Big Data? Big Deal.

Over the past few years, the term "big data" has been described and explained in a variety of ways. A few years ago, the term big data was used to describe very large complex data sets that were unable to be analyzed by traditional data processing applications. The challenges that were faced while trying to analyze big data were things such as: capturing data, data storage, data analysis, search, transfer, querying, and visualization. Today, the term "big data" has attracted a new way way of describing itself. Big data today is described as a large collection of data that companies use to help them predict analytics, find trends, explain behavior patterns, and gain other useful information through a mass amount of data. The World Economic Forum states that:

"In less than 10 years CPU's are expected to reach the processing power of the human brain."

Every single day big data becomes more and more beneficial to companies around the world. Today, companies are able to take mass amounts of data and analyze them to help their companies better understand their customers. Before, companies struggled to analyze unstructured data because they did not have special software to extract that specific information. The volume of unstructured data is so large many businesses need special software just to organize it. Experienced companies in the use of big data use both structured and unstructured data to build their customer insights. Today, data driven marketing is what it's all about, and the number one way to getting a step ahead on your competitors. Companies being able to track their customers tendencies, patterns, behavioristics, and interests online make it easier for them to gain and retain customers. Analyzing big data is a special tool that should be taken advantage of by every company. The evolution of big data continues to grow everyday as new technology is invented that help give companies the upper-hand on analyzing consumer data.

Here is a short video that can hep you gain a better understanding for big data:

Big data is often characterized into the 3 V's: the extreme volume of data, the wide variety of data types, and the velocity at which the data must be processed. This data can come from a variety of different sources such as: business sales records, collected results of scientific experiments, or real-time sensors used in the Internet of Things (IoT). The more data a business analyzes, the more they can make the experience better for the customer. Forbes states that, "just a 10% increase in data accessibility will bring in more than $65 million additional net income." This gives all the more reason for a company to take advantage in the analyzing of big data.

When first hearing about the usage of big data, you might find it to be scary and intimidating, but that is not the case. There are multitudes of positives when it comes to utilizing big data, not just for big businesses, small businesses can benefit from the use of big data as well. Big data can also be utilized outside the business world by doing things such as analyzing medical records that can help lead to new medicines, which ultimately leads to curing diseases. Big data can also be used by banks to monitor and detect fraud before it happens. Big data has been used to stop natural disasters by doing things such as tracking the patterns of earthquakes, tsunamis, and hurricanes. As technology continues to grow, so does big data making the positive possibilities endless. These are a few of the positive uses of big data, check out more here.

Data is incorporated in every part of our life to finding what restaurant to eat for dinner, buying a new car, a house, or even finding a job. Every time we search the Internet on our phones or our computers that information can be used to create a profile tailored to our search results. Each of these profiles that are being created by our search results help companies gain a better understanding of their audiences. This gives businesses the opportunity to find information on real people that has not been available to them ever before. This information includes things such as: emotions, relationships, interactions, culture and speech. In the past, two of the only ways to track customers were through zip codes and buying patterns through receipts. Due to the increased use of smart phones and the Internet, masses amount of data can be retrieved from our daily use of the Internet.

All in all, the purpose of big data is to help businesses lead to smarter decisions and the upper-hand on gaining consumer insights. Companies analyzing these massive amount of data help lead to building their audience and gaining consumer insights that lead to their call for action. As people continue to use the Internet in their everyday lives they continue to make footprints that companies use as a path to follow to reach their consumer insights. Resources such as ThinkWithGoogle help these companies gain information on their costumers needs, wants, and desires and use them to the best of their ability.

ThinkWithGoogle analyzes marketing insights, consumer patterns, and industry research. The ThinkWithGoogle website gives companies the opportunity to discuss emerging trends on a discussion board, access to a research library, view statistics, and utilize planning tools. ThinkWithGoogle is a great resource for any company to utilize and increase their marketing techniques.

Another tool that helps businesses use data to target customers is Facebook's Power Editor. When scrolling through your Facebook you might see ads on the right size of the application, these ads are creating using the Facebook Power Editor. Companies use Facebook's Power Editor tool to help reach out to customers and manage multiple ads at one time. When a company uses the Facebook Power Editor they have the ability to create ads, apply filters to ads, make ad budgets and schedules, and also track performance. The options are endless while using the Facebook Power Editor. Facebook Power Editor is a quick and efficient way to manage a multitudes of ads while getting a quick result.

For example, let's say you are creating an ad for a new restaurant in Oxford called Moe's BBQ to help send users to their website to help find the location and special deals. In order to create the ad you will first hit the arrow on the top right of your Facebook page, when the screen drops down select "Create Ads".

After selecting "Create Ads" you will be directed to a page to choose your marketing objectives. Since we are trying to introduce customers to our new location and make them aware of our special deals we will choose the "Engagement" option as our marketing objective. There are other options for your marketing objectives such as "Traffic", which sends more people to a destination on or off Facebook, and "Brand Awareness", which helps more people pay attention to your ads and create awareness for your brand.

After selecting a marketing objective you are able to name your campaign at the bottom of the page, we will name our campaign "Moe's BBQ: Oxford". You will then be brought to a page that gives you the opportunity to target a specific audience based on your particular campaign. Below, I set our location for our campaign to Oxford, MS in order to target people in the specific location of the restaurant.

You can also edit your audience by gender, age, language, demographics, behaviors and more. This gives businesses the opportunity to create the most effective ad possible. For the Moes BBQ ad, the Oxford, MS location was selected as well as ages 18-65+ with an interest in food and barbecue.

You can also set different budgets on how long your ad will run and how much you want to spend on each ad. Facebook's Power Editor also projects the ads reach and daily results based on the different options that have been chosen. Finally, you will be able to fully create your ad that will appear on Facebook based on the marketing objectives chosen.

Big data is something that every business needs to be aware of and utilize to the best of their ability. Big data can help any company reach their audience and gain an upper-hand on their competitors!