Facebook Begins Providing “Topic Data” To Select Marketers

For marketers and businesses, gaining access to information about the opinions of their customers and target markets provides valuable insight into their reputation and allows them to effectively enhance their image and brand.

Facebook is now offering “Topic Data” to allow marketers on the social network to analyze anonymized data about what users are saying about events, brands, subjects and activities. For this initiative, Facebook teamed up with social data provider DataSift. Although topic data will initially be available only to “a limited number” of DataSift partners in the U.S. and the U.K., with the data also limited to those two regions, access may expand in the future. “Our plan is to reiterate on topic data thoughtfully and deliberately, and look to expand its availability at a later date,” wrote Facebook.

Certainly, the possibility of being able to tap into Facebook’s vast amount of user data to learn more about consumer preferences is an exciting prospect for marketers, even on an anonymous basis. With this data, brands can optimize their communications to better meet the interests of their targeted audiences, and marketers are definitely taking note of the potential of Facebook’s initiative.

Although Facebook explained it is not currently charging for access to the data, the company said it may go that route in the future, which would provide yet another revenue source for the social media giant. “This [topic data] is in response to interest we’ve been getting from marketers,” explained Matthew Idema, director of ads product marketing at Facebook. “They’ve been asking us to provide insights for them to help them generate more effective campaigns on and off of Facebook.”

Gaining access to this data would not only provide valuable insights for marketers, but it could be used in other applications as well. Companies could even alter their products based on consumer opinions, and could use the information further to help in shaping future product developments.

Facebook’s initiative isn’t an entirely new idea, as many companies are already using data from other social networks to analyze consumer behavior. However, until now, most of this type of social data analysis has used Twitter’s more public data, with several data interpreting companies serving the market, including Adobe Social, Crimson Hexagon, DataSift and Gnip.

One significant difference with Facebook’s data pool is its massive size. The social network’s 1.39 billion base of active users is more than four times the size of Twitter’s. However, due to the fact that a large percentage of Facebook posts are private, concerns could be raised over allowing marketers to have access to this data. Facebook is carefully guarding against a privacy backlash by emphasizing that the topic data is anonymized and aggregated, and that the company will not disclose personally identifiable information to anyone, including its partners and marketers.

Although access to Facebook’s topic data is initially limited, it’s expected that a more expansive roll out of the service will be coming soon.