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I've been thinking (sorry Ben. I stole your blog's title) a lot recently about the abundance of data that's available on the social web. Yes, before you make any jokes about how geeky that sounds, I do think about things that impact our profession quite often. In its most basic form, the Internet leaves a trail of breadcrumbs for brands (or enterprising individuals) to follow. Why? Why do brands give a damn where you've landed after doing a search on Google? The answer is obvious to those of us working in the space: If we know where our current/future consumers are spending their time it makes it much easier for us to target them with advertising/marketing material. This is what we do, right? We find customers, then we target customers and then we hit them with a barrage of marketing material that hopefully causes them to buy our widget. That's overly simplistic, but I think you get the point.
Anyway, as you traverse the Information Superhighway (p.s. how long has it been since you've heard that phrase? I really just used it for posterity) talking, sharing, offering up reviews, posting videos, posting photos, editing Wikipedia there is likely someone like me sitting behind a computer somewhere far away trying to analyze your behaviors. I'll give you a moment while you're thoroughly freaked out by the thought of me looking over your shoulder as you use a computer... (cue Jeopardy theme music)........ Ok, are you ready? Right, back to it. Now, let me hit you in the face with another often forgotten fact: The practice of following the purchasing behaviors and intents of consumers has been going on for a lot longer than the social web has been around. Why do you care now? Is it somehow because we're tracking you while you are in the comforts of your own home/office? I'm assuming, just for the sake of this discussion that it is not blind naivety, though I'm sure there is plenty of that going around. Can it go too far? Absolutely. If you needed any proof of that, check out what happened to Nielsen when they were caught scraping a public forum. A nice write-up in the Wall Street Journal is what happened.
I'm not going to go on about whether or not companies should be tracking online behaviors. My personal point-of-view is that we need to get over it. The data gathering process either by Google, or some other vendor is a multi-million (if not billion) dollar industry. That means, in simple terms, that the industry isn't going to change unless forced to by the changing of social norms or government regulation. And, whether or not we have a right to privacy when we're posting things in a public forum is a discussion for someone much smarter than me. No, what I want to touch on is the difference between gathering data and gathering data to derive actionable insights. We're doing far too little of the latter. This is where companies (and the agencies that help them) get lost. More and more brands are starting to listen to online conversations. However, most often we're listening but not really digging as deeply as we need to be. Make sure you check out Connie Bensen's post on Jay Baer's blog yesterday for more information on how you can take listening beyond gathering share of voice, media mix and tone.
Since I'm a numbers/equations dork, here's how I'd think about this: The right amount of data = timeliness + solves a business problem. There's no magic bullet for how much data you could/should be gathering. However, if you are gathering data in an effort to solve a business problem, and it's timely, then you are on the right track. I'd argue that if the data isn't timely, it's just interesting information. If it doesn't help further a goal, or solve a problem, it's just interesting information. Right now, unfortunately, we're gathering data for the sake of gathering data. There's far too little actionable insights being developed as a result of this data collection.
So before you start down the path of data gathering ask yourself a few questions:
1. Where is the data going to come from?
2. How do we incorporate it with existing data?
3. Will the process happen quickly enough for the data to still be timely?
4. How does the data help solve a business problem?
(Notice I said nothing about cost here. This kind of data is invaluable. It's often the reason we do or do not do something. You can't place a cost on that accurately).
There's no such thing as too much data. There is such a thing as too much data that's not actionable. Don't think about the problem of an abundance of data as anything more than an opportunity to solve a business problem. If it doesn't, throw the information in the trash. Have you encountered situations where you think you have too much information? How did you overcome?
