The Path of a Data Point: Converting Numbers into Social Media Strategy

Every business should strive to be data-driven. As technology and organizations advance, we can access insights that were unimaginable 15 years ago. These insights deliver real value by boosting customer loyalty, engagement, and satisfaction, or by helping develop products and services that meet unrecognized customer needs. Social media analytics goes beyond numbers; it reveals meaningful stories about your brand and audience.

“When I think about data, social media naturally comes to mind. This is partly because I work with client leaders to understand the customer’s voice, but it’s also because social media insights represent the next frontier in business intelligence.”

Social media data provides actionable insights that can move your business forward. But how does data become business intelligence? And are professionals, from social media managers to marketing leaders, truly leveraging these social insights to their advantage?

Understanding Social Media Insights

Social media intelligence refers to the practice of collecting and examining data from interactions on social networks to aid in strategic decision-making. Across various social channels, there are countless data points that contribute to broader business insights. This process involves combining key data—such as engagement volume, sentiment analysis, content trends, and audience demographics—into quantifiable insights.

By providing context to this data, brands can use it to steer their marketing campaigns, sales strategies, product development, and more. Chances are, your competitors are already leveraging social media insights. According to The 2023 State of Social Media Report, 85% of business leaders report that social data regularly or frequently informs their company’s business strategy. Additionally, 30% of these leaders predict that the reliance on social data will significantly increase in the coming three years.

The Significance of Social Media Analytics

Gathering feedback through customer surveys, product reviews, and focus groups is essential, but combining this with insights from social media intelligence provides a more comprehensive view of your audience’s needs.

While a single post might not carry significant weight, the collective insights from all related social posts can reveal powerful trends.

Social media data taps into a larger, more diverse audience, offering unfiltered, real-time insights into your market that traditional feedback methods alone can’t capture.

Social media insights give perspective on extensive feedback

• Social Media Intelligence Provides Broader Insights: This type of intelligence offers a comprehensive view when necessary, significantly influencing your quarterly performance or fiscal year results.
• Capturing Wider Audience Sentiment: While customer surveys provide feedback from your existing customer base, social media intelligence captures the overall sentiment from anyone engaging with your product category, enabling you to connect with new audiences.
• Identifying Opportunities for Growth: Access to diverse feedback allows teams to uncover more opportunities to leverage social data, enhance revenue generation, identify potential cost efficiencies, and mitigate business risks.
• Importance of Blending Data with Creativity: Sarah Hupp Foster, Chief Operating Officer of Madden Media, emphasizes that combining social data with creativity is essential, as it helps gauge customer behavior, reactions, and discussions, yielding rich insights about the audience.

Evaluate Responses in Real Time

• Immediate Insights into Consumer Reactions : Customers often share their unfiltered thoughts on social media as soon as they encounter an issue, providing you with real-time feedback on how your product is perceived. By adopting social media intelligence strategies, you can detect problems more swiftly than by relying solely on internal customer service monitoring.
• Swift Identification of Trends : Establishing a trend line of social sentiment allows you to quickly identify any sudden changes in customer opinions. This proactive approach enables you to investigate potential issues without delay.
• Case Study Example : For instance, an agency working with a skincare brand noticed a decline in sales for a moisturizer but couldn't determine the cause. By utilizing a social listening tool, they obtained answers within minutes rather than taking months. Customers appreciated the product itself but were dissatisfied with the packaging. The social media team relayed this feedback to the research and development department, who then redesigned the packaging based on authentic customer insights.

Gain Deeper Insights into Your Customers through Honest Feedback

Social media is a powerful platform where people share their unfiltered thoughts and opinions. While customers may hold back their true feelings in direct surveys, they openly express themselves on social networks. Without an effective social media intelligence program, you might only notice a few viral posts that highlight specific concerns. However, by organizing this social media data, you can identify common themes and adjust your marketing strategies accordingly.

• Genuine Insights: Customers are more likely to share honest feedback on social media, giving you valuable insights that traditional surveys might miss.
• Data Analysis: Collecting and analyzing social media feedback helps you uncover recurring trends and patterns, enabling you to refine your approach effectively.
• Strategic Decision-Making: “When customers communicate their needs—whether regarding operational enhancements, new technology investments, or direct feedback—this information serves as a solid foundation for leaders. Utilizing social media data empowers you to craft informed proposals and strategies,” says Foster.
• Comprehensive Sentiment Tracking: Social media intelligence can also provide insights into employee sentiment and investor relations.
• Practical Example: “One company tracks both employee and investor sentiment right after earnings calls to gain an unfiltered view of how their communications are received. This intelligence helps shape future messaging tailored to each audience.

Enhances Competitive Analysis and Comparison

• Enhances Competitor Analysis: Social media intelligence aids in tracking competitor activities, particularly the narratives they share and their successes. Understanding their strategies helps brands stay relevant.
• Identifies Opportunities: According to Jenny Li Fowler, Director of Social Media Strategy at MIT, it's crucial to know what competitors are doing to recognize internal gaps they may be exploiting. This awareness allows brands to adjust their own strategies effectively.
• Inspires Creativity: “If you’re competing in the same sector, you share a similar audience. This presents a chance to uniquely contribute to the conversation. I gain valuable insights from my peers in higher education. We learn from one another, which is a crucial aspect of creativity,” Fowler explains. Learning from competitors can spark innovation.
• Gathers Consumer Preferences: Brands can uncover why customers prefer their competitors, providing valuable competitive intelligence that could take a significant amount of time to gather through traditional methods. Understanding consumer preferences helps refine marketing strategies.
• Identifies Market Gaps: Social media data can reveal what’s lacking in the marketplace, providing insights that can profoundly influence your business strategy. Without social media insights, these opportunities might remain hidden, limiting growth potential.

Approaches for Collecting and Leveraging Social Media Insights

Our specialists provided their techniques for obtaining more in-depth data and utilizing social media insights through methods such as social listening, sentiment analysis, social monitoring, and competitive analysis.

Online Conversation Tracking and Sentiment Evaluation

1. Definition:
• Social Listening: This involves gathering and examining online discussions to understand what people are saying about a brand, product, service, or industry.
• Sentiment Analysis: This technique assesses the tone of these conversations, categorizing them as positive, neutral, or negative. Together, they provide valuable insights into consumer perceptions and trends.
2. Real-World Application:
• BGSU Example: Brianna Louise Blackburn, the Social Media Strategy Manager at Bowling Green State University, uses Brand2ocial Inbox to monitor sentiment. She focuses on how well their content and the university's activities resonate with their audience.
• Quote: "This helps me report to our leadership, giving them insights into the impact of their decisions on various audiences."
3. Community Engagement:
4. This approach is not only used for immediate sentiment analysis but also to build a sense of community.
5. Quote: "We analyze user engagement closely to refine our client's social strategies. Every interaction provides data to inform our future actions."
6. Case Study - Cultural Engagement:
• During a campaign for Native American Heritage Month, the Madden team noticed enthusiasm in user comments, with many expressing a desire to engage in cultural experiences like powwows.
• They collaborated internally to determine the best responses without encouraging participation in potentially inappropriate events. Instead, they aimed to foster interest in Native American culture through valuable experiences, such as historical tours.
7. Adapting to Negative Sentiment:
• Occasionally, certain topics may trigger negative comments, such as wildlife images that spark debates between residents and conservationists.
• The creative team responded by changing their imagery strategy to focus on different wildlife.
• Quote: "When we identified a surge of negative comments, we altered our approach to avoid that sentiment while still conveying our client's key message about responsible recreation."

This comprehensive approach ensures that businesses not only understand consumer feedback in real-time but also adapt their strategies to maintain a positive relationship with their audience.

Competitor Evaluation

Utilizing social data enables you to assess your performance in comparison to competitors. According to Blackburn, observing the activities of other universities or brands in higher education is beneficial, particularly when shaping social media event strategies.

• For instance, by examining how another university incorporates elements like confetti, photo opportunities, or video displays, you can identify ways to make events more engaging and shareable. The goal is to create a social media moment that encourages attendees to capture and share their experiences on platforms like Instagram Stories.
• When compiling reports, Blackburn often includes tools for competitor analysis to showcase other institutions and share feedback on what attendees appreciated about BGSU’s event. This approach helps to secure support and validate strategies.
• “Understanding what discussions your audience is having about your peers or competitors is crucial when marketing a brand or product. This is especially important if you're advocating for a specific direction. Leading with data can provide strong support,” Fowler states.

Social Media Tracking

• Definition: Social monitoring encompasses tracking overall activities across different social media platforms.
• Purpose: It involves observing and analyzing user actions, interactions, and trends on various social media channels. This process helps businesses gather intelligence on their audience's preferences and behaviors.
• Key Factors: By keeping an eye on aspects like engagement levels, audience demographics, and content effectiveness, companies can gain valuable insights into their target market.
• Example: For instance, if a marketer observes a surge in engagement with Instagram Stories that include polls, they may decide to incorporate more interactive features in their future content strategy.

This approach allows businesses to adapt and tailor their marketing efforts based on real-time feedback from their audience.

7 Approaches to Convert Social Data into Useful Insights

Social media intelligence significantly influences your financial performance. So, how can you establish an effective social data strategy?

There are multiple methods to transform social media data into practical insights for your organization. For Madden, social data enhances their overall narrative.

"We aim to convey genuine stories on social media. We achieve this by analyzing analytics and information our client has regarding the location and their target audience.

This includes factors like geographic targets and demographics. We also examine conventional metrics for our campaigns, such as cost-per-click (CPC), likes, shares, and comments.

This data helps us understand how well a message resonates," explains Jack Petty, Senior Director of Destination Strategy.

In addition to supporting narrative creation, here are seven methods to turn social data into actionable insights.

1. Build a Data Dashboard

• Integrate social media insights with other key data sources to enhance their value. It's essential to merge social intelligence data with metrics like CSAT, NPS scores, customer reviews, and support tickets. This approach provides a holistic view of the business landscape, enabling well-rounded insights rather than isolating social media data.
• When social media insights are given the same weight as data from CRM or ERP systems, it creates a clearer, unified perspective on the business, allowing better strategy formulation.
• “In times of economic uncertainty, having consolidated listening tools can be crucial for real-time decision-making. For example, retailers can rely on social data to guide inventory management, helping them determine which products to discount and which ones to retain. A centralized data dashboard simplifies these tough calls,” says Barretto.

This setup allows your teams to see trends, track metrics like sentiment and engagement, and make agile decisions with all necessary insights in one place.

2. Strengthen Your Social Media Team

• Ownership of Social Data: The individuals who engage with social media daily should take charge of social data.
• Leverage Existing Knowledge: Your social media team is already familiar with the landscape and may have valuable insights from their regular activities.
• Provide Essential Tools: Ensure your team has the necessary resources to share their findings across the organization.
• Align with Business Objectives: Keep your team updated on the company's metrics and goals for the upcoming quarter, year, or five years.
• Focus on Business Relevance: Ensure your social media team understands what is crucial for the business so they can gather and share insights with leadership that will support your overall strategy.

3. Utilize Social Insights to Uncover Market Trends and Possibilities

• Focus on Trends: Madden’s teams analyze significant trends in the travel industry. Post-2020, there has been a growing interest in outdoor experiences, attracting new audiences.
• Insight Sharing: “Social intelligence reveals major trends, allowing us to share these insights with clients to determine what will resonate with their audiences,” explains COO Foster.
• Broad Overview: Foster uses social data to understand workforce discussions, relevant industry topics, and emerging technologies. Recognizing a key trend enables her to consider its application in Madden’s operations.
• Large-Scale View: “I can observe various industries on a grand scale and learn what employees are looking for,” she adds.
• Survey Creation: For instance, while analyzing sentiment around hybrid work models, she was inspired to create a survey for the Madden team about best practices for hybrid work.
• Staff Insights: “I saw that many people preferred not to fully return to the office, which motivated me to act and check in on our staff’s feelings through a survey. Insights from the social media landscape indicated we needed to explore this topic further,” she notes.

4. Distribute Knowledge Across Teams and Divisions

• Value of Social Media Intelligence: A single data point can provide significant insights for multiple teams.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Much of the work done by the marketing team benefits various departments since they serve diverse client needs.
• Case Studies: Presenting campaign performance data helps in developing actionable case studies that can be applied to internal marketing strategies.
• Company-Wide Communication: Madden Media utilizes a shared communication platform for all teams to exchange successes and performance metrics from campaigns.
• Awareness of Ongoing Projects: With multiple teams focusing on different clients, having a centralized space helps everyone stay informed about ongoing projects and strategies.
• Competitor Insights: Teams also share valuable competitor information to enhance their marketing strategies and stay competitive.

5. Run A/B Experiments to Tailor Content for Your Audience

• Social media insights are invaluable for guiding A/B testing, helping you find the messaging and elements that connect best with your audience. Testing different content formats, captions, images, or posting times can help reduce the risk of content missing the mark. This strategy works for both organic posts and paid ads.
• Petty highlights, “We prioritize client budgets by making sure our ad creative stays effective. If engagement rates, like click-through rates (CTR), start to decline, we adjust using A/B testing to identify the optimal approach.”
• When an ad performs well, the team focuses on that version, while similar ads with slight adjustments (such as a new image or targeting) might also be tested. If those alternatives perform better, they become the main version. This A/B testing enables Madden to offer clients data-backed recommendations that maximize engagement and refine their ad strategies.

6. Use Social Data to Shape Future Campaigns

• Integrate Social Insights into Creative Planning : Social media intelligence is essential in guiding the creative process, especially when gearing up for new campaigns. After a seasonal campaign concludes, the Madden team prepares a summary of results to share with internal teams and clients.
• Review Key Campaign Insights : “Our media strategists provide valuable highlights, like the best-performing headlines, main text, and link descriptions for paid ads. Reviewing these insights helps me plan effectively for upcoming campaigns. It shows how well our content resonates with audiences, and I can gauge audience sentiment from those results,” says Wilhelm.
• Analyze Landing Page Performance : The team also examines the campaign’s landing page metrics, such as click-through rates, bounce rates, and time spent on the page. This data helps them understand if the page met user expectations after they clicked through.
• Measure Campaign Success : “These metrics show us if we're aligning with our audience and sparking interest in our client's destination. We rely on these insights to ensure our social content supports a data-driven approach and resonates effectively with the audience,” she adds.

7. Stay Ahead by Using Social Media Insights Proactively

• Real-time social insights let you respond to audience needs early, making it a helpful tool for crisis management and proactive communication. Fowler shared how MIT uses social intelligence to navigate challenges and better understand its audience's feelings.
• "Our goal with social media insights is to tune into what our community feels and needs,” Fowler explains. This helps them understand what’s on people’s minds.
• During the pandemic, MIT’s community missed campus and face-to-face interactions. In response, the social media team used warmer, more personal messages. For example, they changed from saying “We miss everyone” to “We miss you, too.”
• Fowler notes, “This more personal approach helped our audience feel heard. We shifted our tone to match the serious mood, avoiding phrases like ‘Have a happy weekend’ and instead acknowledging how people felt.”
• Fowler highlights that informal insights, like comments from the community, are valuable for guiding leadership on messaging tone.
• “When we decide on a message, we ask if it’s needed, what tone to use, and who we’re talking to. Social listening tools help us make these choices thoughtfully and know when to share a message,” she adds.
• To time messages effectively, MIT uses social listening and sentiment analysis to follow specific keywords and see how conversations grow. By tracking mention volumes across networks, they identify patterns or areas that need leadership’s attention.
• “Often, this data confirms what we sense, but seeing high mentions and trends through visual tools shows us where responses are needed. I share these insights with leadership in a clear format,” she says.
• A strong, ongoing social intelligence program helps leadership understand the full picture and make informed, proactive decisions.

3 Social Media Insight Tools for Comprehensive Understanding

1. NetBase Quid

NetBase Quid is a robust social media intelligence platform specializing in consumer and market insights. It offers an in-depth analysis of social media conversations, sentiment, and trends, allowing you to understand how your brand is perceived. With its advanced analytics, you can track competitor performance, identify key influencers, and discover emerging topics that matter to your audience.

2. Mention

Mention is a powerful social media monitoring tool that tracks brand mentions and conversations in real-time. Its user-friendly interface allows you to analyze engagement levels, sentiment, and reach across various platforms. Mention allows you to compare your brand's performance against competitors, providing valuable insights to refine your marketing strategy and enhance your online presence.

3. BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo is an influential content research and social media analytics tool that helps you discover trending topics and identify high-performing content across social networks. You can analyze competitor content, track backlinks, and measure engagement metrics to see what resonates with your audience. BuzzSumo’s insights empower marketers to create compelling content that aligns with current trends and drives engagement.

Conclusion

In the journey of turning data points into actionable social media strategy, each number provides insights that go beyond surface-level metrics. By consistently analyzing and interpreting data, businesses can shift from reactive to proactive decision-making, creating strategies that resonate with their audience, align with industry trends, and support brand goals. From identifying audience preferences to tracking competitor activity, social media intelligence transforms raw numbers into a cohesive approach that drives engagement, brand loyalty, and long-term growth. Ultimately, the path of a data point is one that empowers businesses to make informed, strategic choices in a dynamic digital landscape.