The recent rise in the importance and popularity of social media has opened up a lot of new avenues and opportunities like creatives, social media handlers and social media analysts.
What does a social media analyst do exactly? Social media analysts mine vast amounts of social data for insights that can both show ROI and drive strategy. They’re often tasked not only with informing and measuring social media efforts, but with using social data to determine the best courses of action across the entire organization. They deal with data that shows human behavior, language tendencies, demographics, psychographics, and paths to purchase.
There are certain skills one must master to become a good social media analyst available in the market. Here are a few:
1) Creativity:
There are no guidelines when it comes to social media as it is a fairly new trend and marketers all over the globe are trying to get a hang of it. The responses you see, can get very erratic. It I your job to figure out a patter, if you don’t see it, try to put two and two together to make your own guidelines as you move forward and keep checking up on your previously recorded data to see what works. Keep it creative, keep it moving.
2) Social media research skills:
While there’s a strong numeric component to social media analytics, it requires a knack for understanding human behavior and relationships. In many cases the numbers can point to several characteristics of a customer group that is active in social, but qualitative research is required to tie these together and produce a fully fleshed out customer profile. The best social media analysts are able to take the numbers and translate them into actions, thoughts and spectrums of human emotions, see how the work with the product or services your company deals with and use it to your advantage.
3) Adaptability:
The social media landscape is always changing, it is a vital part of a social media analyst’s job to keep an open mind and be as adaptable as possible. Social media is all about people, and since the human mind is as fickle as it is you need to adapt with the changes and keep stepping up your game to make sure you stay on track. Keep up with what is happening out there, if there are any new trends in the world, you should be one of the first ones to find out about it and capitalize on it.
4) Patience:
Patience is virtue and when you are dealing with people, you are going to need a lot of it. You need a lot of patience not only while communicating back and forth with your colleagues but also in mining this information for these insights. Some social analytics task will require pouring over hundreds or thousands of posts and interactions. These instances are exercises in patience, both for the analyst and those looking to act on social data insights.
5) Affinity for numbers:
As with any data profession, social media analysts must be adept at working with numbers. Experience in statistics, data science, computer programming, and econometrics all serve as a strong backgrounds for social media analytics. In addition, because social analytics is a relatively new field, the best process for mining a dataset may not yet have been determined.
These are just some of the qualities and tricks we think help make the perfect social media analyst. Comment below if you can come up with more!
Pipes is going to go live soon. Check us out at www.pipesapp.com. Stay tuned for more.
Cheers!