NEWS30 May 2019

Social data analysis fragmented within companies

Data analytics News Technology UK

UK – Social media analysis remains siloed within organisations, suggests a survey of individuals working in social intelligence roles.

Woman social media mobile_crop

Social intelligence activities remain uncoordinated in over a quarter ( 31%) of companies, according to the research from The Social Intelligence Lab, while only 22% have a centralised group closely co-ordinating efforts across their organisations.

Half of respondents ( 52%) said their organisations’ senior leaders do not clearly understand their objectives or outputs, and 21% struggle to get leadership buy-in for their work. Meanwhile, another 52% claim they do not know how social data is used across their organisation.

Budget is the biggest issue facing organisations looking to develop their social intelligence, cited by 60% of respondents, with a lack of integration with other data sources ( 31%) and the skills gap ( 30%) also creating barriers.

Social intelligence is mainly used to inform social media activities ( 81%), closely followed by market research ( 77%). Respondents in the survey said most of their time is spent analysing and interpreting data, with less time being spent on segmentation, data cleansing and setting objectives.

In other findings, two-thirds of those surveyed plan to invest in social intelligence in the next year, and 85% said they had invested in more than one social data analysis solution, suggesting that organisations are using a variety of tools.

Despite this investment, the research found that 68% of respondents manually analyse social data because their practices are not supported by the technology they have in place.

Dr Jillian Ney, founder of The Social Intelligence Lab, said the findings suggest many organisations are ‘stacking’ a number of different technologies. She said: "While 89% of respondents feel that they have the necessary skill and confidence to use these technologies, the majority of professionals have to regularly analyse data manually because their analysis techniques are not supported. That’s an incredible revelation given the financial outlay on these tools every year."

Methodology
Between January and March 2019, The SI Lab surveyed 267 social data professionals. The findings are based on analysis of 204 survey responses.

@RESEARCH LIVE

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