In regards to our social media discussion last week, I wanted to write a post about social media analytics and the benefits it has brought to businesses around the world, at the cost of our personal information. In today’s digital world, data analytics has become an essential tool for businesses to gain insights into their customers’ behavior, habits, preferences, and desires. Social media platforms have become the most important source of data for businesses to analyze since they provide a vast amount of user-generated content that can be used to gain knowledge on specific audiences and allow companies to make informed business decisions to optimize their marketing efforts. However, the use of data analytics in social media also raises ethical concerns regarding the collection, storage, and sharing of personal information.
Everyone is Online
As of 2023, about five billion of the eight billion people in the world are using social media. This includes platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Whatsapp, and YouTube. Not only is the majority of the world using social media, but they are using it for an average of two hours and thirty-five minutes per day, making it the quickest and easiest way to reach consumers and gather valid consumer data in real-time. Most social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest offer free insights on how each account and post is performing. This allows businesses to see engagement data such as the number of likes, comments, follows, unfollows, profile clicks, and story views, as well as information about your audience’s location, gender, and most active time of day.
While this data is useful in the beginning, most businesses that want to expand their reach and tailor their products and content to a specific audience will use third-party tools to gain access to personal, behavioral, and attitudinal data. These data analysis tools allow companies to add context to their numerical metrics and collect emotional and opinion-based data from social media. For example, Netflix uses a social listening tool to gather consumer data across all platforms and uses it to generate the content that has kept them the top streaming service provider in the world. By monitoring pop culture trends, they can create viral marketing campaigns that target their preferred audience and create a sense of online community for the people that are watching their shows. They also track and engage with content online to determine what new topics are going viral, then curate a business plan to create, market, and release shows about the new, hot topic. Companies are heavily marketing toward Millennials and Gen-Z in the digital age and social media has proven to be the most important way to gain a variety of consumer data that businesses can use to achieve their goals.
What do They Know?
Despite these benefits, businesses also face significant challenges with the data gathered and struggle to navigate the ethical concerns that arise from having access to such a significant amount of data. As with any trial that involves data, too much of it can affect the accuracy and reliability of the results. The sheer volume of data generated by social media platforms almost guarantees that some of the information will be inaccurate, irrelevant, or duplicated. This means that businesses using data from social media need to have a procedure in place to “collect, clean, filter, and validate the data” in-house, or find effective tools to assist them. The amount of data that is collected on social media is not only a challenge for businesses, but an often overlooked concern for individuals as well. In addition to each user’s amount of likes, posts, and comments, social media sites are aware of their relationship status, political views, education history, current location and places nearby, contacts list, IP address, service provider, and credit card number. These platforms then use this information to make money off of companies and third parties that want access to this consumer data in order to grow their own profits. In 2018, it was revealed that Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm, nonconsensually obtained the personal data of tens of millions of Facebook users to create targeted political ads during the 2016 election. Once the scandal was announced, Facebook faced significant criticism for failing to protect its user’s data, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg was forced to testify in front of Congress resulting in a five billion dollar fine. While the employee that exposed Cambridge Analytica Christopher Wiley and Mark Zuckerberg had opposing claims about Facebook’s knowledge of the data leak, the general consensus is that Facebook violated their privacy agreement and did not take proper action to protect its users. This is just one well-known example of how personal data collected through social media has been misused in a way that not only puts users’ information at risk but directly targeted users to influence their opinion on a pivotal decision.
Conclusion
Social media platforms and the global network they provide are extremely complex systems. They are constantly creating processes to evaluate their current business situation and determine how to improve their efficiency, creativity, and profits, just like the businesses that rely on their data. In regards to data alone, there are multiple interconnected components to take into consideration such as data collection, storage, analysis, and use, making it necessary for companies to take a holistic approach. This could involve implementing data security measures, establishing clear policies for data use and sharing, and being transparent with users and other businesses about data collection. In order to balance the incredible benefits of social media insights with the ethical responsibilities of holding onto that data, companies need to implement procedures that offer protection without stunting innovation.
https://www.radarr.com/blog/how-netflix-uses-social-listening/
https://xiphcyber.com/articles/social-media-tracking
Hi Mary Taylor! It’s awesome how data analytics can help companies understand their customers better, but it’s also a bit scary to think about how much personal information social media platforms have on us. This is a great reminder that companies need to take responsibility for protecting our data and being transparent about how they use it, otherwise, I’m not blaming the general public for being weary of it.
Hi MaryTaylor! t’s remarkable how much data businesses can gather from social media and use it to improve their marketing strategies. However, the use of this data must be ethical and legal. It’s important that businesses take responsibility for collecting, filtering, and validating the data they gather to ensure accuracy and privacy!
This is a topic that gets touched on all the time regarding the ethics and morals of it. I think it is a bit alarming that I could barely mention something as trivial as soap, and then get 5 advertisements for soap the second I hop on my phone. I wonder if this will only get worse with the upcoming of Artificial Intelligence.
Hey Mary-Taylor! Your blog post reminds me of this one story my MIST2090 professor told me a couple years ago: there was a young woman, who suddenly started getting coupons for baby clothes and supplies mailed to her house. Her dad was so confused as to why he kept seeing infant related ads everywhere, and he ended up finding out that his daughter was pregnant! It is crazy how much data dictates our lives, even socially.
Hi Mary Taylor! You picked a great topic because this was all my internship preceding my Sophomore year. Actually, it could be cool if a digital police or watchdog emerged into the market on the ideals of honesty, protection, and integrity. This could be a lucrative thought.
Hi Mary Taylor! I thought your post this week was really interesting. It reminded me of the prereq MIST we took before getting into the MIS program. My interest in that class lead me to applying to be a MIS major because I really took an interest in data analytics. Social media is everywhere and the importance for companies to build their social media platforms for data. Data analytics is really important for companies to follow trends and appeal their desired consumer base.