Big data has been the big buzzword in the world of technology for some time now. Basically, it is a term used to describe the billions and billions of megabytes of information that is compiled from human interactions on the internet. Every action you take on the internet from the morning Wall Street Journal articles you clicked on this morning to the Facebook status you liked this afternoon become part of this Big Data.
Companies are spending big money to find a way to leverage this hugely powerful asset for their own purposes. But, the unique thing about this phenomenon is that there are dozens of tools that you can use to leverage big data for your personal benefit.
Below, I’ll be highlighting a few resources you can use to harness big data to improve your own social media efforts.
This is one of my favorite tools because it works with Buffer to automatically optimize my tweet schedule to only post at the best times.
Tweriod analyzes your followers and shows you the times of day and days of the week when they are most active. You can then take that data and edit your posting schedule using a social media management tool, like Buffer, Hootsuite, or HubSpot. As I mentioned before, there is an extra benefit for Buffer users, as Tweriod is able to automatically adjust your posting schedule to match up with your follower analysis.
Historically, the social networks themselves have not had extremely robust analytics of their own, which is why the market for third party tools became such a popular one. However, the big players have stepped up their game a great deal in past years, likely due to an influx of capital they’ve garnered from recent IPOs.
Twitter Analytics is no exception. Here you can view your entire tweet history, as well as how each post performed, measured in terms of the number of views each post received, number of times a tweet was interacted with (retweets, clicks, favorites), and an engagement rate (interactions/impressions).
A regular analysis of this data can help you to tweak your content in favor of more effective material.
Facebook Analytics
Just like with Twitter, Facebook has some seriously deep data measurement capabilities. The only drawback here is that this is only available for Pages. Though, most people who are using the platform for business purposes would probably fall into this category.
The analytics here are so in-depth and so numerous that I have never personally reviewed every one of the hundreds of data points, and I mean hundreds. The learning curve here is admittedly steep, but once you’ve navigated the arena for some time, you start to get a feel for the measurements that mean the most to you and your business. Once you’ve found your pet points, you’re able to use these to improve your posts and get a much bigger bang for your buck.
This tool spans the globe as far as social network options go, meaning that it can be used for Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Instagram, Google Plus, and even Vine – making it the most versatile of the tools mentioned.
Use this if you are an advanced social networker with several profiles to manage, simultaneously. However, even a beginner or an intermediate user can gain value from the free analysis they provide.
Consider this your starter pack into the vast world of Big Data. I have made no mystery of the fact that numbers have never really spoken to me like words do (no pun intended), but working with the tools I mentioned above for social media have almost turned me into a full-on numbers nerd. It really is amazing – the value one can gain from some critical analysis of one’s efforts.
Try these out for yourself and let me know what you think.
Those are some great tools, Reade. Thanks!