Data - A Marketing Tool
Data - A Marketing Tool
Big data is used as a way of measuring the interest levels in something, on social media. The producers of something can go onto twitter and see what people are saying about it, and see what other things that their fans talk about. They can then use this data to manipulate the level at which their content is talked about, and the consequent excitement level, just by knowing what will inspire the fans to tweet. âThe truth is that data embodies a priceless collection of experience from which to learn (2013. 3).â For example the producers of a TV show can see at which exact points in an episode people were tweeting the most, and which parts of the episodes they were talking about and change future shows accordingly.
The TV show Glee has recently taken advantage of the marketing tool which is twitter by introducing â#GleeAlongâ. While the episode airs on TV, the cast tweet along and therefore inspire more fans to be on twitter and to talk about the show to raise the excitement levels about the show. As well as inspiring more immediate responses to the show for each episode, the producers can also get even more information about their fans and what they respond to the most and therefore have more of that in the show and create even more conversations about it.
All of this comes from the data we as users of the internet create with every post, comment, like, share, reply, retweet and even Google searches. Basically everything that we do on the internet can be recorded as data for anyone to use. An example of this that I mentioned in my 5 minute review is Facebook ads. Siegel say in the week 9 reading that âPredicting mouse clicks pays off massively. Since websites are often paid per click for the advertisements they display, they predict which ad you're mostly likely to click in order to instantly choose which one to show you. This, in effect, selects more relevant ads and drives millions in newly found revenue (2013, 5).â This is exemplified in Facebook as the ads are targeted to each user using the data generated by likes, comments, shares, posts, even your basic profile information so that you are more likely to click on an ad.
In conclusion, big data is a marketing tool, and everything that you do on the internet can be used as a means to manipulate your behaviour. It can be both a good and bad thing depending on how it is used.
References
Siegel, Eric. 2013. Predictive analytics : the power to predict who will click, buy, Â lie, or die. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Bruns, A. et al. 2013. Twitter and Society. New York: Peter Lang.









