Two-thirds of consumers use social media to shop. The exponential rise of e-commerce paired with the digital revolution from the COVID-19 pandemic makes social media a ripe opportunity for today’s brands.
We live in a digital economy where interconnectivity is essential to improving efficiency and performance. Social Media has played a vital role in transforming the relationship between consumers and their favorite brands. Those that leverage social media data to understand consumer needs early have a unique opportunity to optimize their businesses, increase sales performance, and strengthen consumer loyalty.
Social media and AI tools enable brands to listen to what consumers are saying and predict new trends. In today’s fast-paced and ever-changing digital world, brands can’t afford to ignore social media and the wealth of data it offers without falling behind the competition. That’s where Simporter’s White Space AI tool comes into play.
We’ve summarized three primary ways social media data can help brands stay ahead of the curve and predict consumer needs. Is your brand staying on top of what consumers are saying and doing online?
Let’s dive in.
Demand Forecasting
Traditional data analytics methods are too manual and slow to keep pace with consumer trends. By the time the data is analyzed, it’s already too late.
Forecasting consumer demand helps your brand determine which products are hot, which categories to focus on, and what types of audiences to market to. For significant holidays or large pushes for sales (Black Friday, etc.), brands that can accurately forecast consumer demand for their products can avoid making critical mistakes in their product offerings.
A proper predictive analytics engine allows brands to stay ahead of the curve and on top of seasonal/unexpected events.
Uncover New Customers Ahead of Competition
Pairing big data with AI/deep learning will help businesses create personalized marketing approaches that appeal to anyone who might buy their product. AI allows your brand to discover patterns within patterns and ultimately can help you uncover what types of customers are likeliest to engage with your brand or products.
If your marketing team can predict a customer’s needs before they even recognize the need itself, your brand becomes top-of-mind when your customer is ready to make a purchase. With AI, marketers and brands don’t need to rely as heavily on assumptions, guesswork, or what has worked for them in the past. Instead, they can leverage these data-driven insights to get ahead of the curve.
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Marketers take social data such as customer sentiments, likes, shares, follows, and other forms of engagement to determine which steps to take next when it comes to their marketing strategies. Social media can be a powerful and purposeful tool if used with a data-centric focus, particularly if it helps you acquire new customers that your competitors are missing out on.
Real-Time Pulse on Influencers and Trends
Influencers are only increasing their power and impact over large audiences, providing real-time data in the process. These influencers have massive audiences that are regularly in tune and up-to-date with their favorite celebrities and tastemakers — is your brand taking advantage of the data produced by their influence and reach?
Regardless of what industry your brand operates in, influencers will be available to monitor, interact with, and leverage to drive new revenue and growth for your business. Influencers across all major platforms (Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and so forth) are now some of the primary reasons consumers develop brand loyalty.
It’s harder than ever to trust the static reviews that live on an Amazon product listing, but listening to a trusted influencer can be much easier for your consumers. Consumers that engage with influencers in your space are likely to be buyers for your products, so take notice of what they’re offering and use those learnings to your advantage.
Mining social data enables brands to understand how a current trend or event is impacting consumer demand. Keeping a pulse on how social media consumers react to events, trends, or endorsements can shed light on what consumers really want. Celebrity endorsements increase sales by 4 percent or more (on average), so it’s more important than ever to keep tabs on them.
Brands that can remain agile and turn social media data into actionable insights will be able to pivot quickly, respond to consumer demand in near real-time, and offer top-of-mind products ahead of the competition. Don’t underestimate the power of being first to market with a product that’s high in demand because of social media data.
Our Thoughts on Social Media
Social media is a potent tool for brands to leverage. It presents a robust consumer engagement and conversion opportunity for today’s brands. By leveraging social media data, brands can anticipate trends and rapidly respond to market shifts and trends at speeds previously thought to be impossible. Forecasting demand, uncovering new customers, and getting a real-time pulse on influencer reach are just a few clever ways for you to leverage social media to your brand’s advantage.
Take the time to understand what products and features consumers want to see. An adequately tailored social media strategy (based on data, not guesswork) can deepen consumer loyalty and desire for your product. Plus, doing so will push your brand beyond traditional methods and create the personalized online and in-store consumer experience today’s shoppers yearn for.
For more insight into how your brand can leverage consumer and social media data to improve your bottom line, request a demo on our website.
