Remembering Jack Layton, A Great Canadian

August 23, 2011 | Comments Off

On Monday, August 22, 2011, Canada lost one of its best. Jack Layton, who led the NDP to its first ever status as the official Opposition, may have lost his battle with cancer, but he won our hearts through decades of passionate service for the Canadian people. It’s very easy to see how much people respected Jack. A simple word cloud of people’s online comments about him will suffice.

“My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.”

For those wishing to express their condolences to his family and friends, or donate to cause in his honour, please click on the images below.

Social Media Sentiment: H8ers and

August 15, 2011 | Comments Off

H8ers! <3ers! Isn’t social media just full of people who have radical opinions? It’s been a while since we first shared information about the distribution of opinions/sentiment in social media so we thought it was about time we conducted our little experiment again.

For six different sets of data, we gathered hundreds of thousands of sentiment scores and prepared frequency distributions of the results. As you can see below, some brands have more positive (A, B) sentiment while others have more negative (C, E, F) sentiment. You can also see that some brands have more flat (E) or peeked (C) distributions, or longer tails (A, B). No matter which particular feature of a brand’s chart interests you, it is clear that all of the distributions are reasonably normal, they are generally bell shaped.

So is social media full of haters and lovers? Most definitely not. Most social media data consists of lots of moderate like and dislike, plus a healthy representation of haters and lovers. Now the only puzzle is determining which of these charts reflects the sentiment of 1) autism, 2) Lady Gaga, 3) Obama, 4) Steve Jobs, 5) Toyota, and 6) Walmart.

.
.
Related links
Are Only Crazy People Commenting About Brands in Social Media?
Article in the Vue: Words I’ll Live to Regret
Cell + Survey + SMR: A Social Media Mashup #MRIA2011 #MRA_AC #MRX
There is no question but the research validity question

.

Is Netflix A Dying Brand? Social Media Research Speaks

August 9, 2011 | Comments Off

There are few things Chart Junkies love more than a clear trend and unfortunately, Netflix has the honour of providing the data for such a chart. Over the last year or so, consumer satisfaction with Netflix has shown a gradual decline. In March 2010, about 40% of online conversations about Netflix were positive but by the end of June 2011, only about 25% of online conversations about Netflix were positive.

The down spikes in Dec 2010 and August 2011 are clear indicators that people don’t like it when prices are increased. But what else are consumers unhappy with? We also gathered satisfaction levels with various attributes of Netflix at two points in time.

First, as represented by the height of the red bar, we see satisfaction in March of 2010. Then, the height of the blue bar shows where satisfaction declined to in June of 2011. About 60% of conversations mentioning Netflix as a favorite (or not a favorite) brand were positive in March 2010 but it declined to barely 20% in June of 2011.

From last year to now, people appreciate the brand less, anticipate using the brand less, and recommend the brand less. They like the servicing less, the ease of use less, and the price less.

And, surprisingly, 10% of people were satisfied with the fees in March 0f 2010, a number which remained stable to now. Hey, some people do appreciate cheap movies.

Related links
Social media monitoring vs social media research: Can you see the difference?
The Conversition Hierarchy of Social Media Insight
Apple pie, Apple orchard, Apple cider, or Apple iPad
Battle of the Brands: Angelina Jolie vs Bacon

Who Hates Google+ the Most: 16 Views from 16 Networks

July 29, 2011 | Comments Off

Whether you were lucky or unlucky to be the first or last person on Google+, most people who  wanted an invite have now checked out the newest threat to Facebook and Twitter.

Are you a Twitter fan who hates the intruder? Are you a reluctant Facebook user desperate for a new option? Are you a die hard Googlite jumping for joy over yet another Google product? We decided to find out who the fans of G+ are.

First, the standard Conversition methodologies were applied including collecting thousands of comments about Google+, Google Hangouts, and Google Circles from across the internet. Whether the comments were written within the Twitter, Facebook, or Google networks, or from thousands of other forums, blogs, and websites, a wide sample of opinions was gathered. Second, we evaluated how positive or negative the opinions were. Third, we examined the sentiment based on the source of the opinions. Drum roll please….

• Twitter: Yessiree – Twitterites generated the smallest percentage of positive opinions, just 20%. Surprised? Doubt it.
• Facebook: Did you think they would be second after Twitter? Nope, Facebook users fell closer to the middle with 27% of their opinions in the positive space.
• Google+: What? Not the most positive? Nope, 29% of their opinions about G+ were positive. Guess they’re not biased after all!
• Digitalpoint: Who, you ask, are these people? A very passionate group of computerites of whom 46% give Google+ the thumbs up. Be here and be square!

I must admit that I’m most surprised that Google+ users didn’t have the most positive opinions. Which result surprised you?

.
.
Related links
How important is sampling? Well, how important is gay marriage?
Norms: Striving to beat the worst of the pack
Tracking the Mood of Americans: Use Twitter if you want to prove they’re happy
Starbucks Logo Changes for Good

Upcoming ESOMAR 3D presentation: Tell me what you want, what you really, really want

July 26, 2011 | Comments Off

3D DIGITAL DIMENSIONS 2011
(ONLINE + SOCIAL MEDIA + MOBILE) RESEARCH
MIAMI / 26 – 28 OCTOBER

.
TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT, WHAT YOU REALLY, REALLY WANT
CREATING DESIRED RESULTS FROM SOCIAL MEDIA RESEARCH

Annie Pettit, Conversition and Research Now, Canada
.
This presentation will teach you how to generate the social media research results you desire regardless of what the true results are. I will demonstrate how to gather social media data from the internet using inappropriate sampling methods, and how to select the wrong pieces of data and code it incorrectly. The topics of sampling, weighting, data quality, sentiment analysis, and text analysis will be highlighted so that you can understand the full range of options for mistreating data. The ultimate goal will be to create set of data that reflects our predispositions towards a topic as opposed to reality.

Attendees are required to come prepared with a sense of humour  (i.e., I will be speaking in jest!)

Social Media Sentiment: H8ers and <3ers

July 8, 2011 | Comments Off

H8ers! <3ers! Isn’t social media just full of people who have radical opinions? It’s been a while since we first shared information about the distribution of opinions/sentiment in social media so we thought it was about time we conducted our little experiment again.

For six different sets of data, we gathered hundreds of thousands of sentiment scores and prepared frequency distributions of the results. As you can see below, some brands have more positive (A, B) sentiment while others have more negative (C, E, F) sentiment. You can also see that some brands have more flat (E) or peeked (C) distributions, or longer tails (A, B). No matter which particular feature of a brand’s chart interests you, it is clear that all of the distributions are reasonably normal, they are generally bell shaped.

So is social media full of haters and lovers? Most definitely not. Most social media data consists of lots of moderate like and dislike, plus a healthy representation of haters and lovers. Now the only puzzle is determining which of these charts reflects the sentiment of 1) autism, 2) Lady Gaga, 3) Obama, 4) Steve Jobs, 5) Toyota, and 6) Walmart.

.
.
Related links
Are Only Crazy People Commenting About Brands in Social Media?
Article in the Vue: Words I’ll Live to Regret
Cell + Survey + SMR: A Social Media Mashup #MRIA2011 #MRA_AC #MRX
There is no question but the research validity question

.

Dear Brand, you are never to talk to me even if I talk to you first: The Social Media Puzzle

July 5, 2011 | 4 Comments

Ok, so in the last couple of posts, we agreed that not everyone feels comfortable about brands responding to comments they make online. Sometimes, people want to make a comment and then just be left alone. But when is it acceptable for brands to respond?

We conducted an online survey (based on the e-Rewards survey panel) to determine how people feel about companies responding to them about a comment they made in the social media space. We surveyed a census representative sample of 1000 Americans and 1000 Canadians to find out in which situations they thought it was appropriate for a company to respond to them about comments they’ve written in social media.

First of all, it’s interesting to see that there are no situations where there is 100% (or even 90% or 80%) agreement that it is appropriate for a brand to respond. In fact, even when people write a comment on a brand’s website, only about 54% of people think it’s acceptable for the brand to respond to them. And, it doesn’t matter if they casually mention a brand or tweet directly to them, about a quarter of people indicated “it is never appropriate for a company to respond to you about comments you have written in social media.” Wow!

So who are these people who think it is never appropriate for a company to respond to them? Perhaps it is some odd, demographically unique group of people? No. It’s very slightly more men, slightly fewer younger people, slightly more uneducated people, and slightly more people without children. Just remember, when you generalize to say that most people are ok when a brand responds to their comments in social media, you’re ignoring the preferences of a lot of people. 26% of people.

Commenting in social media means you want a response, right? Wrong!

June 30, 2011 | 1 Comments

If you talk to people about social media engagement, you’ll hear a common thread – people want to be responded to when they make a comment about a brand or company in social media. People like it, they expect it, it should happen. This always makes me wonder about people who make comments online but don’t necessarily want to chat with the company. Do such people exist?

We conducted an online survey (based on the e-Rewards survey panel) to determine how people feel about companies responding to them about a comment they made in the social media space. From a census representative sample of 1000 Americans and 1000 Canadians, we identified 152 people who said a company had responded to them when they made a comment online.

Given a multiple choice question listing a number of positive, negative, and neutral feelings, we asked survey responders to select as many items as appropriate to describe how they felt (which means these numbers will add up to more than 100%).

About 41% of people said that they liked being responded to and about 40% of people said they appreciated being responded to. That is a nice, healthy, positive number. However, about 10% of people were annoyed and about 10% felt that they were being stalked. Would you be comfortable annoying 1 out of every 10 people you talked to?

Now, if about 41% of people liked or appreciated it when the company responded to them, that left a lot of people who did NOT necessarily like or appreciate the response. Perhaps they didn’t care one way or the other, or they actually disliked it. Either way, they did not feel the need to indicate that they liked the response. What are the demographics of the group of people who didn’t like the interaction?


.
So now let’s think again about the generally agreed upon idea that people want to be responded to when they write something about a brand online. Is that really true? I don’t think so.

.
.
Related links
Are Only Crazy People Commenting About Brands in Social Media?
There is no question but the research validity question
Cell + Survey + SMR: A Social Media Mashup

.

6CFBPK6DVC9T

Are Only Crazy People Commenting About Brands in Social Media?

June 27, 2011 | Comments Off

We know who uses social media to comment about brands. They are crazy people who have nothing better to do with their time.  Really? Is this still true?

We recently conducted an online survey (based on the e-Rewards survey panel) to determine who participates in social media. We talked to a census representative sample of 1000 Americans and 1000 Canadians and asked people about their social media usage.

Specifically, we asked them “Over the last month or so, have you written any comments or questions about a brand or company in social media?” I’m sure a lot of survey gurus will have fun pointing out alternate wordings of that question which would have generated far more accurate and precise results, but let’s take the answers for what they are: An indication of who is using social media to talk about brands.

22%. Let that number sink in.
.
22% of people have knowingly written something about a brand in the social media space. Add to that even more people who don’t realize they occasionally chat about brands and we’re working with a lot of people. It’s not just men, it’s not just educated people, it’s not just people with kids, it’s not just employed people. The only demographic that skews a bit away from average are older folks, but even a good percentage of them share their voices online.

So what kinds of people comment about brands in the social media space? All kinds of people.
.
.
Related links
Social media monitoring vs social media research: Can you see the difference?
The Conversition Hierarchy of Social Media Insight
Observational Research – The Original Research Method

Article in the Vue: Words I’ll Live to Regret

June 10, 2011 | Comments Off

This article was originally published in the Vue, June 2011.  When people answer research surveys, they don’t sign their names or write their email address. This degree of anonymity gives them the power to share their true feelings with as little pressure as possible. But what happens in the social media space? Read along to find out. It can be pretty scary!
.

.
.
Related links
Social media monitoring vs social media research: Can you see the difference?
The Conversition Hierarchy of Social Media Insight
RW Connect: Privacy and Ethics in Social Media Research #MRX
ESOMAR Launches Consultation on Social Media Research Guidelines