The Head of Studies, Nigerian Institute of Social Media Analytics (NISMA) on Thursday said, previously, social media was seen as a tool meant for just the entertainment industry. However, it has proven to be a means connecting individuals, businesses, organisations and the government across all sectors of the society.
He revealed that it has become a space for interaction and a platform where the government can actually sendonomy out its message.
Chris Kaka also said social media of has come to stay and “it’s a profession that is now being regulated by the government. The Institute (NISMA) is now training people and qualifying them as social media analysts”.
NISMA is a professional government certified body aimed at connecting people online, going by the digital transformation evolving globally.
Mr. Kaka spoke while being interviewed By Mediaage at the Day 1 during a class session, ahead of the planned induction ceremony of the institute to be held at the Women Development Centre, Abuja, Nigeria’s capital.
“It’s a mandatory training for those who are already members, a way of bringing them up to speed with new developments in the association.
“We also have new members who are coming on board and providing them with induction. We use lectures to provide them with basic understanding with what we are doing”, Kaka said.
In a class session led by Dr. John Ogbole, a principal and investigation officer with the Nigerian Broadcast Commission (NBC) and an Adjunct Lecturer with the Faculty of Communications and Media Studies, University of Abuja, he said social media tools can be used to enhance businesses and strengthen public institutions in the country.
Speaking on Advanced Analytics for Social Media Platforms in Nigeria, he enumerated that social media analytics is an emerging area of research that goes beyond just the metrics of the likes, comments, highlights and mentions. “We are looking at the different areas to what people are doing to enhance the society”, he stated.
“In the United States, security agencies are looking at social media as a goldmine opportunity to gather data about their citizens that will help them prevent future occurrences of crimes to burst crime syndicates and their activities.
“Lots of other advanced countries are doing it too. We are happy that NISMA is looking into it on how to train people to also take advantage. Even businesses and government organisations and security agencies can begin to mine those personal information on social media platforms in order to predict and prevent crimes and boost businesses”, he posited.
While lecturing the class on one of his subtopics, Social Media Analytics, he said it is the ability to gather and find meaning to data, adding that it is broader than metrics and uses specifically designed softwares.
He also mentioned the applications of advanced social media analytics to be marketing optimisation, surveillance functions and sentiments analysis.
Dr. Ogbole further said in running sentiments analysis, “you have to monitor your mentions, analyse the sentiments in your mentions and calculate your social sentiments score”.