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The same is true in social media, he argues. Certain individuals have greater influence than others, whether it is because of the number of ‘followers’ they have on micro-blogging service Twitter or because of the frequency of their contributions to user review websites.

According to Lexalytics’ Catlin, some companies are already putting this into practice by “reaching out to influential bloggers to start marketing campaigns via social media”. Not only can social analytics inform which influential ndividuals are best placed to launch these campaigns, he adds, it also helps organisations to “measure the effect as it ripples out from one contributor”.

Privacy protection

In a recent assessment of social media analytics software, IT analyst company Gartner predicted that a quarter of all organisations will be routinely using such tools by 2015.

However, the group also highlighted a potential obstacle. Social media analytics involves harvesting personal information and self-expression for financial ends. Is it morally appropriate, or even entirely legal, Gartner asked, for businesses to build detailed ‘profiles’ of their consumers based on their opinions, relationships and personal characteristics?

Sheldrake of Influence Crowd warns that there is a real danger of angering customers by invading their personal space through social media analytics technology. “You must manage any potential for the public to kick back against some kind of Orwellian overlord,” he says. “You’ve got to allow the public to quiz all the information that you hold about them.”

And while he predicts that privacy legislation may one day be introduced that forces businesses to disclose what personal data they hold within their databases – a Freedom of Information Act for private organisations – those companies that open up access to their customer data on their own initiative will “win so much goodwill that it’s worth doing before” any legislation comes in, Sheldrake says.

Despite these concerns, Gartner analyst Andrew Frank believes that it will become too difficult for organisations to ignore the discussions taking place in the social media sphere in the long term, and that subsequently, social web analytics will become a natural extension to the concept of what is today known as web analytics.

He also highlights the notable absence of Microsoft and Google from the social media analytics market. Frank believes it is only a matter of time until they make a move as, like all businesses, social media is something they cannot ignore.

“Being able to leverage social media is going to become a necessary component of any analytics product” he says. “It’s not a matter of being successful – it’s more a matter of avoiding failure due to not addressing something that everyone else is clearly focusing on.”