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DataSift partners with LinkedIn

DataSift

DataSift is a big data firm that taps and structures data from social networks to provide more insight into them. The company has made an addition of a new member to its network. In news it has come forward that DataSift has joined hands with LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the social networking website with over 467 million users that was acquired by Microsoft recently for $26.2 million. DataSift will help LinkedIn in developing a stronger marketing profile by parsing its public data. This comes forward as a part of the bigger push in growing the advertising on social network.

Speaking in more clear terms, DataSift and LinkedIn plan to tap into the content shared and discussed in LinkedIn’s public timeline which will help in gaining insight on how users use LinkedIn and what is discussed on the forum. This will help in making the insight of DataSift more important for marketers-helping them manage their ad budgets on LinkedIn.

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The move comes as a big shift for the startup that was founded in 2010 in the United Kingdom and has raised $72 million. The company made a name in the market as one of the two giants that had access to Twitter’s firehose of data. More importantly the stream of public tweets which it then resold in the market through proper structuring. Other clients included big marketers who turned to Twitter for real-time insight on the number of topics discussed on the platform.

DataSift will work on LinkedIn data for free

The dynamics of the relationship changed after Twitter acquired GNIP and cut off DataSift. However, before and after this new move DataSift has signed deals with Tumblr and Facebook to tap their networks and provide more information. The marketing insights were given to brands and agencies. They could then figure our better which platform to invest in for advertising.

DataSift’s work with Tumblr and Facebook are the templates for what they plan to do with LinkedIn. The main focus of the company is serving marketing purposes. They want to be able to fully provide marketers the data to invest in LinkedIn. PYLON is one of the marketing insight service which DataSift is launching for LinkedIn engagement insights. This will parse through the public posting on the forum. It will not touch anything sent through InMail or other non-public channel. The service will cover profiles of “key audiences” and look at interest trends on the network and engagement of people with content.

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There is no financial relationship between LinkedIn and DataSift. The entire information will be available as an API. The question is why is there no financial relationship? LinkedIn’s last financial filings point it out as an independent company. It made only 18 percent of the revenue from advertising or marketing solutions. In money terms it is $175 million out of $960 million in revenue. LinkedIn plans to grow their proportion and overall number. But this will need more transparency on the marketing data in order to give a green signal. Theoretically speaking, by giving access to DataSift it will grow the advertising business on its platform.

What does this mean for consumers?

Third party data insight highlights a much more impartial approach used by LinkedIn. Since, it is the data science powerhouse turning to third party will have a much more sound and impartial angle to it. Facebook did the same after disclosing some of its measurement bugs on advertising reach. Practicality is another factor. LinkedIn is the number one network for job networking. In order to have a more convenient analytics dashboard will make it easier for it. This will be less frictionless for LinkedIn.

Image via Venture Beat