The data manager VS the caveman. A true story of data marketing folk.

For a moment I’d like you to picture a prehistoric scene. A caveman (Ed. Caveperson?) picks up a basic spear, goes out hunting, and ends up throwing it at a deer. The animal, wounded but still mobile, tries to escape. Our determined forebear chases after the deer, picks up a rock and beats it in the head.

Staggering about the forest, and wondering what it had ever done to deserve this kind of treatment the deer is dazed and failing. The caveman, in one final effort pushes the deer into the nearby river, and drowns the helpless creature.

Retrieving the carcass to the bank, the caveman regrets that Instagram has not yet been invented, because he thinks this could well be a cave painting that he should have on his profile picture. Now, I know what you’re thinking. What has all this got to do with social media.

Well, quite a lot actually. You see, the caveman used the spear, the rock and the river to achieve his goal.

I recently asked Sylvester, my mechanic, what was the last social media he used. Sylvester, I should point out, has much in common with our caveman. The excessive body hair, the long arms, and the tendency to drag his knuckles along the workshop floor aside, he also employs several tools in the completion of the task. Sylvester told me the last social media he’d used was Pinterest, looking for a picture of a Mercury Capri tail light.

With recent revelations of data breaches and other serious failings of social media companies, we’ve heard a lot about how social media companies use data. And here’s where the plot thickens. While Facebook and the other social media companies try and analyse us based on our use of a social media channel, there’s a very important fact they are overlooking. They don’t get the entire picture. And data managers hate that. To paraphrase that well known campaigner for human rights, Donald Rumsveld, they don’t know what they don’t know. While the profile they create may be 95% accurate, it could conceivably also be just 5% accurate. And they have no idea which is which.

For example, I do use Facebook. I use it possibly once a month to set a few ads running, and other than that I am never on it. From time to time I also use LinkedIn, Tumblr, Medium, Ello, and Whatsapp. I also use Snapchat. I even use Kiwi from time to time.

However, I generally use Snapchat to message my children, in three separate time zones. My Whatsapp is just for close friends, and more serious writing I generally post to Medium. In other words, you could analyse any one of these channels and have very little idea who I really am. Based on my Facebook presence you might think I am a fanatical cyclist. I read a few posts about cycling there, but it’s really for a client of mine. Based on my Snapchat use you might think I am planning to vote Democrat in the next US election, because I watched a story there about impeachment and shared it. And based on my Pinterest you may think I am an avid photographer, as I follow a few boards about photography. The only problem is, none of this is true. Each channel is used for a very different purpose. Even when profiles are aggregated (which is unlikely) it’s still not representative of who I am. I am not a US voter, I have a bicycle but I’m not interested in buying another, and I used to have an interest in photography, but expect I will never buy another camera.

In other words, like our caveman, I am using multiple tools. I get the job done, but it would be hard to suggest any individual channel could really tell you a whole lot about me. The exception to this may be Google, on the basis that search tools are a great indicator of activity and behaviour, however, much of the time I am working on behalf of my clients. According to my search history I could be a crossdressing NRA member, with a healthy interest in veganism, environmental issues and muscle cars. For the record only one of those characteristics is accurate, and it’s not veganism or scrap booking.

As an account executive that came up through the ranks via CRM, I understand the value of measuring everything and testing data where ever possible. With that in mind I looked into a social media campaign we ran recently using for a small client, aimed at lifting sales in a beachside retail outlet. We created a simple very targeted campaign, ran it on several social media channels with geographic targeting and were very surprised by the results. The client was thrilled, seeing a substantial upsurge in their business.

I was a little surprised at the positive response to the ad campaign. It looked good, but not that great. With this in mind I drove out to the client’s location, had a look around the store, and wondered why we’d seen such positive results. It wasn’t until I was leaving the location that I noticed a public water fountain across the road by the beach had an out of order sign on it. Over a period of twenty minutes I watched half a dozen people go up to it, see it was not working, then cross the road and go into the store, only to leave a moment or two later with a soft drink in their hand. Considering it has been one of the hottest summers on record this is no small contribution to foot traffic. There are times when we have to be grateful that the client’s happy, so I kept my mouth shut and headed back to town pleased to take the win.

So, when we see that Facebook has (yet again) screwed up our data, and when we learn that the reptiles at Google are tracking our every move, we also need to be aware that according to their data we are probably precisely and perfectly not what they think we are. We cavemen are way more complicated! We should probably not worry too much, safe in the knowledge that while there’s no privacy any longer, the people watching us are also only seeing out of one eye, and that’s got cataracts.

Fiona

For more — much more — check out http://FionaDobson.com