Many have responded to social media with simple and actionable metrics: new subscribers and a new following. While this is an effective way to measure your social engagement, it is not as simple as it seems. What many marketers overlook is that data from social media is in many ways not enough to measure your true impact on the business or business performance, especially in the young age of social media. In the coming decade, it is safe to say the fight to connect with the millennial audience will be a goldmine. The obvious internet and mobile tools are all powered by data — from app development to device data analysis. And with the rising number of people and businesses using social media platforms, gaining insights will require expertise in data science. For analytics and data scientists, the 2020s will mark a window to earn certifications.

The frontrunners of the so-called “war for data” will be those with the required skills and budgets to acquire them. And, that means not just having the money — but also time and energy to master your skills and learn how to use those skills to their fullest potential. A successful data scientist or data science engineer will be one who is well-versed with big data , analysis, and data visualization — and uses all that knowledge to generate data to inform the right decisions. Beyond data analytics

Data scientists are constantly thinking and adapting when it comes to how to connect with their audiences. To truly innovate the customer experience and to inform consumers that you’re worth your service, data scientists must also be able to work with human beings and build personal connections. A data scientist will come to terms with the idea that people are unlikely to connect on a one-to-one level and will work with key actors in the company and at various points in time.

They will understand the role they play in the success or failure of their role. They will realize the value the knowledge and the data hold and focus on converting that understanding into something tangible and affordable to bring to consumers. Data analysis and research is a non-linear process — knowing how to unearth different concepts across several platforms, delivering info to consumers on what an advertiser wants, how you will present information to the consumer, and when you’ll get the data from which you’ll draw conclusions to inform an overall business plan. Data scientists need to become the go-to resource for the masses or they will lose their authority. They must understand this in order to unify their marketing strategies across various channels. As data evolves, technology evolves to address it.

Startups will be at the forefront of exploring what new ways data science is changing, and how data scientists will have to evolve with technology as it evolves to address people’s needs. Modernizing operations

Data scientists as a team can also scale, with social media applications like Event Hubs facilitating connecting data with more than 75 million events per month, making big data available in small form. Organizations that grew organically will be digital influencers. Data scientists will play a major role in companies embracing artificial intelligence, which will be a core part of most of their content strategy. AI can validate ideas across a variety of social platforms, suggest how to reach out to the right people in the same way as a personal assistant.

What platforms, for how long?

How do they even know?

How do you know? Data scientists can answer the questions all without interruption, so having products and algorithms that serve up the correct message will become a must.

Data scientists will also make these systems smarter by limiting the mistakes, by giving the right message at the right time, by identifying what keywords are most influential and valuable. Organizations that will have to be more collaborative will need better platforms like Event Hubs and Quora to help connect data with human content. Building data-informed growth

The new year is a great time to think about ways to optimize your marketing spend. Data and analytics used to be the exclusive domain of data scientists. With new technologies able to transfer data from one platform to another and artificial intelligence making it possible to build personalized results, your marketing spend will grow more productively as you learn from what you’ve learned and continue to learn. Reaching new audiences

In the 2020s, marketers will look at how to reach users regardless of their age. Marketers will integrate the data science capabilities needed for more accurate and actionable marketing with tools that help them more effectively and deeply engage customers.

They’ll leverage the vast variety of data platforms that a company has today, from TV analytics to Twitter monitoring to identify which channels are most relevant to their customers. They’ll measure the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns by looking at the data and spotting trends and opportunities. In a landscape of poor data hygiene, marketers will also look at how to optimize their data. And they’ll integrate data across all platforms, from email to CRM to messaging systems to build and manage direct customer relationships.

What will they become? Behavioral Insights will Combine the massive amount of data generated by marketing with trending insights that marketers have access to.

They’ll combine data sets in different ways to inform them and take action for improved customer value. Customer 360 will cut across the 4 walls of the marketing and sales teams to leverage insights from the analytics and data science community to simplify the customer journey and increase profitable customer lifetime value. Crowdsourced Insights will map every aspect of a user’s journey to reduce wastage while eliminating inefficiencies by improving content delivery and automating processes. Audience Insights will spot valuable consumers who have a consistent relationship with you through your data that you can use to more accurately target them with personalized messaging. And AI will automatically assign them loyalty points based on their behavior. It will also identify creative challenges that may be dissuading customers.

Data Science and AI will help marketers take better action and optimize their paid marketing efforts. It will be the tip of the iceberg. The future of marketing will depend not on the number of platforms and not on the size of your marketing budget. Data scientists will be able to combine huge data sets and analyze and leverage trends to build ever more personal and compelling marketing experiences. We will also see a lot more data and analytics partnerships emerging, particularly because AI and machine learning can drive a lot of marketing spend growth by sharing information from multiple sources.

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