According to Pew research on social media usage trends in the U.S., around 73% of Americans use at least one social network, while a typical American uses three. With the vast majority of people being present on social media, it becomes clear why businesses are starting to focus their marketing efforts more in the social arena.

Indeed, brands need to be able to understand how to engage with their customers on social media. Still, that’s not the only influence that social media have had on the corporate environment. The central focus has been shifting onto data. A lot of insight can be gleaned from a customer’s publicly available social media information.

In those circumstances, it can’t be denied that social media handles make contact data complete. Let us have a look at how having that information can benefit your business.

You Can Gather Valuable Information

While there are some privacy concerns when it comes to using publicly available social media information for marketing and data collecting purposes, users generally don’t mind it if they feel in control. For example, Amazon uses data to be able to make book recommendations to its users. Users tend to trust them with that data, as they feel it’s used for their benefit. In that sense, learning about your prospects’ social media behavior can be an excellent source of valuable marketing information. You can use it to find new customers or better target your products to your existing customers.

People Don’t Change Social Media Handles Often

On some social networks like Twitter or Instagram, changing the social handle is an option. Still, anecdotal evidence suggests that the majority of people never make use of it. It’s an available option, but it’s not hassle-free. For that reason, users tend to stick with a social media handle once they choose it. That reduces the need for constant contact data updating, which is an added benefit for a business because it saves time.

How to Acquire Social Media Handles

If using social media handles to improve your data collecting and target marketing sounds useful, there’s still the question of acquiring them. At RunnerEDQ, our software developers have realized that customer social media handles have the potential to become one of the most useful sources of information for a business. It is why we include it in the contact data that we can provide you with our data enhancement services.

All you need to do is provide us a list of names, emails, and addresses, and we can forward to you their social media handles and links, as well as their most used method of communication. It’s a straightforward way to augment your existing contact list with the value which your marketing and sales teams can draw from.

Social media handles can provide an insight into your prospects’ social media habits. You can learn what the best way to communicate with them is, as well as what they like and dislike. As such, it’s an essential piece of the contact data puzzle, and likely something businesses will use more in the future.