The Insight Economy in The Times: why social data is key to transforming business

In today's issue of The Times, you'll find a 16-page supplement dedicated to the Insight Economy. With a market that has rapidly expanded the past five years and is still growing at a high rate, it's no surprise The Times is giving this topic some solid attention: more businesses than ever see the value of using insights from data to their advantage, no matter what industry they're in - or what size they are.

As part of this report, Pulsar's VP Product & Research Francesco D'Orazio talks about how the analysis of social media data is driving a new way of understanding audiences and making a difference across many industries, like for example healthcare, where social data can even help predict the next flu outbreak.

Francesco talks about the difference between traditional social listening and up and coming audience intelligence which is about using social data to understand the behaviours, attitudes, moments and affinities of an audience rather than just watching brands being talked about.

To summarise Francesco:

"Social media listening really has narrowed down the possibilities of social data. Audience intelligence is about moving away from simply looking at the relationship between brands and consumers and focusing a lot more on the relationship between consumers and the perceptions and attitudes that their online behaviours might reveal beyond their brand-related interactions. That's where the real value to businesses lie."

Although Pulsar is used in pretty much any type of industry globally, the healthcare industry is a particularly interesting field. One example is that Pulsar was used by the Food Standards Agency to help predict outbreaks of norovirus in the UK. The full case study can be found here.

Another example shows that by understanding wider trends using data, businesses can identify competitive advantage. Our recent flu study, Viral, shows that people turn to home remedies and look for comfort before rolling down to the pharmacy or drug store for some over-the-counter pills. Pharma could be missing a trick here: be understanding these behaviours, product innovation can be informed. To download our Viral report, click here.

Interested in reading the Insight Economy in The Times? You can find our article over here, and the full report here.

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