Social data is meant to be shared, not siloed

[shaownhasan]

Back when organizations were wrapping their heads around the value of social media, it was standard practice to see social owned by one team like marketing or communications. Naturally, this limited who could access social data, a challenge that 35% of leaders say prevents their business from using social data to inform business decisions. But the solution isn’t as facebook data simple as handing teams like sales or finance raw, unstructured social data. There also needs to be an educational and enablement component to make social media intelligence actionable for everyone.

That means helping teams that historically didn’t use social data understand what insights they can glean from Reddit communities, Twitter DMs, LinkedIn mentions or even TikTok comments. Consider relying on your internal social experts to teach other departments what information lies beyond the likes, shares and video views on a specific platform. Don’t just say your organization is data-driven; teach your teams how to improve their data literacy. Creating a shared dashboard, for example, where you can pair social media intelligence with other data sources can help contextualize social data and provide teams a more holistic view of all business insights.

It also means executives need to lead by example and incorporate social data when making business decisions. The Atlanta Hawks, for example, use social listening insights to influence content strategies across several brand partnerships and anticipate what fans want to see from the team next. Similarly, Trek Bicycles used listening to capitalize on the sudden bike boom during the pandemic and forecast how long this trend might last. When business leaders treat social data as essential to their decision making, it can lead to tangible bottomline results and help brands build stronger relationships with their target audience.