Opportunities for Innovation in Social Media Analytics

While the data from social media platforms are abundant, social media has primarily been viewed as a channel through which marketers can reach consumers. While its use as a promotional channel is important, this perspective ignores the potential value of social media data. From social media data, much can be learned about individual consumers and more broadly networks of consumers. Viewed in this way, social media data can be an important source of insights into consumers that can be used to support marketing decisions. In contrast to more traditional means of gathering insights, social media data are freely provided by the consumers themselves, allowing marketers to hear the “voice of the consumer” directly. In this paper, the authors introduce a framework that views social media data as a source of marketing insights. They then discuss the characteristics of social data that have required innovation in the analytic approaches used to derive actionable marketing insights. The authors identify and elaborate on specific topics in which they believe that social media analytics can serve as a valuable tool for marketers, as well as discuss areas of opportunity for future research.