The Need for Business Intelligence Experts in Social Media Marketing
Organizations have more access to data-driven insights than ever before. Now that nearly every action we take can be tracked online, companies can follow customers from the first time they interact with their website to their first order and beyond.
However, all of that data is just that—data. Without someone who knows how to leverage business intelligence tools and extract relevant insights, data isn’t going to produce any meaningful results.
Business intelligence is important for understanding past performance, predicting future performance, and guiding strategy. But it shouldn’t be limited to metrics like sales and customer demographics. Business intelligence experts should play a larger role in other important activities, like social media marketing.
Gathering Social Intelligence
Business intelligence is all about the data that is created by the organization itself. Social intelligence, on the other hand, describes the collection and use of data from a company’s social media accounts. Processing social intelligence involves most of the same steps, but the data comes from a third-party source.
With social media making up around a third of all internet usage, it’s hard to overstate how important staying active on these platforms is for businesses. It’s where customers and potential customers are spending their time! Collecting social intelligence is the first step in understanding how a company’s social media efforts are performing in the short and long term.
Most social platforms offer social stats for business accounts. However, social media managers and business intelligence professionals can typically integrate these apps with their business intelligence tools, making the process of gathering social intelligence much more streamlined.
Why Social Intelligence Matters
Social media marketing is critical, and it’s also complex. Capturing and maintaining the right kind of attention is difficult, even for large and well-known brands. Social intelligence can help by providing in-depth insights that can help marketers understand their target audience.
The other reason to collect social intelligence is to get clear about ROI (return on investment). It’s very easy to spend money on social media marketing, such as sponsored posts, but it’s only worthwhile if a company is making more from its campaigns than it is investing. Knowing exactly how marketing dollars are or aren’t serving the company’s goals is very important for running a lean and efficient organization.
How Business Intelligence Experts Can Help
Marketers are creatives who can spin a narrative and keep people engaged with a brand’s story. That’s where most people working in social media marketing excel. As marketing has become more data-driven, many have learned how to leverage it effectively, but many organizations are missing this piece.
Bringing in a business intelligence expert can help companies do more with their social media strategy by integrating social intelligence with their other data for a more comprehensive picture and enhanced insights. A business intelligence expert can help guide different departments, including marketing, in where to make adjustments or continue as-is.
Who is Qualified in Business Intelligence?
Because data is so important to modern business, it’s best to have someone trained in business intelligence on staff, to focus on making the best use of a company’s available data. In general, this is a high-level position requiring an advanced degree and experience in business strategy as well as data analysis.
The good news is that there are lots of great programs that can be completed virtually, like a DBA online. Many companies choose to sponsor an employee’s education so they can advance their skills and help the organization succeed. Not only does this help the organization, but it also boosts loyalty and helps talented people advance their careers.
Business Intelligence Guides Success
To maintain a competitive edge in today’s market, organizations can’t rely on intuition alone. With all of the available data, competitors who are making use of business intelligence are likely to outperform those who aren’t. Having a dedicated business intelligence expert will help ensure that a company makes the best possible decisions.
Social media is changing, but it isn’t getting less important. As we spend more and more of our time online, companies can boost their bottom line by understanding how people behave—and what they want to see from their favorite brands online. Without business intelligence, that’s sure to be a challenge.
