Social Intelligence Stories that Caught Our Attention: Volume Twenty

In this week’s round-up we have, Twitter users hiding replies, Stan Sthanunathan on the data revolution and research, bad machine learning tools because of rubbish data, no link between online and offline brand conversations, TBT Mark Zuckerberg not selling our data, and thanks for listening but calls to do something…

U.S. Twitter Users Can Hide Replies

After testing the feature earlier this year in Canada, U.S. Twitter users can now hide replies to their tweets.  While other users can click on an icon to see the tweet, the tweet is not deleted.  It’s unlikely to impact on the data that can be gathered on Twitter, but it would be interesting to get metrics on the tweets that have been hidden, and a view of the conversation they have come from.

Read the full article here.

Stan Sthanunathan, Executive Vice President of Unilever CMI on the Data Revolution

This is a great article across at Research World on the impact of data and the skills needed to meet ongoing changes in the field of research as a result of data.  I like that Stan covers that data analysis is research but research of a different kind…

“It requires a completely different skillset to go and look for it and mine it at scale. That in itself necessitates doing a fair amount of primary research but of a different kind.”

Read the full article here.

If Your Data is Bad, Your Machine Learning Tools Are Useless

There’s never been enough discussion or concern given to the quality of data we gather with social listening tools. The analogy “rubbish in rubbish out” comes to mind, and that is certainly what Tom Redman has been discussing in the creation of machine learning.

Read the full HBR article here or watch the thirteen videos he’s created on the subject here.

Research Shows No Link Between Online and Offline Conversations

Matt Dodd, the Managing Director of Analytics, Media and Digital (UK and Ireland) at Kantar argues that brands that focus too heavily on social metrics risk missing out on the conversation that are making a real difference to their business. Dodd explains that some research has shown that online and offline conversations are different, in fact, there is almost no relationship in terms of volume, sentiment, how often that a brand’s marketing is shared or discussed, or how engaged influencers are.

However, it is noteworthy to point out that I've seen other research where online conversations were an indicator to brand success.

Read the full article here.

TBT Mark Zuckerberg Not Selling Data

I was sent this Reddit thread from a friend recently, a nice throwback to an interview with Mark Zuckerberg, data ownership and selling data.

Read the Reddit thread here.

Thanks for Listening but Do Something

An article across at Medium from Christina Garnett, Digital Marketing Strategist, and Social Listening Analyst says she loves social listening but hates the lack of action.

Read the full article here.

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