A Literature Review on Application Areas of Social Media Analytics

Abstract

The use of social media is part of everyday life in both private and professional environments. Social media is used for communication, data exchange and the distribution of news and advertisements. Social Media Analytics (SMA) help to collect and interpret unstructured data. The measurement of user behavior serves to form opinions and evaluate the influence of individual actors. This results in a multitude of application areas for SMA. On the basis of a literature search, our aim is to determine the main application areas and summarize the current state of research. We describe these areas, show current findings from the literature and uncover gaps in research. The main application areas of SMA investigated in research are healthcare, tourism and natural disaster control.