Clive Humby: Social media can predict purchases as well as preferences

The first question on any CEO’s lips when we talk about using social data to understand customers is: ‘That’s all very well, but can social media really tell me anything about my sales figures?’
Put simply: yes, it absolutely can.
The majority of brands already have a perception of who their customers are and often enrich their customer data by paying for market research data that gives insight into that specific, predetermined group. Social data, on the other hand, is b