Gohar F. Khan - Seven Layers of Social Media Analytics: Mining Business Insights from Social Media Text, Actions, Networks, Hyperlinks, Apps, Search Engine, and Location Data

SEVEN LAYERS OF SOCIAL
MEDIA ANALYTICS

SEVEN LAYERS OF SOCIAL
MEDIA ANALYTICS

Mining Business Insights from Social Media Text, Actions, Networks, Hyperlinks, Apps, Search Engine, and Location Data

Gohar F. Khan

Copyright 2015 Gohar F. Khan
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 1507823207
ISBN-13: 9781507823200

This is a useful guide to the emerging world of social media analysis. It offers one the first practical frameworks for understanding social media. The volume provides step-by-step instructions for the complete work flow for data collection and analysis, including advanced network science methods. This is a must read for serious analysts seeking to empirically document and optimize social media.Marc Smith, Director, Social Media Research Foundation.

the seven layers of social media analytics explores the value of analyzing social media data for informing organizational decision making. It provides a 7-step process that is straightforward, showing a way out of the dense and murky impressions from a huge collection of status updates, comments, hyperlinks and other online verbal jungle.Gabrielle Iglesias, Knowledge Management & Communication Specialist, Asian Disaster Preparedness Center.

Although we are still living in the early years of the digital network revolution, some of its consequences for politics, economics, society and business are already apparent. One of these is the dramatic rise in recent years of social media which, along with the burgeoning Internet of things, are themselves a major source of so-called big data. For companies, individuals and organizations seeking to find their way in the new communications environment, Gohar F. Khan has provided a very helpful guidebook to the use of social media analytics. It is well organized and clearly written and should help many make sense of this rapidly emerging, increasingly consumer and citizen-centric environment.James F. Larson, Professor and Chair, Department of Technology and Society, SUNY Korea.

Seven layers of social media analytics provides a fascinating insight into how social media data can be mined for business intelligence purposes. Given the growing importance of social media, this book is highly recommended.-Jacob Wood, Assistant Professor, Korea University of Technology and Education.

To my lovely family.
Thank you. Without your support and patience, I would have never completed this book.

The book comes with a companion site (www.7LayersAnalytics.com) which hosts:

Up-to-Date Tutorials (with screenshots)

Lecture Slides

Case Studies

Sample Data, and

Sample Syllabus.

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank the following individuals without whose help this book would never have been completed.

Gabrielle Iglesias, Asian Disaster Preparedness Center

Grkem etin, Countly

Hannah Tregear, Customer Marketing Manager, BrandWatch

Intzar Ali Lashari, Mrsk Mc-Kinney, Mller Instituttet, Denmark

Jacob Wood, Assistant Professor, Korea University of Technology and Education

James F. Larson, Professor, SUNY Korea

Lora Wan, Enterprise Development Representative, Hootsuite

Manho Lee, the Seoul Metropolitan Government, South Korea

Marc Smith, Director, Social Media Research Foundation

Rob Ackland, CEO, Uberlink

Ryan Seams, Support Team, Mixpanel

Seth Redmore, VP Marketing, Lexalytics, Inc.

Stuart W. Shulman, CEO, DiscoverText

PREFACE

I n the Seven Layers of Social Media Analytics: Mining Business Insights from Social Media Text, Actions, Networks, Hyperlinks, Apps, Search Engines, and Location Data, we draw on developments in social media analytics theories and tools to develop a comprehensive seven-layer framework that allows readers to get their minds around how social media data can be used to mine useful business insights. The book offers concepts, tools, tutorials, and case studies that business managers need to extract and analyze the seven layers of social media data, including text, actions, networks, apps, hyperlinks, search engines, and location layers. Social media analytics is about converting unstructured social media data into meaningful business insights. By the end of this book, you will have mastered the concepts, techniques, and tools used to extract business insights from social media that help increase brand loyalty, generate leads, drive traffic, and ultimately make good business decisions.

A separate chapter is dedicated to each layer. Here is how the book is structured.

: The Seven Layers of Social Media Analyticsthis chapter sets the theme for the rest of the book and introduces the seven layers of social media analytics, discusses the typical steps needed to carry out the analytics, and explains the challenges and tools of social media analytics.

briefly discusses fundamental social media technologies; their properties; and mainstream social media tools, including blogs, wikis, social networking sites, content communities, and folksonomies.

is dedicated to text analytics, the first layer of social media analytics. A variety of textual elements of social media are discussed along with the steps needed to carry out text analytics, its purpose, and the tools of text analytics. The chapter also includes a step-by-step guide on analyzing social media text (e.g., tweets and comments) using Semantria for Excel.

deals with network analytics and seeks to identify influential nodes (e.g., people and organizations) and their position in the network. Social media networks, such as Facebook, Friendship Network, Twitter, and YouTube are discussed. The chapter also includes a case study and a step-by-step tutorial on NodeXL for analyzing social media networks.

deconstruct the second layer of social media analytics, that is, the actions analytics. The chapter explains extracting, analyzing, and interpreting the actions performed by social media users, such as likes, dislikes, shares, mentions, and endorsement. The chapter also includes a case study and a step-by-step tutorial on Hootsuites analytical tool.

deals with mobile analytics and marketing issues. A practical tutorial on analyzing and understanding in-app purchases, customer engagement, and demographics are included in the chapter. A practical tutorial on the Countly apps analytics tool and a real-world case study is also included.

. A real-world case study and step-by-step guidelines on hyperlink analytics using VOSON are also included.

deals with location analytics, which is also known as spatial analysis or geospatial analytics. The chapter outlines tools and techniques to mine and map the location of social media users, contents, and data. A real-world case study on mining mobile phone data and a step-by-step guide on geomapping tabular business data using Google Fusion Table is also provided.

: Social Media Search Engines Analyticsthis chapter explains search engines analytics. Search engines analytics focus on analyzing historical search data to gain valuable insight into trends analysis, keyword monitoring, and advertisement spending statistics. Practical step-by-step guidelines are provided using Google Trends to analyze search engine data.

will discuss strategies and techniques to align social media analytics with business goals. A discussion and framework on social media risk management is also included in the chapter.

CHAPTER 1

SOCIAL MEDIA ANALYTICS: AN OVERVIEW