Social Media has revolutionized the way we do things and the way we communicate. The impact of social media in our lives is endless, we may not be aware but our Facebook profile may be under the scrutiny of defense forces to monitor if we are performing any unlawful activity.
Imagine that out of the total Internet users, 72% are now active on social media. And imagine the enormous amount of data that might be generated from the interactions of these users!
There is a very interesting infographic from Domo on how much data is generated on social media every minute.
To extract meaningful information out of these big data, business intelligence tools are used so as to monitor and track conversations and drive meaning out of it. In fact, social media listening has become an ideal way to listen to people and their wants and then adopting appropriate action to deal with them.
Without any doubt social media listening has improved our lives and made this world a better place to live. Here are few examples to show you how:
Health Care- We live in an era where it is more likely for someone to go online and ask a doctor about their health issues and get a medication done.
90% of respondents from 18 to 24 years of age said they would trust medical information shared by others on their social media networks. (Source- Search Engine Watch)
Medical officials and doctors join relevant conversations to answer queries and social media listening enables them to do so.
Politics- Social media has changed the landscape of politics. The influence political leaders build on voters through social media is probably on the same level if not more than offline. Political parties and leaders monitor online conversations and understand the mindset of people and how they are being perceived by the general public, on the basis of which they devise their campaigns and develop strategies to reach out to people.
The two politicians who achieved their position by boosting their profile through social media are Barack Obama and Narendra Modi.
Better Parenting- Parents today are resorting to digital parenting in order to keep a track on their children’s online activity. One such digital parenting application is eKAVACH which helps protect children from any potential threat online by notifying the parents about the same. Social Media listening helps to track conversations on social media channels and keeps the parents informed about their child’s activity.
Solving crimes – According to a survey conducted by International Association of Chiefs of Police in 2013, 96% of police departments use social media and more than 80% say it has helped them to solve crimes. Facebook is the most popular platform and defense forces constantly monitor conversations of users online.
Disaster management– Social media has emerged as a new way through which natural or man-made disasters are dealt with. Social media is precisely used in 4 ways during a disaster:
1. Sharing information and spreading awareness.
2. For relief operations: Eg: building communities, volunteering etc.
3. For collecting funds
4. Monitoring and providing insights to the whole situation.
The State government of Uttarakhand had created a Facebook Page called “Uttarakhand State Govt. Initiative- Operation Connect”, to connect missing people with their loved ones. Google had also made a personalized ‘Person finder’, a portal where people could type the name of the missing person and through the help of Google database it would provide information of the person. Using this portal more than 150 disaster victims have been traced- such is the power of social media.
Better branding– Brands have been using social media to monitor and track what people talk about them and to understand their target audience better. By social media listening brands can now connect to its customers at a more personal level. Customers can send out their queries, their demands or raise an issue to them directly. In fact complaint resolution has improved drastically with the advent of social media. The gap left by customer care call center is filled by social media executives.
This is not an exhaustive list and there are thousand other ways in which social media listening is touching our lives every single day.
Let us know your thoughts. 🙂