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Social media analytics is the process of gathering and analyzing data from
social networks A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for a ...
such as
Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dust ...
,
Instagram Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...
,
LinkedIn LinkedIn () is an American business and employment-oriented online service that operates via websites and mobile apps. Launched on May 5, 2003, the platform is primarily used for professional networking and career development, and allows job se ...
, or
Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
. A part of social media analytics is called social media monitoring or social listening. It is commonly used by marketers to track online conversations about products and companies. One author defined it as "the art and science of extracting valuable hidden insights from vast amounts of semi-structured and unstructured social media data to enable informed and insightful decision making."


Process

There are three main steps in analyzing social media: data identification,
data analysis Data analysis is a process of inspecting, cleansing, transforming, and modeling data with the goal of discovering useful information, informing conclusions, and supporting decision-making. Data analysis has multiple facets and approaches, enc ...
, and information interpretation. To maximize the value derived at every point during the process, analysts may define a question to be answered. The important questions for data analysis are: "Who? What? Where? When? Why? and How?" These questions help in determining the proper data sources to evaluate, which can affect the type of analysis that can be performed.


Data identification

Data identification is the process of identifying the
subset In mathematics, set ''A'' is a subset of a set ''B'' if all elements of ''A'' are also elements of ''B''; ''B'' is then a superset of ''A''. It is possible for ''A'' and ''B'' to be equal; if they are unequal, then ''A'' is a proper subset of ...
s of available data to focus on for analysis. Raw data is useful once it is interpreted. After data has been analyzed, it can begin to convey a message. Any data that conveys a meaningful message becomes information. On a high level, unprocessed data takes the following forms to translate into exact message: noisy data; relevant and irrelevant data, filtered data; only relevant data, information; data that conveys a vague message, knowledge; data that conveys a precise message, wisdom; data that conveys exact message and reason behind it. To derive
wisdom Wisdom, sapience, or sagacity is the ability to contemplate and act using knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense and insight. Wisdom is associated with attributes such as unbiased judgment, compassion, experiential self-knowledg ...
from an unprocessed data, we need to start processing it, refine the dataset by including data that we want to focus on, and organize data to identify information. In the context of social media analytics, data identification means "what" content is of interest. In addition to the text of content, we want to know: who wrote the text? Where was it found or on which social media venue did it appear? Are we interested in information from a specific locale? When did someone say something in social media? Attributes of data that need to be considered are as follows: *
Structure A structure is an arrangement and organization of interrelated elements in a material object or system, or the object or system so organized. Material structures include man-made objects such as buildings and machines and natural objects such a ...
:
Structured data A data model is an abstract model that organizes elements of data and standardizes how they relate to one another and to the properties of real-world entities. For instance, a data model may specify that the data element representing a car be c ...
is a data that has been organized into a formatted repository - typically a
database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases ...
- so that its elements can be made addressable for more effective processing and analysis. The
unstructured data Unstructured data (or unstructured information) is information that either does not have a pre-defined data model or is not organized in a pre-defined manner. Unstructured information is typically text-heavy, but may contain data such as dates, num ...
, unlike structured data, is the least formatted data. *
Language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
: Language becomes significant if we want to know the sentiment of a post rather than number of mentions. *
Region In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as zones, lands or territories, are areas that are broadly divided by physical characteristics ( physical geography), human impact characteristics ( human geography), and the interaction of humanity an ...
: It is important to ensure that the data included in the analysis is only from that region of the world where the analysis is focused on. For example, if the goal is to identify the clean water problems in
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...
, we would want to make sure that the data collected is from
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...
only. * Type of Content: The content of data could be Text (written text that is easy to read and understand if you know the language),
Photos A photograph (also known as a photo, image, or picture) is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor, such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are now create ...
(drawings, simple sketches, or photographs), Audio (audio recordings of books, articles, talks, or discussions), or Videos (recording, live streams). * Venue:
Social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social me ...
content is getting generated in a variety of venues such as news sites and social networking sites (e.g.
Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dust ...
,
Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
). Depending on the type of project the data is collected for, the venue becomes very significant. * Time: It is important to collect data posted in the time frame that is being analyzed. *
Ownership Ownership is the state or fact of legal possession and control over property, which may be any asset, tangible or intangible. Ownership can involve multiple rights, collectively referred to as title, which may be separated and held by different ...
of Data: Is the data private or publicly available? Is there any
copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educatio ...
in the data? These are the important questions to be addressed before collecting data.


Data analysis

Data analysis Data analysis is a process of inspecting, cleansing, transforming, and modeling data with the goal of discovering useful information, informing conclusions, and supporting decision-making. Data analysis has multiple facets and approaches, enc ...
is the set of activities that assist in transforming raw data into insight, which in turn leads to a new base of knowledge and
business value In management, business value is an informal term that includes all forms of value that determine the health and well-being of the firm in the long run. Business value expands concept of value of the firm beyond economic value (also known as econom ...
. In other words, data analysis is the phase that takes filtered data as input and transforms that into information of value to the analysts. Many different types of analysis can be performed with social media data, including analysis of posts, sentiment, sentiment drivers, geography,
demographics Demography () is the statistical study of populations, especially human beings. Demographic analysis examines and measures the dimensions and dynamics of populations; it can cover whole societies or groups defined by criteria such as ed ...
, etc. The data analysis step begins once we know what problem we want to solve and know that we have sufficient data that is enough to generate a meaningful result. How can we know if we have enough evidence to warrant a conclusion? The answer to this question is: we don't know. We can't know this unless we start analyzing the data. While analyzing if we found the data isn't sufficient, reiterate the first phase and modify the question. If the data is believed to be sufficient for analysis, we need to build a data model. Developing a
data model A data model is an abstract model that organizes elements of data and standardizes how they relate to one another and to the properties of real-world entities. For instance, a data model may specify that the data element representing a car be c ...
is a process or method that we use to organize data elements and standardize how the individual data elements relate to each other. This step is important because we want to run a
computer program A computer program is a sequence or set of instructions in a programming language for a computer to Execution (computing), execute. Computer programs are one component of software, which also includes software documentation, documentation and oth ...
over the data; we need a way to tell the
computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations ( computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs. These prog ...
which words or themes are important and if certain words relate to the topic we are exploring. In the analysis of our data, it's handy to have several tools available at our disposal to gain a different perspective on discussions taking place around the topic. The aim here is to configure the tools to perform at peak for a particular task. For example, thinking about a word cloud, if we take a large amount of data around computer professionals, say the "IT architect", and built a word cloud, no doubt the largest word in the cloud would be "architect". This analysis is also about tool usage. Some tools may do a good job at determining sentiment, where as others may do a better job at breaking down text into a grammatical form that enables us to better understand the meaning and use of various words or phrases. In performing analytic analysis, it is difficult to enumerate each and every step to take on an analytical journey. It is very much an iterative approach as there is no prescribed way of doing things. The taxonomy and the insight derived from that analysis are as follows: * Depth of Analysis: Simple
descriptive statistics A descriptive statistic (in the count noun sense) is a summary statistic that quantitatively describes or summarizes features from a collection of information, while descriptive statistics (in the mass noun sense) is the process of using and an ...
based on
streaming data Streaming data is data that is continuously generated by different sources. Such data should be processed incrementally using stream processing techniques without having access to all of the data. In addition, it should be considered that concept d ...
, ad hoc analysis on accumulated data or deep analysis performed on accumulated data. This analysis dimension is really driven by the amount of time available to come up with the results of a project. This can be considered as a broad continuum, where the analysis time ranges from few hours at one end to several months at the other end. This analysis can answer following type of questions: ** How many people mentioned Wikipedia in their tweets? ** Which
politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, ...
had the highest number of likes during the
debate Debate is a process that involves formal discourse on a particular topic, often including a moderator and audience. In a debate, arguments are put forward for often opposing viewpoints. Debates have historically occurred in public meetings, a ...
? ** Which competitor is gathering the most mentions in the context of
social business Social business was defined by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus and is described in his books. In these books, Yunus defined a social business as a business: * Created and designed to address a social problem * A non-loss, no ...
? * Machine Capacity: The amount of
CPU A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, a ...
needed to process
data set A data set (or dataset) is a collection of data. In the case of tabular data, a data set corresponds to one or more database tables, where every column of a table represents a particular variable, and each row corresponds to a given record of the ...
s in a reasonable time period. Capacity numbers need to address not only the
CPU A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, a ...
needs but also the network capacity needed to retrieve data. This analysis could be performed as real-time, near real-time, ad hoc exploration and deep analysis. Real-time analysis in social media is an important tool when trying to understand the public's perception of a certain topic as it unfolding to allow for reaction or an immediate change in course. In near real-time analysis, we assume that data is ingested into the tool at a rate that is less than real-time. Ad hoc analysis is a process designed to answer a single specific question. The product of ad hoc analysis is typically a report or data summary. A deep analysis implies an analysis that spans a long time and involves a large amount of data, which typically translates into a high CPU requirement. * Domain of Analysis: The domain of the analysis is broadly classified into external social media and internal social media. Most of the time when people use the term social media, they mean external social media. This includes content generated from popular social media sites such as
Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
,
Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dust ...
and
LinkedIn LinkedIn () is an American business and employment-oriented online service that operates via websites and mobile apps. Launched on May 5, 2003, the platform is primarily used for professional networking and career development, and allows job se ...
. Internal social media includes enterprise social network, which is a private social network used to assist communication within business. *
Velocity Velocity is the directional speed of an object in motion as an indication of its rate of change in position as observed from a particular frame of reference and as measured by a particular standard of time (e.g. northbound). Velocity i ...
of Data: The velocity of data in social media can be divided into two categories: data at rest and data in motion.
Dimension In physics and mathematics, the dimension of a mathematical space (or object) is informally defined as the minimum number of coordinates needed to specify any point within it. Thus, a line has a dimension of one (1D) because only one coord ...
s of velocity of data in motion can answer questions such as: How the sentiment of the general
population Population typically refers to the number of people in a single area, whether it be a city or town, region, country, continent, or the world. Governments typically quantify the size of the resident population within their jurisdiction usi ...
is changing about the players during the course of match? Is the crowd conveying positive sentiment about the player who is actually losing the game? In these cases, the analysis is done as arrives. In this analysis, the amount of detail produced is directly correlated to the complexity of the
analytical tool Analytical chemistry studies and uses instruments and methods to separate, identify, and quantify matter. In practice, separation, identification or quantification may constitute the entire analysis or be combined with another method. Separati ...
or
system A system is a group of interacting or interrelated elements that act according to a set of rules to form a unified whole. A system, surrounded and influenced by its environment, is described by its boundaries, structure and purpose and express ...
. A highly complex tool produces more amounts of details. The second type of analysis in the context of velocity is an analysis of data at rest. This analysis is performed once the data is fully collected. Performing this analysis can provide insights such as: which of your company's products has the most mentions as compared to others? What is the relative sentiment around your products as compared to a competitor's product?


Information interpretation

The insights derived from analysis can be as varied as the original question that was posed in step one of analysis. At this stage, as the nontechnical business users are the receivers of the information, the form of presenting the data becomes important. How could the data make sense efficiently so it could be used in good decision making?
Visualization (graphics) Visualization or visualisation (see spelling differences) is any technique for creating images, diagrams, or animations to communicate a message. Visualization through visual imagery has been an effective way to communicate both abstract and ...
of the information is the answer to this question. The best visualizations are ones that expose something new about the underlying
pattern A pattern is a regularity in the world, in human-made design, or in abstract ideas. As such, the elements of a pattern repeat in a predictable manner. A geometric pattern is a kind of pattern formed of geometric shapes and typically repeated li ...
s and relationships contain the data. Exposure of the patterns and understating them play a key role in decision making process. Mainly there are three criteria to consider in visualizing data. * Understand the
audience An audience is a group of people who participate in a show or encounter a work of art, literature (in which they are called "readers"), theatre, music (in which they are called "listeners"), video games (in which they are called "players"), o ...
: before building the
visualization Visualization or visualisation may refer to: * Visualization (graphics), the physical or imagining creation of images, diagrams, or animations to communicate a message * Data visualization, the graphic representation of data * Information visuali ...
, set up a goal, which is to convey great quantities of information in a format that is easily assimilated by the consumer of information. It is important to answer "Who is the audience?", and "Can you assume the audience has the knowledge of terminologies used?" An audience of experts will have different expectations than a general audience; therefore, the expectations have to be considered. * Set up a clear framework: the analyst needs to ensure that the visualization is syntactically and semantically correct. For example, when using an icon, the element should bear resemblance to the thing it represents, with size, color, and position all communicating meaning to the viewer. * Tell a story: analytical information is complex and difficult to assimilate, thus, the goal of visualization is to understand and make sense of the information.
Storytelling Storytelling is the social and cultural activity of sharing stories, sometimes with improvisation, theatrics or embellishment. Every culture has its own stories or narratives, which are shared as a means of entertainment, education, cultural pr ...
helps the viewer gain insight from the data.
Visualization Visualization or visualisation may refer to: * Visualization (graphics), the physical or imagining creation of images, diagrams, or animations to communicate a message * Data visualization, the graphic representation of data * Information visuali ...
should package information into a structure that is presented as a narrative and easily remembered. This is important in many scenarios when the analyst is not the same person as a decision-maker.


Techniques


Impacts on business intelligence

Recent research on social media analytics has emphasized the need to adopt a
business intelligence Business intelligence (BI) comprises the strategies and technologies used by enterprises for the data analysis and management of business information. Common functions of business intelligence technologies include reporting, online analytical ...
-based approach to collecting, analyzing, and interpreting social media data. Social media presents a promising, albeit challenging, source of data for business intelligence. Customers voluntarily discuss products and companies, giving a real-time pulse of brand sentiment and adoption. Social media is one of the most important tools for marketers in the rapidly evolving media landscape. Firms have created specialized positions to handle their social media marketing. These arguments are in line with the literature on social media marketing that suggest that social media activities are interrelated and influence each other. Moon and Iacobucci (2022) focused on the marketing applications of social media analytics. Such applications include consumer behavior on social media, social media impact on firm performance, business strategy, product/brand management, social media network analysis, consumer privacy and data security on social media, and fictitious/biased content on social media. In particular, consumer privacy and data security are becoming more and more important in the social media universe given the increasing risk stemming from social media
data breaches A data breach is a security violation, in which sensitive, protected or confidential data is copied, transmitted, viewed, stolen or used by an individual unauthorized to do so. Other terms are unintentional information disclosure, data leak, info ...
. In a similar vein, suspicious social media postings have significantly increased along with the growth of social media. Luca and Servas (2015) reported that firms have a potential incentive to use fake postings when they have increased competition. Therefore, upgrading our ability to identify and monitor suspicious postings (e.g., fake reviews on Yelp) has become an important part of social media platform management.


Role in international politics

The possibilities of the dangers of social media analytics and social media mining in the political arena were revealed in the late 2010s. In particular, the involvement of the data mining company
Cambridge Analytica Cambridge Analytica Ltd (CA), previously known as SCL USA, was a British political consulting firm that came to prominence through the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal. It was started in 2013, as a subsidiary of the private intellig ...
in the
2016 United States presidential election The 2016 United States presidential election was the 58th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 8, 2016. The Republican ticket of businessman Donald Trump and Indiana governor Mike Pence defeated the Democratic ticke ...
and
Brexit Brexit (; a portmanteau of "British exit") was the Withdrawal from the European Union, withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) at 23:00 Greenwich Mean Time, GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February 2020 Central Eur ...
have been representative cases that show the arising dangers of linking social media mining and politics. This has raised the question of
data privacy Information privacy is the relationship between the collection and dissemination of data, technology, the public expectation of privacy, contextual information norms, and the legal and political issues surrounding them. It is also known as data pr ...
for individuals and the legal boundaries to be created for data science companies in relevance to politics in the future. Both of the examples listed below demonstrate a future in which big data can change the game of international politics. It is likely politics and technology will evolve together throughout the next century. In the cases with Cambridge Analytica, the effects of social media analytics have resonated throughout the globe through two major world powers, the United States and the U.K.


2016 United States Presidential Election

The
scandal A scandal can be broadly defined as the strong social reactions of outrage, anger, or surprise, when accusations or rumours circulate or appear for some reason, regarding a person or persons who are perceived to have transgressed in some way. Th ...
that followed the American presidential election of 2016 was one involving a three-way relationship between Cambridge Analytica, the Trump campaign, and Facebook. Cambridge Analytica acquired the data of over 87 million unaware Facebook users and analyzed the data for the benefit of the Trump campaign. By creating thousands of data points on 230 million U.S. adults, the data mining company had the potential to analyze which individuals could be swayed into voting for the Trump campaign, and then send messages or advertisements to said targets and influence user mindset. Specific target voters could then be exposed to pro-Trump messages without being aware, even, of the political influence settling on them. Such a specific form of targeting in which select individuals are introduced to an above-average amount of campaign advertisement is referred to as "micro-targeting." There remains great controversy in measuring the amount of influence this micro-targeting had in the 2016 elections. The impact of micro-targeting ads and social media data analytics on politics is unclear as of the late 2010s, as a newly arising field of technology. While this was a breach of user privacy, data mining and targeted marketing undermined the public accountability to which social media entities no longer subject, therefore twisting the democratic election system and allowing it to dominated by platforms of “user-generated content
hat A hat is a head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorporate mecha ...
polarized the media’s message.”


2020 United States Presidential Election Controversies

Analysis of Facebook political groups and postings by social media analytics firm, CounterAction, have shown the role of social media giants in protest movements such as
attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election After Joe Biden won the 2020 United States presidential election, then-incumbent Donald Trump pursued an unprecedented effort to overturn the election, with support and assistance from his campaign, proxies, political allies, and many of ...
and the
2021 United States Capitol attack On January 6, 2021, following the defeat of then- U.S. President Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, a mob of his supporters attacked the United States Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. The mob was seeking to keep Trump in p ...
.


Brexit

During the 2016
Brexit referendum The United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, commonly referred to as the EU referendum or the Brexit referendum, took place on 23 June 2016 in the United Kingdom (UK) and Gibraltar to ask the electorate whether the country shoul ...
Cambridge Analytica attracted controversy for its use of data gathered from social media. A similar case took place in which a breach and Facebook data was acquired by Cambridge Analytica. There was concern that they had used the data to encourage British citizens to vote to leave the European Union in the
2016 EU referendum The United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, commonly referred to as the EU referendum or the Brexit referendum, took place on 23 June 2016 in the United Kingdom (UK) and Gibraltar to ask the electorate whether the country shoul ...
. After a three-year investigation it was concluded in 2020 that there had been no involvement in the referendum. Besides Cambridge Analytica, several other data companies such as AIQ and the Cambridge University Psychometric Centre were accused of, then investigated by the British government for their possible abuse of data to promote unlawful campaign techniques for Brexit. The referendum ended with 51.89% of voters supporting the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union. This final decision impacted politics within the United Kingdom, and sent ripples across political and economic institutions worldwide.


See also

* Social media measurement *
Sentiment analysis Sentiment analysis (also known as opinion mining or emotion AI) is the use of natural language processing, text analysis, computational linguistics, and biometrics to systematically identify, extract, quantify, and study affective states and subjec ...
*
Ambient awareness Ambient awareness (AmA) is a term used by social scientists to describe a new form of peripheral social awareness. This awareness is propagated from relatively constant contact with one's friends and colleagues via social networking platforms on t ...
* Data mining * Social media mining * Social media intelligence *
Social network analysis Social network analysis (SNA) is the process of investigating social structures through the use of networks and graph theory. It characterizes networked structures in terms of ''nodes'' (individual actors, people, or things within the network) ...


References

{{Reflist Social media management Social information processing Mass media monitoring Types of analytics