There are 5.42 billion social media users in 2025. And people spend an average of more than 2 hours per day using social platforms. During that time, they create a huge amount of data. That data provides a real-time, unfiltered look at what they care about. Their conversations reveal how they feel, and what they want from the brands and organizations they deal with every day. Social media intelligence helps turn those billions of online conversations into actionable data. Better yet, it’s data you can use right now. Key takeaways Social media intelligence (SOCMINT) is the process of gathering and analyzing public social media data to support marketing, law enforcement, and policy development strategies. SOCMINT is a subset of open-source intelligence (OSINT) that focuses only on publicly available social media content, including posts, comments, bios, hashtags, and engagement data. Different professions use SOCMINT in different ways . Marketers track brand sentiment and tre...