The Growing Importance Of Social Media Data In Company Success

Top leaders understand the value of social data and insights in evaluating consumer behavior, forecasting trends, and making sound decisions.

Social data goes beyond numbers to deliver genuine, measurable business outcomes. Incorporating social insights into all aspects of a business is crucial for recognizing trends, analyzing competitors, and achieving proactive crisis management.

According to The Harris Poll’s research on the 2023 State of Social Media, the most important corporate concerns in today’s economic scenario are:

Increasing brand recognition and loyalty
Developing a better understanding of your customers
Enhancing your competitive positioning

Leveraging data from social media can improve all of these by allowing brands to remain ahead of the competition in more competitive environments. Going beyond performance data, social insights can give light on industry, competitive, and cultural findings that may reveal critical tools to allow a brand to stand out in a crowded market.

Here are three examples of organizations that effectively gathered essential data and insights from social media and put them into action, resulting in tangible outcomes.

Plaid, a San Francisco-based fintech business, enables customers to connect their financial accounts to their favorite apps and services while maintaining safety and security. The brand’s success was dependent on extensive stakeholder education – for both customers and financial institutions, neither of which were familiar with the product’s technology.

Because social media is so important in controlling Plaid’s brand perception, they set out to provide their followers with helpful, relevant content so they can act as Plaid ambassadors and help grow the brand’s reach.

Plaid used technologies like tagging into their social strategy using Sprout Social, a social media management and intelligence platform, which produced a data-driven feedback loop, boosting sharper messaging and raising brand awareness and reputation. “If something isn’t working well, we can dig in to understand why and recalibrate our strategy to make sure we’re providing our diverse audiences with access to the information they want, in the way they want to consume it,” said Matthew McConnel, the social media director at Plaid.

Businesses can better understand what resonates with their audience by examining both performance statistics and brand health information via social media. Social data can be used to humanize a brand and develop its reputation, which is especially useful for marketers working in complex and highly regulated industries.

Hudl’s use of social data to inform customer service requirements
Seasonality is a problem for many brands, regardless of industry. Seasonality in customer service, on the other hand, can provide significant issues for organizations, forcing them to choose between increasing staffing spending and compromising on customer experience. Hudl, a software business that provides performance analysis tools for sports teams and individuals, was all too familiar with this issue.

That is, until Hudl invested in an SMM platform, which provided them with the tools and insights they needed to counteract seasonality in customer support.

According to Jessie Koenig, revenue systems administrator at Hudl, they now have predictive data on customer support inquiry numbers via social media thanks to Sprout Social. “Not every rep is trained to handle social media work.” And in the past, forecasting our staffing was quite tough. The Sprout analytics we generate help us determine when we need to ramp up social support and when it’s better to direct clients to self-service support and tutorials.”

Hudl utilized these results across their customer service approach as a result of capturing this social data, assuring year-round excellent care, which helped enhance customer happiness and loyalty while still managing their costs efficiently.

How Goally used social listening insights to gain a deeper understanding of their consumers

Goally is a technological startup that was founded to make life easier for families who have neurodiverse members. As a result, the brand must be able to keep up with the families it supports.

Goally gained visibility into bigger conversations related to their industry and even discovered the common needs of their core audience by employing Sprout Social’s listening capabilities. One example is that parents of neurodiverse children wish to see their children become self-sufficient.

“That learning has validated our vision as a company,” said Kaelyn Brooks, a Goally digital marketing professional. “We know the problem we’re chasing is real, and we’re offering a really good solution.” In the field of neurodiversity, education is frequently limited, and people are unsure where to find knowledge. TikTok and other social media platforms provide a unique and accessible platform for people to seek and receive honest responses.”

By engaging in social listening, brands may broaden their viewpoint and tune into larger social discussions taking place inside their sector, among competitors, and, most importantly, among target people.

Beyond clicks, likes, and shares, social media may provide a wealth of information. It enables businesses to extract relevant insights and data that can be incorporated into their strategy and positively influence numerous aspects of the organization. You can join these forward-thinking companies and make smarter business decisions by harnessing social data if you have the necessary tools and know-how.

Sprout Social, for example, provides tools for publishing, listening, reporting, and much more. Sign up for a 30-day free trial or request a demo today to learn how Sprout can help you realize the full potential of your social media strategy.

The Growing Importance Of Social Media Data In Company Success

Top leaders understand the value of social data and insights in evaluating consumer behavior, forecasting trends, and making sound decisions.

Because social media is so important in controlling Plaid’s brand perception, they set out to provide their followers with helpful, relevant content so they can act as Plaid ambassadors and help grow the brand’s reach.

How Goally used social listening insights to gain a deeper understanding of their consumers

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