic modelling to gather a quick insight into opinions and attitudes of certain groups. From this information, an organisation can perform an abundance of predictive, web and data-driven optimisation analysis to ultimately formulate a successful strategy to enhance consumer experiences.

Once an organisation has collated all of this data about their consumers, it enables the business to provide consumers with a memorable experience. A success story of customer experience optimisation can be seen in Disney’s innovative Magicband. Providing consumers with an experience that is both impressive and distinctive creates sentiment among your customer base. When it is clear that a brand is making an effort to enhance the customer experience, customers feel important and as though the business has earned their allegiance. As a result, this encourages brand loyalty and life-long customers.

Do you believe that customer experience optimisation is a vital component to a brand’s digital marketing strategy? In such a competitive operating environment, do you agree that it should be a large focus for all organisations?