Social media data mining is evolving extensively in 2024, giving companies insightful data and a vast pool of opportunities to tap into. In this blog, we have covered five key social media trends actively flourishing across industries. Know about real-time data tracking and decision-making, the growing use of AI in social listening, and how LinkedIn data mining improves business strategies. Discover more about cross-platform social media data analysis and how critical departments like sales, HR, and customer support are leveraging the benefits of the same.
As soon as people have a few minutes to spare, they will likely reach out to their phones and scroll through celebrity updates, memes, social issues, brand promotions, or travel updates on social media! Needless to say, businesses thus consider it a significant marketing, promotional, and sales channel. Social media allows companies to build brand reputation, interact with their audience base, and generate awareness about their products and services. But as a brand, how do you serve or target a suitable audience base unless you know what they like, discuss, share, and criticize on social media? This is where social media data mining comes into play!
It is a process that involves the collection, organization, and analysis of data surfacing on social media platforms to identify trends. The data derived is used for sentiment analysis, tracking customer pain points, and designing impactful brand campaigns.
Changes in social media data mining trends: What to expect in 2024
Harnessing social media analytics is essential to transform your ideas into actionable strategies. Lately, companies have been experimenting with their social media strategies, using AI and ML and focusing on personalized content to resonate with their customers. As per a recent report by Sproutsocial, 97% of business leaders admitted that AI and machine learning will help them more efficiently analyze social media data. As brands continue to integrate such technologies and follow updated social media trends, you must also stay up-to-date with a few major advancements in 2024!
Trend 1: Real-time data tracking and decision making will increase
Brands will focus on tracking, analyzing, and acting upon minute-to-minute conversations, conflicts, and emerging trends on social media platforms. The demand for immediate action will grow as brands that cater to their audience are considered more credible and customer-centric.
For instance, pleased or dissatisfied passengers quickly share their experiences on Twitter during airplane journeys. The airline company would track this real-time data, conduct sentiment analysis, and detect where the need for instant resolution is arising. The company will proactively connect with dissatisfied passengers if negative sentiment is detected regarding food, cleanliness, flight delay, or safety concerns. Instant support will reduce their negative feelings, help strengthen the brand image, and encourage passengers to consider their airline for future travel purposes.
Trend 2: Use of AI to get social media listening insights will grow
Another major social media data mining trend that you should be ready to embrace is the growing use of AI to track social media listening. It involves analysis of online conversations about your brand and industry through advanced tools.
Previously, companies spent hours analyzing text and images, finding trending topics, tracking hashtag and keyword searches, and building reports manually. For 2024, brands will leverage AI tools to process sophisticated and vast volumes of data. For instance, AI automatically categorizes neutral, harmful, or positive mentions, allowing brands to instantly gauge public opinion and act. It will assist in generating quick reports, finding limitations in the existing campaigns, capitalizing on positive responses, and improving existing strategies.
Trend 3: Efforts on LinkedIn data mining will boost up
LinkedIn is a lucrative social media channel for extracting professional data. As career development and progression are crucial to everyone’s lives, brands are increasing their LinkedIn data mining efforts to understand people’s skills, interests, company affiliations, and sentiments about working in different industries.
The conversations and content shared on LinkedIn also differ from other social media channels. In 2024, brands will leverage this unique offering and extract data through professional updates, thought leadership articles, industry news, and recruiter data. LinkedIn data mining will help them gather insights on audience behavior and engagement patterns that differ from platforms focussed on entertainment or personal connections.
Trend 4: Focus on cross-platform analysis will increase
Another trend that will grow multiple folds is extracting insights from cross-platform social media analytics. As customer behavior, interactions, trends, and competitor activities differ on each digital channel, brands need to assess the overall digital footprint. A thought leadership post might perform well on LinkedIn but may get different engagement on Facebook.
Brands are collecting and integrating such diverse data to study standard metrics, reconcile the differences, and mold engagement strategies. Cross-platform analysis is also essential to gauge the performance of marketing campaigns across various social media channels. In 2024, brands will focus more on studying a product’s launch, a service line extension, or a social initiative’s effectiveness on various channels to know the highest conversion rates.
Trend 5: Usage of social media analytics in key working departments will grow
Social media data mining delivers information rich in consumer, brand, and competitor insights that are primarily integrated into the brand’s key working departments. As the impact of this data goes beyond marketing, leaders ensure that the extracted information is studied and valued company-wide.
For instance, HR departments analyze sources like Reddit, LinkedIn, and Glassdoor to know people’s expectations and feelings about incentives, salaries, leave policies, and workplace culture. This helps them improvise their hiring tactics. Customer support departments proactively respond to direct messages or comments on official Instagram handles. This allows them to extend their services beyond the regular call and email process to foster better relationships, resolve complaints, interact directly as a brand, and deeply understand customer sentiments. This trend is bound to grow in 2024 as linking social media metrics across departments helps achieve broader business objectives.
Outsourcing social media data mining services
While keeping up with these trends is essential, challenges may arrive when you try to implement the same in your business! A dedicated external team is often experienced in data analytics tools important for measuring social media sentiments. You can outsource social media data mining services for actionable, error-free, and high-quality insights. It is flexible and cost-effective, especially for individual marketers, freelance recruiters, or small businesses. Moreover, as automation and AI tools are proactively integrated into data mining models, outsourcing reduces the burden of making the in-house team learn these tools. The external team will help you free up your resources, focus on core function areas, and stay relevant by implementing all these trends in a timely manner.
