Social Media and Big Data

Where do companies go when they want to gain valuable business insight? Have you ever wondered that? Have you received any small gifts from brands on your or close to your birthday? I once received a razor from Gillette when it was close to my 19th birthday. I wondered how they knew it was my birthday? Well years later, I found how exactly how.

Social media sites store a tremendous amount of useful and valuable customer data. "The world's largest social networks are storing massive amounts of never-before-analyzed data that could reveal crucial information about consumers"

Twitter logo, source for big data analytics

says Business Insider Journal. This is true and that is how I got my gift from Gillette. Another interesting story that you might have heard about that deals with social media, big data, and how companies are using that information to market to us is the one about a father finding out his daughter was pregnant due to some company sending her pregnancy related offers.

This was very intriguing, how can a company know so much about their consumers? Well all they have to do is search the public social media sites. People tweet and post all kinds of things every minute of every day. For example, they can post something like "Just moved in to my new house!!" companies can track these things. Now they know that 'Joe Smith' has a new house and may want some house insurance or something of that sort.

These is very interesting, but it also brings forth some questions. How far is too far? (privacy wise) Would you be ok with companies sending you ads so that you can buy a product based on your previous purchases? When would this be considered an invasion of privacy?



Smith, C. (2014, March 20). Reinventing Social Media: Deep Learning, Predictive Marketing, And Image Recognition Will Change Everything. Business Insider. Retrieved May 14, 2014, from http://www.businessinsider.com/social-medias-big-data-future-2014-3