Introduction to Social Media Analytics
What is Social Media Analytics and how does it impact business decisions?
In this series, I will be doing a review as well as adding my findings to the book Seven layers of Social Media Analytics by Gohar F. Khan.
Let’s begin with the definition of Social Media Analytics.
Social Media Analytics is defined as the art and science of extracting valuable insights from a large volume of semi-structured and unstructured social media data to enable informed and insightful decision making.
Semistructured and unstructured data refers to the type of data mostly generated by our activities available on social media. For some platforms, we get data forms like text, images, videos, gifs, and emojis.
This type of data is machine-unreadable for most data analysis tools and hence has to be thoroughly cleaned, unlike business data which are mostly structured and are mostly numerical.
Social Media Analytics as a Science and Art
Science:
Requires systematic methods involving identification, extraction, and analysis using various tools and techniques. This part requires that you gain technical knowledge and also mastery of various tools and if possible, a relevant programming language.
Art:
Involves the interpretation, communication, and alignment of the insights extracted with business goals and objectives.
This part requires you to have domain knowledge, apply insight and creativity, and also possess communication skills to convey your findings and recommendation.
In the next article, I will be discussing the features, uses, and value of social media data. if you have questions and contributions regarding this, you can kindly let me know in the comment section and I will be happy to respond.
