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.
Today, Facebook announced that it is giving Page owners access to topic data, which shows marketers what audiences are saying on Facebook about events, brands, subjects and activities.
All personal information is being is being kept private, the information provided is meant to give marketers the data they need to make better decisions, it’s not meant to infringe on anyone’s privacy.
As an example, with topic data a fashion retailer can see the types of clothing its target audience is talking about, and then use that information to decide which products to stock.
With topic data businesses will also be able to see how their audiences are talking about them on Facebook, and gauge whether the sentiment is good or bad.
This type of data has been previously available through third party tools, but Facebook claims the sample sizes were often too small to be significant, and using those tools to determine demographics was “nearly impossible”.
Before you get carried away thinking of all the things you can do with this data, it’s important to point out that topic data cannot be used to target ads directly, but it could certainly be used to gain more insight into how to target your ads.
In order to make topic data a reality, Facebook partnered with DataSift, a trusted leader in the data industry, and is using DataSift’s technology to power the platforms that turn the data into insights.
At launch, topic data will only be available to select DataSift partners in the US and UK. Facebook plans to expand the availability of topic data in the future after seeing how it gets used by marketers.
