Commentary
Data, Data Everywhere, But Not A Drop That's Complete
- by Joe Mandese @mp_joemandese, September 17, 2012
That was the view of Ben Aronson, managing director of digital and creative at Juice Digital during the “Facebook Challenge” panel at OMMA Display Europe this morning.
After being prompted by panel moderator Lulu Phongmany, Director of Business Development at iVillage about the “volume of data” being generated by social media (it’s in the terabytes daily, she said), Aronson said it’s not very applicable, because most of it is “incomplete.”
To give an example, Aronson cited “likes,” which have been touted as an important signal for brands and marketers trying to reach and build a following across social media platforms like Facebook, but which may not really mean anything.
Arson said that consumers began liking brands initially as a novelty, or because of some momentary rationale that may no longer represent what their actual relationship with a brand is currently.
He even offered a personal example, noting that he has a Justin Bieber “like” on his personal Facebook profile, but he is not currently a Justin Bieber fan.
(His original reason for “liking” Bieber, he added, was to attract a “girl,” not a brand, even though brands may be targeting him on that basis now.
Joe Mandese is the Editor in Chief of MediaPost. You can reach Joe at joe@mediapost.com.
What seems to be missing from this conversation is the value of declared social profile data - data that is extremely useful from a marketing perspective, and available to brands via permission when they offer social login to their consumers.