The story of Socialdatabase

Few people would place data management on par with the Paris to Dakar rally when it comes to thrills and adventure. But, to retired data-scientist turned rally driver, Roland Rijpma the mountains of data created by the explosive growth of the social media were becoming just as exciting as the arid dunes of north Africa.

It was a research thesis by university student Thomas Slabbers that tipped the balance in the favor of data, and set the stage for Roland’s “un-retirement”.

The paper: You are who you follow — A deeper analysis of how people act on Twitter crystalized Roland’s thoughts on the unprecedented opportunity presented by the rapidly growing amounts of publicly available data generated by the social media.

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In July 2013, Roland, Thomas, and data engineer Peter Versteegen joined forces to found Socialdatabase. Beginning with publicly accessible Twitter data, it was not long before their data-complexity approach to analytics proved to be uniquely successful at generating fact-backed insights, and defining behaviorally predictive audiences.

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Soon Socialdatabase’s servers were running 24/7, devouring, re-categorizing, and analyzing massive amounts of data. By 2015 this unprecedented appetite for data had not go unnoticed by Twitter who asked for an explanation.

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At a meeting in Twitter’s San Francisco HQ Thomas explained how socialdatabase had downloaded, completely restructured, and analyzed the Twitter database. Twitter was surprised by the size, and effectiveness of this data restructuring. They immediately recognized that Socialdatabase had such a clear understanding of the Twitter database. Twitter were more than impressed. Rather than objecting to this as an overstep, the result of the meeting was an invitation to become Twitters first official API partner. This opened doors to even more of Twitters database, and with that, even deeper understanding.

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Since 2013 Socialdatabase has grown from a single server to a database of over 23 trillion structured data points. Today we are a Twitter Marketing Partner with offices in Amsterdam, Atlanta, Dubai, and Tokyo. We deliver tailored audiences and insights to clients including Twitter, Google, Nike, Heineken, Philips, Nutricia, Samsung, and Slack.

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Thomas Slabbers continues to run daily operations from Amsterdam, while Roland Rijpma focuses on improving, and enlarging our database, and keeping his entrepreneurial eyes open for the next exciting opportunity.

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The story of Socialdatabase

Few people would place data management on par with the Paris to Dakar rally when it comes to thrills and adventure. But, to retired data-scientist turned rally driver, Roland Rijpma the mountains of data created by the explosive growth of the social media were becoming just as exciting as the arid dunes of north Africa.

It was a research thesis by university student Thomas Slabbers that tipped the balance in the favor of data, and set the stage for Roland’s “un-retirement”.

The paper: You are who you follow — A deeper analysis of how people act on Twitter crystalized Roland’s thoughts on the unprecedented opportunity presented by the rapidly growing amounts of publicly available data generated by the social media.

In July 2013, Roland, Thomas, and data engineer Peter Versteegen joined forces to found Socialdatabase. Beginning with publicly accessible Twitter data, it was not long before their data-complexity approach to analytics proved to be uniquely successful at generating fact-backed insights, and defining behaviorally predictive audiences.

Soon Socialdatabase’s servers were running 24/7, devouring, re-categorizing, and analyzing massive amounts of data. By 2015 this unprecedented appetite for data had not go unnoticed by Twitter who asked for an explanation.

At a meeting in Twitter’s San Francisco HQ Thomas explained how socialdatabase had downloaded, completely restructured, and analyzed the Twitter database. Twitter was surprised by the size, and effectiveness of this data restructuring. They immediately recognized that Socialdatabase had such a clear understanding of the Twitter database. Twitter were more than impressed. Rather than objecting to this as an overstep, the result of the meeting was an invitation to become Twitters first official API partner. This opened doors to even more of Twitters database, and with that, even deeper understanding.

Image: Thomas in front of the Twitter HQ 2007

Since 2013 Socialdatabase has grown from a single server, to a database of over 23 trillion structured data points. Today we are a Twitter Official Partner, and a preferred partner of Facebook. With offices in Amsterdam, Atlanta and Dubai, we deliver tailored audiences and insights to clients including Twitter, Google, Nike, Heineken, Philips, Nutricia, Samsung, and Slack.

Thomas Slabbers continues to run daily operations from Amsterdam, while Roland Rijpma focuses on improving, and enlarging our database, and keeping his entrepreneurial eyes open for the next exciting opportunity.

Our purpose

We make ads relevant on Twitter by delivering advertisers the exact right audience they are looking for and deep, meaningful insights to help them understand who they are talking to.

The ability to make deep connections is the most beautiful thing a human being possesses. Everyday we at Socialdatabase try to better understand this human connectivity. And, there is no greater place to do such a thing than Twitter. As we all know what happens in the world starts on Twitter. But, Twitter is so much more — it’s emotion, it’s fun, it’s meeting new people and learning from their perspectives. It’s the voice of the people, and exactly this makes it a treasure trove of human insights and understanding. Especially if you know how to look for it, and this is exactly what Socialdatabase delivers.

Our principle

Our approach to targeting is different. We understand “You are who you follow.” On Twitter, users follow the people they WANT to hear from, and are more engaged with those conversations.

Our deep understanding of these connections tells us far more than generic demographics — a lot more.

By completely restructuring the world’s largest public database, Socialdatabase goes beyond relevance to deliver truly receptive audiences. That means our audiences are more precise, more scalable and more responsive.​​

Unlike traditional social media analytics firms, we don’t rely solely on keywords, conversations and self-reported profile data. We go deeper, using the data within the data. It’s these connections, interactions, and behaviors, that give us a much deeper understanding, defining audiences with unsurpassed precision, and effectiveness. We call it our SuperAudience-technology.

Our
People

Thomas Slabbers

Founder & CEO

@Thomasslabbers

Roland Rijpma

Founder & R&D

@socialdatabase

Peter Versteegen

Founder & CTO

@VersteegenPeter

Duco Janssen

COO

@ducoluno

Joran Cornelisse

Director of Technology

@CornelisseJoran

Ingrid Doesburg

Director of Operations

@IngridvWijk

Nina Wehneman

Marketing Manager

@NWHNMN

Peter van Kampen

Infra & Ops

@socialdatabase

Micha de Haan

Business Development EMEA

@micha_haan

Pim Bergsma

Business Development EMEA

@pimbergsma

Judith Mennens

HR & Finance

@JudithMennens

Henry Zweers

Audience Creator

@mxenrsportspics

Maureen Burton

Business Development EMEA

@mauburton

Chiel Heldoorn

Infra & Ops

@buffel4000

Fares El Masri

Business Development MENA

@FaresElMasri

Gerben Wolters

Tech Support

@GerbenWolters

Xam Mouthaan

Personal Development

@xandermouthaan

Doeke de Wolf

Frontend Developer

@socialdatabase

Carolinde Freundenberg

HR & Finance

@socialdatabase

Luisa Zimmermann

Paid Social Manager

@LuisaZi01493069

Thomas Dekker

Audience Creator

@ThomasDkkr

Claire Amson

Audience Creator

@Claire_Amson

Yuri Ueda

Business Development Japan & APAC

@YuriUeda7

Taco Remkes

Personal Development

@TacoRemkes

Boet Rijnders

Audience Creator

@socialdatabase

Matheus Faria Da Silva

Paid Social Manager

@matheussfaaria

Reshma Remesh

Business Development India

@resh_remesh

Jelger Algra

Audience Creator

@JelgerAlgra

Patrick van Rietschoten

Software Developer

@socialdatabase

Lucas Prieto

Data Scientist

@lucasprietoal

Kevin de Jong

Audience Creator

@kdejong00

Anca Axinoiu

Design

@axianca

Jaïr Klaver

Paid Social Manager

@KlaverJair

Kalyani

Backend Developer

@Kalyani71942551

Sara Cabrerizo Muñoz

Paid Social Manager

@sarisiri_

See more

We have one of the
world’s in depth databases, but it’s our diverse staff from 19 different nationalities that are the heart of Socialdatabase.

This group of talented, motivated people share the same mentality ‘to do better, stay curious, and be open to look at things from a different perspective”. They’re the reason we can deliver unique, motivated audiences that welcome your message. Recognize yourself in this?
See our open opportunities.

Become part
of our team,
here are our
current openings: