It was recently stated that there are around 4.62 billion social media users across the globe. Also, in 2020, about 30% of all internet users in the US bought something directly from a social media platform.
This indicates the importance of social media to modern business with the possibility of not only increasing visibility around the world but also attracting new customers and making more sales.
Companies need to understand how vital social media has become and what type of data they can extract from various platforms to improve their business.
The Importance of Social Media
Social media is one critical tool affecting how much sales a digital brand makes. For instance, in 2021, it was reported that 78% of consumers are more willing to buy from a company, and 77% will pick a particular brand over other brands following a positive experience on social media.
Companies, therefore, take extra steps to ensure that social media works in their favor and not against them.
Below are some important ways that social media can help a brand:
1. Delivering Better Customer Satisfaction
Companies with customers at the center of their business are always known to make more sales and increase their revenue.
To become customer-centric, the brand needs to understand buyers’ pain points individually. They also need to listen to preferences, complaints, feedback, and general opinions.
And all this data can be easily collected from social media.
2. Monitoring and Protecting The Brand
The security and protection of a brand’s reputation and public image of also of great importance, and companies need to take extra measures to ensure that their good name stays unstained on social media.
This includes searching and tracking reviews and feedback across different social media spaces to know when something bad is being said about the company.
3. Monitoring Prices and Market Trends
Social media is also a very viable place to monitor and track the prices of products and services across different markets.
Understanding prices at any given time helps the brand set the best prices to ensure that they maintain profit without losing customers.
Social media can also monitor market trends regarding certain products and services.
This information can influence product and strategy development to allow the brand to manufacture only what is most likely to sell in the market.
How Proxies Help Companies Extract Meaningful Information
Proxies are defined as sophisticated tools that can mediate the gap between users and websites or social media.
Concerning the subject being discussed here, a proxy helps to transfer your request to social media platforms and return results in the same route.
Proxies ensure that you can connect with a social medium by divulging your sensitive data and helps to prevent any form of social media blocking.
There are different types of proxies, but they are mainly divided between datacenter and residential proxies.
The proxy you choose to use can affect how easily you can extract meaningful information from the various platforms you visit.
And while the above groups of proxy function differently (especially due to the type of IPs they provide), they can be used to grow your business using social media data.
How Web Scraping Works and the Kind of Information That Can Be Extracted
Web scraping can be defined as the process used to automatically gather an enormous amount of data from various sources at once.
Web scraping tools like proxies and web scrapers make it possible to harvest different kinds of datasets from different social media.
There are different types of data you can gather from social media, and below are some of the most common:
1. Market News and Trends
The news and trends about different markets are usually scattered across social media, and collecting them can help a business make better decisions.
For instance, it is only when you monitor the current and future trends that you can make the right calls and make accurate market predictions.
2. Consumer Information
Social media also contains information about over 4 billion users. Many of which you can sell to. Parts of the information you can extract from social media include customer profiles and other data.
This can then be used to create a proper lead list that you can later sell to.
3. Product Prices
It is also possible to track the prices of different products and services on social media. This can be done by monitoring the manufacturer’s page or watching what customers discuss.
Regardless of what route you take, the data can be used to adjust your prices to accommodate both the need to increase revenue and retain customers.
4. Customers’ Feedback and Reviews
Lastly, you can also collect data about what customers say on different platforms and forums.
The data here can ensure better protection for the brand or improve customer satisfaction.
Conclusion
Social media holds a wealth of data and information, just like search engines. The data can be used for anything ranging from improving customer retention to protecting the brand.
And proxies such as residential proxies can help you extract any data from various social media platforms.
