As Doc told us all in the Back to the Future movies, the flux capacitor is “what makes time travel possible.” After reading this article on eMarketer.com, we found ourselves thinking that maybe, business analytics is “what makes social media possible.”
The synergies between social media and business analytics are interesting. As the author points out:
- Social media has an enormous effect on the way companies do business (ditto business intelligence and analytics)
- The social media data points are ever increasing (business analytic data points don’t end, do they?)
- In the coming years, social media will extend from the marketing department to all departments within a business (ditto business intelligence tools, as the tools have become easier to use with friendlier user interfaces, the tools have migrated out of the analytics department and to more and more line of business users)
- The strongest social media models will incorporate analytics (now this is interesting, if social media incorporates analytics, how soon will business intelligence tools incorporate social media?)
So, what do you think? Do you use analytics on your social media efforts today? Does your marketing department? If you are using social media today and are a business intelligence user – can you see a world where you get dashboard or KPI reports on your Facebook page? Would you want it?
