Data Mining: What Is It and What Is It Used For?

In the computer world, records of information are stored on devices and in the cloud. These records, or data, hold important and useful information.

Data mining is the process of discovering information and analyzing it to better understand the parts of different elements. The internet has large amounts of data, and mining refers to collecting raw stats and details to sort and analyze.

Once data is mined and analyzed, it is useful in a variety of ways. To better understand data mining, one needs to know the different types of data mining. It also helps to know who this date is used.

What Are the Different Types of Data Mining?

While data mining, workers can find patterns, anomalies, and correlations within a data set to make predictions. This helps businesses in several ways:

• Increase revenues
• Improve customer relations
• Cut costs
• Reduce risks
• And more

Data mining consists of several types and each has its own purpose:

• Social media mining
• Text mining
• Pictorial data mining
• Web mining
• Audio/and or video mining

These various data mining types allow businesses to find trends and patterns, along with other useful data.

What Types of Data Are Mined?

Almost every company has a database management system that stores related information. In addition, companies also have software programs used to manage and provide easy access to this data.

Various types of data provide the necessary information from the mining process.

• Database - Stores records or rows of large data sets.
• Data warehouse - Acts as a single storage location that collects data from a variety of sources and stores them in a unified plan. 
• Transactional data - Stores customer transactions and website clicks and records them using an exclusive ID.

These are the most common data types, but other types are also used for mining purposes and useful information.

• Sequence data
• Spatial data
• Data streams
• Graph data
• Engineering design data

These are used in many applications.

How Is Mined Data Used?

Analyzing data provides knowledge and help businesses make important decisions. With a knowledge-backed decision, companies can take their business to the next level.

Mined data ranges from information from financial sectors looking for patterns in the market. This data is also used by government entities to identify possible security threats. Social media and online companies use data mining to improve marketing techniques and create profitable advertising campaigns.

To get the most out of data, companies must hire someone knowledgeable in data mining and data analytics to pull and make sense of the information for significant business decisions.