subject: Social Media Analytic Tools Aiding The Business Growth [print this page] Every business , irrespective of the industry sector, has a common vital factor the consumer. The growth of businesses is related to the development of the products and services and various operational and marketing strategies which are again dependent on the consumer requirements. Consumer awareness, preferences and factors leading to purchasing actions thus forms the basis of the birth of a product or service. This is generally done with the help of a marketing research and surveys and modeled and passed through a marketing funnel.
However, with globalization of industries, technological growth and the wide use of the Internet as a communication tool, there are more factors that enter the marketing funnel making it a complex network of requirements. Today's consumer with recommendations from friends and families across nations, product reviews, and availability of alternatives have become more knowledgeable on the ability to demand for products as per their usage. In case of existing products, the cahnging attitude of the consumer effects the sales and organizational growth. Marketing professionals need to make use of engagement tracking mechanism to understand the changes in consumer behaviour.
Engagement tracking is done with the help of engagement metrics and social media analytic tools to measure the loyalty levels of a consumer to a brand or product and the effect of social media on such engagements. This is a critical factor for every organization and more so with one with a social media focus. Further,technological growth has weakened traditional marketing channels and has paved way for the e-commerce and online shopping portals. With most of the leading brands in every industry having its footprints on the web, web based product reviews, message boards, online streaming videos of the new product features not only brings in transparency to the product but has brought about a growth in the social intelligence levels of the consumer.
Making use of technology to benefit the organizational growth, the product reviews, blogs, Q&A sessions or a help desk at the web portal will help to create a dialogue with the customer and engage them to stimulate interest in the brand. Further, with social media gaining importance among the generation next, facebook analytics will help understand consumer behavior and their engagement status. Enterprises that understand the importance of social media and social analytics, and its impact on the consumer work towards analyzing the numerous online conversations, integrate the information gained into creating a business strategy for their organizations and product.
Foresters recent research predicts that internet based interactive marketing through social media analytic tools will accelerate spending in the US to nearly $61 billion by 2012 and the social media sales alone will grow to nearly $6.9 billion. However, depending on the type of business, social analytics can effectively bring businesses closer to the customer, uncover untapped markets, with enough insight into the competitors.
