Kiwi tech company Zavy wins contract to analyse aggregated Facebook data

New Zealand social media monitoring provider Zavy has secured a contract with DataSift, allowing the company to analyse aggregated Facebook data, which has been inaccessible until now. This development has been hailed as a 'game changer' for the industry, taking social media monitoring and analytics to soaring heights from Facebook's current 1.59 billion users. Zavy will take this information, provided by DataSift, and will make it accessible to clients, allowing targeted demographic information, tastes and other consumer preferences. ​ DataSift CEO Tim Barker says "DataSift's goal is to give companies worldwide the ability to gain intelligence and real business value from the wealth of data now available to them." The Facebook data will remain anonymous, but 60 key attributes will be used to create a psychographical insight into how consumers discuss brands on their own private pages, rather than on public comments on a brand's page. "We know that around 95 percent of all brand-related activity happens on people's private Facebook pages, so the potential from the discovery of this data is really exciting and opens up a world of opportunity for businesses and brands," Antony Ede, Head of Zavy Development, says. Zavy hopes businesses will use this information to further refine their social media marketing campaigns and reduce wastage, without the added stigma of breaching individual users' identities. "With Facebook topic data, companies can gain a greater understanding of what audiences are sharing and engaging around on the world's largest social platform in a privacy-safe way," Mr Barker says. Zavy's position as a local social media listening and analytics startup will help boost its expected revenue from $1.6 billion in 2015 to $5.4 billion in 2020, the company hopes. Zavy currently provides services for New Zealand clients such as Spark and TVNZ, as well as being a global reseller in Asia, Australia and Europe.