One thing I might look at is trending topics on twitter. I think by looking at what topics are trending in a certain geographic area, you could begin to categorize them by interest or type, and that was you can begin to gauge what twitter users are interested in. For example, just looking at what the top trending topics are on twitter right now, and I set the location to be Austin, the top 10 trending topics: (see above)
This could be done for anywhere in the US, the whole US or world, and might, as it did in my case, require some reading to figure out what the topics are actually discussing.
The data listed in the table obviously is small sample size, and ideally you would want to collect data over a long period of time and sort it under a large number of categories. Then, once you had a significant sample size, you could begin to see trends in what twitter users in a particular area are interested in. By categorizing not only the topic of conversation, but also, the nature of the conversation (funny, ironic, silly, respectful,etc.), you would also be able to understand how they like to communicate, and what styles of communication appeal to them. Looking at the sample from today, if we wanted to use this data for marketing purposes, we might suggest an ad campaign for example that had endorsements by popular musicians and employed a quirky style of humor. Just knowing what I know about Austin, this seems like a fairly strong match for the type of campaign that would appeal to Austinites, but again, we would want to use a much larger sample size.
Another way you could use twitter to get descriptive data, and you could also use facebook here as well, is to look at the “about me” section at the top of each user’s twitter page. You could then aggregate the data based on location and start to look at adjective and interests that users find appropriate to describe themselves. For example, my about me section reads: “MBA student, raveler, runner, baker, food-lover.” An advertisement that was food-related would be much more likely to appeal to me than something weight-loss related, which it what the ads that are targeted
towards me on facebook relate to. This is probably because I haven’t described myself as a food-lover on facebook, and it probably targets all women in my age group for weight-loss ads. However, facebook has lots of other useful data, which would allow segments to be identified more easily, like network the user is on, birthday, education, job, etc. With all of this information, you would be able to identify your target segment more easily than you would be
able to on probably any another social media, and then you could look at things like the facebook groups they belong to, and the pages they have liked, and the articles they have posted to get a more accurate understanding about the types of things they are passionate about.
This could be done for anywhere in the US, the whole US or world, and might, as it did in my case, require some reading to figure out what the topics are actually discussing.
The data listed in the table obviously is small sample size, and ideally you would want to collect data over a long period of time and sort it under a large number of categories. Then, once you had a significant sample size, you could begin to see trends in what twitter users in a particular area are interested in. By categorizing not only the topic of conversation, but also, the nature of the conversation (funny, ironic, silly, respectful,etc.), you would also be able to understand how they like to communicate, and what styles of communication appeal to them. Looking at the sample from today, if we wanted to use this data for marketing purposes, we might suggest an ad campaign for example that had endorsements by popular musicians and employed a quirky style of humor. Just knowing what I know about Austin, this seems like a fairly strong match for the type of campaign that would appeal to Austinites, but again, we would want to use a much larger sample size.
Another way you could use twitter to get descriptive data, and you could also use facebook here as well, is to look at the “about me” section at the top of each user’s twitter page. You could then aggregate the data based on location and start to look at adjective and interests that users find appropriate to describe themselves. For example, my about me section reads: “MBA student, raveler, runner, baker, food-lover.” An advertisement that was food-related would be much more likely to appeal to me than something weight-loss related, which it what the ads that are targeted
towards me on facebook relate to. This is probably because I haven’t described myself as a food-lover on facebook, and it probably targets all women in my age group for weight-loss ads. However, facebook has lots of other useful data, which would allow segments to be identified more easily, like network the user is on, birthday, education, job, etc. With all of this information, you would be able to identify your target segment more easily than you would be
able to on probably any another social media, and then you could look at things like the facebook groups they belong to, and the pages they have liked, and the articles they have posted to get a more accurate understanding about the types of things they are passionate about.
Sally – Good ideas for your social media blog entry. I didn’t realize you could pull this information from twitter so easily (shows how little I do on Twitter!). Facebook is also a wealth of knowledge. It made me think about how easy it is for a company to get at this information with so many people blocking their pages days. I guess the pages you “like” have access to your profile? You are short on the length requirements so keep that in mind for the next blog and expand more on your thoughts. Thanks!
ReplyDelete