Business Intelligence Uprising Centers on Social Media Data

Do the math: 750 million plus Facebook members and 200 million tweets daily—and you get the titanic bandwagon of social media data.  And with data comes market trends, behavioral patterns and customers’ demands.  These are three units that make up business intelligence (BI)—a method of monetizing information found online, and are oftentimes congruent to the social enterprise. The immeasurable amount of data in varied structures could actually yield monetizing techniques for both service providers and customers.

BI circumventing around social media caught the interest of cloud connection company, SnapLogic, which conducted a study on Application Connection Priorities. SnapLogic CEO Gaurav Dhillon cites the task to monetize massive amount of data available in social media:

“Businesses are inundated with data as they add more and more applications to their ecosystem and strive to listen to and engage with customers via social media channels – a trend that is only accelerating. The biggest challenge companies face is getting this lifeblood of data flowing effectively throughout the entire organization. The ability to make fast, easy connections between multiple applications has quickly become a business necessity.”

The results highlighted fascinating figures:

• 40% of all companies said they will invest and prioritize securing of BI and analytics applications in 2012.

• 1/3 of all respondents identified Facebook as the platform that they will integrate their marketing and customer support programs next year.

• In 2 years time, the number of companies that vow to have at least four SaaS application will double.

• Competitiveness will see 50% spike if there would be better application connectivity involved.

Various enterprises are also chasing success in business intelligence. Viralheat just had a major release with the launch of its public API this week, while Future Simple, a known provider of small business solutions, has just announced that the integration of its simple CRM to Google Apps and Twitter. Even wireless and cable companies joined the craze, aimed at revolutionizing business analytics with MeditationZone and cloud technology.

Less than  a week ago, BI start-up GoodData was able to raise $15 million to expand its current portfolio.  Going mainstream with their BI service is HP’s recent enhancement via mapping software update. But, it is ClickFox that has been extra strenuous in realizing the potential of business intelligence.  In Q2 alone, the company further established its leadership in experience analytics market, significantly grew its sales team, added an advisory board, partnered with QBE First and pushed for more big data BI innovations.

The fusion of business intelligence and social media may breathe life into a new ecosystem that will feed on big data from popular platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Google+.  If the expected trajectory continues, BI could drive the pace and direction for other industries like customer support and service, advertising, financial and even healthcare. Whatever drives to the hilt the popularity of social media today will certainly tag along BI services in the future.