Facebook’s ability to provide a mass amount of first-party data is unmatched, and therefore it’s been one of the most powerful tools for marketers in recent years.

Now, Facebook’s opening up it’s vault of data even further, granting access to “topic data” that allows marketers to see what people are saying about their brand on Facebook. This could prove to be an incredible tool for marketers to listen in and gather real-time, uninhibited feedback on their brands, services and relevant subjects without a formal survey.

“We’ve grouped data and stripped personal information from Facebook activity (not including Messenger) to offer insights on all the activity around a topic. That means marketers get a holistic and actionable view of their audience for the first time.” Facebook wrote in a blog post announcing the new feature. Facebook is partnering with data company DataSift to help turn the data into relevant insights for marketers.

Facebook provided several examples of how topic data could be used:

• “A business selling a hair de-frizzing product can see demographics on the people talking about humidity’s effects on their hair to better understand their target audience.
• A fashion retailer can see the clothing items its target audience is talking about to decide which products to stock.
• A brand can see how people are talking about their brand or industry to measure brand sentiment.”

The feature is initially available to a limited number of DataSift’s partners in the US and UK. And unfortunately, the data can’t be used for ad targeting (yet). It would be incredibly powerful for marketers to be able to target their ads to individuals who are already discussing the brand or relevant subjects. However, user privacy is a key concern in when and how Facebook allows marketers to leverage topic data.

We’ll have to stay tuned to see how marketers will harness the power of topic data, and how useful the new feature proves to be.

Further reading:

• ‘Topic Data: Learn What Matters to Your Audience’ via Facebook for Business blog
• ‘Facebook Opens “Topic Data” Firehose To Select Marketers’ via Marketingland
• ‘Facebook Finally Lets Its Firehose Be Tapped For Marketing Insights Thanks To DataSift’ via TechCrunch

-Posted by Elizabeth Pace–