social media intelligence

[ soh-shuhl mee-dee-uh in-tel-i-juhns ]
/ ˈsoʊ ʃəl ˈmi di ə ɪnˌtɛl ɪ dʒəns /

noun

the monitoring and analyzing of social media data by a private or public organization, as a business or government agency, to gather intelligence or insights about the thoughts and behaviors of social media users. Abbreviation: SMI
Also called SOC·MINT [sok-mint] /ˈsɒkˌmɪnt/.

Origin of social media intelligence

Term coined by Sir David Ormand, Jamie Bartlett, and Carl Miller in 2012

historical usage of social media intelligence

The field of social media intelligence was conceived by researchers at Demos, a social policy think tank in the United Kingdom. Members of this team coined the term SOCMINT in 2012, modeled on well-established intelligence-gathering disciplines, such as human intelligence (HUMINT), signal intelligence (SIGINT), and electronic intelligence (ELINT).