Why is it that the best tool for understanding your audience is Social Media?

[Grenelle]

why they said it is the best tool?

[Labony]

Social media marketing is very important to enhance and support search engine optimisation (SEO) efforts as once a page of a site or a link is found by social media users, it can then go 'viral' pointing many links back to the website which in turn is seen as a sign of popularity to the search genies and giving a boost in rankings to the said site.

[D Dixon]

In my experience, social media is like word of mouth for the internet. What makes it the best tool is because it has a social component and an analytical component. With the social component you have the potential for brand advocacy just because a customer/fan/follower clicks on the like/follow/tweet button. At the most basic level, it's validation that what you are presenting is accepted and liked by someone else. Since you've been accepted, that person will now share their like with their friends who may wind up liking you as well. The more technical component helps you understand where those friends are coming from, age, gender, which page/product they liked the most, how did this person find you...social media helps word of mouth to become quantifiable so that you can see the bigger picture. There's still a lot to be done to make it even better but so far, so good