News Update: Facebook now tells marketers what audiences are talking about

News Update: Facebook now tells marketers what audiences are talking about

Facebook has announced topic data, a new set of information that allows marketers to understand what their audience is talking about on Facebook.

Marketers desperately want to understand what people think about topics that relate to their business so they can make their products and marketing techniques tailored to certain customers. In the past they have looked at the things people share online to get an idea what people are interested in, but now, the information available offered a limited view.

Matt Southern, Journalist for Search Engine Journal, said: “As marketers, the more data we have the more targeted our messaging can be. Knowing what your audience is saying about topics related to your business can be a valuable source of consumer insight.”

Facebook said: “Topic data shows marketers what audiences are saying on Facebook about events, brands, subjects and activities.”

It said marketers could use the new topic data information to find out:

–        The related issues a demographic is discussing

–        The products an audience is talking about

–        The sentiment towards a brand

Although this information has been available in the past, Facebook states that the sample size was too small to be generalised to the rest of the demographic audience.

They further added that this data is a great tool to guide marketers but cannot be used as a way to target adverts directly to users due to privacy issues.

What about privacy?

Facebook says that any personal information will remain private at all times. They further went on to say: “We are not disclosing personally identifying information to anyone, including our partners and marketers.”

To provide the information with high secure levels of privacy, Facebook have partnered with DataSift, the data company based in San Francisco who specialise specifically in privacy within the social media.

DataSift state that they are 100% committed to consumer privacy and on its website they claim that its technology “allows you to capture, analyze and act on all the types of Human Data, without compromising consumer trust.”

So far, topic data is only available to a small selection of DataSift partners across the UK and in the US, but will eventually extend its availability to many more…

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