Last month IBM and Twitter announced a partnership to help enterprises analyze feeds from the network and get more value from the social network.
But will it work? There’s no doubt that Twitter generates mountains of data but how much of it is relevant to decision makers beyond the marketing department? Last week the companies faced industry analysts to answer some questions. As NetworkWorld U.S. reported, some still wonder.
Reporter Matt Kapko wrote that Will McInness, chief marketing officer at the social analytics platform Brandwatch, told him that while most CMOs have already worked through some of their questions and doubts over the past few years about social media, most CIOs are still rather skeptical.
“[CIOs] will have questions about the utility and integrity of the data” and “some valid questions about the ability to derive useful sentiment analysis from this data,” he is quoted as saying.
But Kapko suggests CIOs might find in Twitter unprompted, real-time sentiments and insights from consumers that’s of value to the enterprise. “It could also provide a much-needed boost or reinforcement for CIOs who feel especially threatened by the rise of CMOs,” he writes.
That’s why McInnes argues the IBM-Twitter partnership could be “a really powerful way for [CIOs] to show value beyond backroom IT infrastructure.”
Like all big data projects, CIOs will have to work with business analysts to ensure the useful conclusions comes from all the Twitter data being sorted. But if and when things go right — and they won’t for all projects — everyone will come out a winner.