Social Media Mining – Introduction with Examples

Social Media Mining is a process employed by businesses to analyze & extract patterns from social media data. It works on a reward model, and it rewards its users based on their activity, which includes their posts, comments, and likes and the value that they add to the community. The feature uses blockchain technology.

What is Social Media Mining?

Social Media Mining is basically a reward system. Here one gains rewards and points based on their activity and contribution to the community. Social Media Mining works to generate content, engage current users, and get more users.

Even though almost every single social media platform provides some reward, only platforms that have adopted Social Media Mining allow their users to monetize the reward gained.

Note: Social Mining or Social Media Mining differs from Social Media Data Mining.

We will discuss the following topics in Social Media Mining:

1. How does Social Media Mining work?
2. Examples of Social Mining
3. What are the perks and demerits of Social Mining?

Let us talk about them in detail.

1] How does Social Media Mining work?

Social Mining works on Blockchain technology, and the engagement is tokenized. So, whenever a user interacts with a piece of content, creates something, or shares something, their activity is tracked, and based on that, they get rewarded. The rewards are given, keeping the following steps in mind.

1. First of all, Social Media sites use trackers and monitoring tools to look after the user’s contribution. This includes creating new content, sharing existing content, reacting, and commenting on the various posts.
2. To calculate the reward that should be given to the user, scores and ranks are allocated based on their contribution.
3. Based on the rules and policies of the organization, tokens are allocated to the user.
4. Once the tokens are generated, they are sent to the waller of the user. They ensure transparency and security in this process.
5. After the user has received these tokens, they can turn them into cryptocurrency or use them within the platform to access premium features.

The tokens earned during this process can also be used to influence decisions and governance of the platform.

2] Examples of Social Mining

Now that we know how the Social Mining platform work, we should look at some of the examples for the same. There are various Social Mining projects, but we will talk about Reddit.

Reddit, undoubtedly, is one of the most popular social media platforms in the world. However, most people don’t know about Reddit Moons. Reddit Moons are ERC-20 tokens; they have monetary value as they are built on Arbitrum layer-2 solution. Active SubReddits members are given r/CryptoCurrency. One can redeem them to get premium access or Reddit Coins.

There are other Social Mining platforms, such as Hive, SteemIt, and YUP. Here, you will get rewarded with points that can then be redeemed.

3] What are the perks and demerits of Social Mining?

Everything is not hunky-dory with Social Mining, they are some demerits that should be addressed, and at the same time, there are some perks as well. In this section, we will discuss both of them to help you decide.

Following are the perks of Social Mining

1. Social Mining helps users to interact more and build a larger network. Since there is an incentive to participate, they will more likely interact with the content of other creators.
2. Due to this interaction, more and more users will get empowered to share their content. Not just general users but also artists will be able to monetize their art.
3. Lastly, using Social Media won’t just be a waste of time; one can easily make a few bucks out of it.

Although there are various perks, we need to discuss some of the demerits of Social Media Mining.

1. In the quest for quick money, some users will try to manipulate the algorithm, which is borderline cheating, to get more out of the platform. This is not healthy for the platform and its users.
2. One of the major disadvantages of Social Media Mining is the invasion of privacy. One needs to understand that nothing is free, your privacy will get invaded, and that itself will be monetized.
3. Not just that, one should also be aware of the fact that cryptocurrency is not stable. It fluctuates, and its values can increase or decrease depending on the market.
4. It also makes the user addicted to the platform. We humans are so addicted to rewards that this can backfire and can have an impact on our personal and emotional well-being.

Read: Botnet Tracker lets you track the activity of live Botnets worldwide

What is an example of Social Media Mining?

There are various examples of Social Media Mining; however, let us discuss one more example, which is Hive. Hive is a social media platform that was driven by Steem, another Social Media Mining platform. Hive gives its users a lot of control over the content and doesn’t promote censorship of the content. Also, it rewards engagement and time given to the platform. Hive has also outperformed Steem, which is one of the biggest players in the Social Media Mining industry.

Also Read: Why do companies collect, sell, buy or store personal data

What are some uses of Social Media Data Mining?

Social Media Data Mining is nothing but mining users’ social media data to understand more about them. It is done to group a bunch of individuals based on their likes and dislikes and their preferences. Most of the time, this is done to influence the user into buying products by targeting ads or, worse, manipulating their vote by making them gulp content of a certain ideology. That is why Social Media users worldwide are worried about the privacy and security of their personal data.

Read: How to protect your Privacy on Social Media and Internet.