Understanding Industry Trends Through Social Media Analytics

To best understand an industry on a larger scale, organizations are turning to social media conversations to gain insight on general market trends.

Analyzing the general industry rather than focusing on specific brands or products allows companies to cast a wider net in their efforts to build a bigger database. For example, instead of researching Nike LunarEpic Low Flyknit, you should conduct a general search for “sports shoes.” This kind of research will supply a larger amount of data for you to analyze. Companies can use the unbiased data they gather for better decision making and accurate business insights.

Let’s say you want to start your own sports shoe business and are already thinking of marketing campaigns to get more customers to visit your online shop or your physical store. But before you start drawing out your plans, you need to understand your audience, particularly their purchasing behavior.

By utilizing social media analytic tools, you can explore conversations revolving “sports shoes” and gain an understanding of what people are looking for in a good sports shoe. Is it the fit, the technology, the brand reputation, the color, or the ability to connect to an app? The answers you get by “listening in” on a general conversation about sports shoes will ultimately help you with marketing strategy.

Social media conversations

A great place to start virtually eavesdropping is Twitter. On average, there are 6,000 tweets every second which equal to 500 million tweets per day. There is no doubt that people are having a conversation about sports, shoes, or both. You don’t need to limit your search to one keyword or phrase. However, keep it generic so that you yield the most results.

What are people talking about shoes tweeting about the most?

What are the demographics unique to the people engaging in these conversations?

Are there any influencers emerging in these unbranded conversations?

Fedica can further break down your data into easier points for you to understand. Beyond searching for specific hashtags and keywords related to shoes, Fedica can identify the relevant topics to a city level. This means you will know exactly what is most trending in your exact location. With Fedica, you can go even deeper by analyzing and segmenting your target audience based on language, occupation, and gender.

With the data collected from social media conversations revolving around shoes, you can deduce which brand of shoes would sell to the local market and which would most likely go unnoticed. You can also use this research method to determine which kind of campaigns would help in advertising your shoe products and to which market you should be targeting your efforts. By having an in-depth analysis of the general industry, you’ll also have enough data to make informed predictions on future trends.