Social media has become a goldmine of consumer, prospect, and market data in our hyper-connected world. But raw data alone provides little value. Targeted social data mining is the key differentiator to unlock growth in 2024 and beyond.
By adapting the latest social media data mining trends, brands can predict customer needs ahead of competitors, gain deeper consumer understanding, identify key niche demographics among followers, get real-time insights, and do much more.
Social media data mining is transforming fast, too. The impetus for the transformation comes chiefly from advancements in artificial intelligence and machine learning, big data analytics, and the platforms’ adaptation in response to changing user preferences. We can expect more transformative changes on the horizon.
Examining these latest social media data mining trends will give businesses and enterprises key insights into the future and help them strategize effectively.
Social media data mining trends in 2024
The mainstream trend in social media data mining is the rise in automation and large data analysis facilitated by machine learning.
Text mining, which uses machine learning and statistical techniques, made it possible to extract insights from enormous, unstructured, user-generated data on social media.
Mining social media data this way uncovers valuable insights that help businesses make strategic decisions.
There are other significant side streams in social media data mining. Some of these are mentioned below.
1. Greater adoption of generative AI, faster and better insights
Artificial intelligence or AI, particularly the generative kind such as ChatGPT, had its heyday in 2023, in terms of popularity. Its adoption, however, is only gaining momentum. A Gartner survey found that 55% of organizations are piloting or experimenting with generative AI.
The wider adoption of generative AI in 2024 will facilitate faster and greater social media data mining. Generative AI can quickly summarize key points, themes, and ideas from large social media data points.
This will help businesses grasp sentiments, find trends, and better understand their customers and the market. Its capability in categorizing and segmenting data can also be crucial in helping uncover valuable insights that may otherwise be missed.
Another forte of generative AI is summarizing information quickly. Such tasks, like data abstraction, summarization, report creation, visualization, etc., fall into the category of routine administrative activities- something nearly 50% of employees want to be delegated to AI, according to another Gartner survey. The use of generative AI will continue to gain traction, and its use cases will expand.
2. Rise in real-time social media data mining
The speed and volume at which data is generated across social media platforms are enormous. Mining this data instantaneously enables rapid decision-making. And given how fast information can travel, a tiny delay in, say, addressing a negative comment can result in a massive domino effect.
Real-time social media data mining involves processing and analyzing the data as it is generated. This is particularly important when decisions must be made within a very short timeframe.
3. Visual content data mining makes an inroad
Social media data mining focuses primarily on analyzing text-based content like captions and comments. But text does not always offer a complete picture of the situation.
Visual content constitutes a bulk of social media posts—short videos being the most popular and engaging of them. The preponderance of visual content is pushing the shift towards advanced data mining techniques capable of extracting meaning and insights from images and videos. The trend will continue to gain momentum.
Thanks to advancements in machine learning and deep learning, facial emotion recognition and identifying semantically meaningful patterns from videos are easier. Therefore, this trend is likely to become mainstream in 2024 and beyond.
4. Attention on cross-platform analysis
The average internet user has about eight accounts on different social media platforms. On each platform, they may have a different persona. Their usage pattern or behavior may also differ by platform. So to gain a holistic understanding, mining different platforms and combining insights from them is essential.
A cross-platform analysis is crucial, and companies are doing it much to their benefit. Consider how Amazon leverages cross-platform analysis to improve customer targeting.
It combines customer data collected from its website with information from social media platforms such as X (formerly Twitter) to determine what products they are interested in buying. This enables Amazon to understand customers better and serve tailored advertisements.
5. Emphasis shifts to TikTok and LinkedIn
Two social media platforms will stand out in 2024, each for different reasons. TikTok because of its skyrocketing popularity, especially among younger users and because of the high engagement rate on the platform.
It was one of the most downloaded apps in 2023 in over 40 countries and is a favored platform among US teens, behind only YouTube.
More astonishingly, 55 percent of TikTok users reported buying a product after seeing it on the app. Mining TikTok data will be a chief focus in 2024 and the foreseeable future.
LinkedIn is another platform that stands out. LinkedIn attracts data miners for a different reason. Whereas other social media platforms are a gateway into the personal lives of end-users and target consumers, LinkedIn is a professional network, best for analyzing prospects. This is why data mining from LinkedIn will likely continue unabated in 2024.
Conclusion
The social media landscape is constantly changing. The techniques, emphasis, and impact of social media data mining are evolving accordingly. The changes in nature of the social media platforms, user preferences and behavior, and data mining techniques are shaping the trends in social media data mining. Keeping up with the trends is essential so that social media data mining approaches can be adapted.
But social media data mining is a challenging enterprise. The need to constantly adapt and improvise as trends evolve makes it more difficult still. A good way to deal with the hurdles may be to outsource social media data mining services to a specialized company. This way, you can access the latest techniques and the sharpest minds to mine whatever social media data your business needs.
