Battle of the Brands: Angelina Jolie vs Bacon

Friday, July 30th, 2010

Angelina Jolie and Bacon. Both loved by many for many reasons, and disliked by few for few reasons. Which has more guts? Which has more glory? Which is the stronger contender?  The only way to tell is with…

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Battle of the Brands!!
Using only the thousands of social media opinions generated by their fans as their weapons, we have analyzed, samplized, sentimentalyzed, and contentalyzed them. The person to win the most of 7 matches will be declared the victor. Let us begin.
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The Cool Factor: Who wins the battle of hip, cool, and fashionable?
Angelina: 39% of conversations talking about the cool factor say that Angelina has it. But, another 5% say she doesn’t.
Bacon: 19% of conversations put bacon on the cool list. Oh, sorry bacon!
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Advertising: Who has the best advertising campaigns?
Angelina: 30% of opinions are in favor of her advertising.
Bacon: 50% of opinions are in favor of bacon advertising. Mmmm, drooling at the photo…
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Emotions: Who makes peoples knees sink with eternal, undying love?
Angelina: 35% of emotions towards Angelina are positive
Bacon: 31% of emotions towards bacon are positive. So close, it’s pretty much a tie right now!
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Anticipation: Who makes us wait desperately for more, MORE, MORE!
Angelina: 39% of opinions are desperately wanting more.
Bacon: 35% of opinions are wanting more. Again, it’s a tie, but bacon is trailing oh so slightly both times…
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Shape: Who is more shapely?
Angelina: 39% of opinions like the shape of this fine, lookin’ lady.
Bacon: 16% of opinions like the shape of bacon. But really, who are these people who care about the shape of bacon?
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Breakfast: Who would you like to have for breakfast?
Angelina: 67% of opinions towards having Angelina over for breakfast are positive. Wow, how can bacon beat this?
Bacon: 26% of opinions are in favor of a bacon breakfast.
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Yummy: Who’s the yummiest?
Angelina: 67% positive is a huge score to beat and bacon really needs this one.
Bacon: 43% positive is a good score but it just won’t cut it in this war.

Well, with a score of 4 to 1, and 2 ties, … the winner is Angelina!

Sorry bacon, but you’ll just have to sizzle in the oven a little longer if you want to beat Angelina.

Handling Social Media – Part 1: The Awakening.

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

By Fernando, Conversition’s Lead Evolisten Engineer

(Our tech team writes too!)

Have you ever complained about something? Or given your honest opinion? Or answered a question? Only to be completely ignored? Because, after all, you’re just one guy, and there’s not much you can do about it.

Here’s another scenario. Was someone listening to you but you weren’t really telling the truth because you were being nice and polite, because you really didn’t care about the subject, because they were expecting an answer, so you just said the first thing that popped into your mind?

No matter how you slice and dice it, it’s not an easy thing for the little guy to be heard.

But, what if you get to speak about something you care about, only when you feel like it, and you don’t have to worry about hurting anyone’s feelings, and you just let it all out. Wouldn’t that be nice? And then you do it again, and again, and again. You share your thoughts with the whole world, nonstop, 24/7, loudly and with brutal honesty. You’re angry, or ecstatic, or surprised, and you let everyone know about it. You will make them know. Well, then you’re probably a really strange person.

But, even if you are this strange person, there is still a bright side. Now, you can’t be easily dismissed. You must be dealt with. You can’t be ignored because ignoring you will not make you go away. And strange people can do  a lot damage when left unattended. You say whatever you want to say, whenever you want, to whomever you want, as loudly as you want. And it feels great.

Photo credit: mzacha from morguefile.com

Back in the real world, there aren’t many people like that, probably because it’s so exhausting. But a task that is too much for just one person can easily be done by a thousand people if they just all pull the same way.

Social Media, the ultimate strange person.

Social Media is honest and blunt and does not stop. It speaks with a thousand different voices, from a thousand different viewpoints, for a thousand different reasons, and it will speak about you. It will tell you exactly what it thinks of you. It will tell everyone exactly what it thinks of you. You may think this is either a good thing or a terrifying thing but, at the end of the day, the fact remains that this is indeed a very real thing. It is happening right now, it has been happening for a while, and it will happen more and more in the future. The little guy is out of the bottle, and he and his millions of friends are merrily typing away telling the world what they feel.

You can ignore social media at your own peril, or you can do something about it. What is going to be?

Social media monitoring vs Social media research: Can you see the difference?

Monday, July 26th, 2010

Photo puravida from morguefile

Many people are curious about the difference between social media monitoring and social media research. The distinction is clear, and fairly easy to see if you have experience with market research.
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Social media monitoring

• The act of reviewing and tracking social media data
• May include tracking the volume of data meeting specific criteria, possibly tracking the sentiment of that data, determining which websites are producing greater or lesser volumes of data, identifying individual who are prone to discussing a brand, interacting with individuals contributing the social media data

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Social media research

• The application of scientific methods to social media data
• Like surveys, focus groups, and other established research methods, social media research incorporates the scientific principles that turn data into valid and reliable data sources, suitable for explaining past and current behaviour, and predicting future behaviour
• Established methods may include several of the following: developing research objectives, defining problems, defining and selecting relevant target groups and samples, applying sampling, weighting and standardized data quality methods, applying validation methods, evaluating data reliability
• Outputs include Usage and Attitudes studies, Brand Trackers, Ad Trackers, Segmentation studies, and other research traditionally using survey or focus group data

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Tracking the Mood of Americans: Use Twitter if you want to prove they’re happy

Sunday, July 25th, 2010

An article in the New York Times this week discussed a research project that is attempting to track the mood of Americans using Twitter as the data source. The project involves researchers from Northeastern University College of Computer and Information Sciences and Harvard Medical School. It is certainly reasonable that a group of scientists can develop algorithms that accurately predict the mood of Americans. However, Twitter data is not simply and instantly predictive of the general population of Americans. Given that only 7% of people who are online even use Twitter, it is risky, and can easily lead to wrong conclusions.

Want to see a real example? No problem.

Let’s look at consumer opinions related to one specific product, the iPad.

1. First, we gathered thousands of opinions from across the internet, from blogs, microblogs, forums, question and answer sites, personal sites, all of which mentioned the iPad. Sites like YouTube, Blogger, Twitter, and thousands more were included.
2. Then, we categorized all of the conversations into two groups, 1) everything from Twitter and 2) the entire internet space.
3. Next, we determined the level of emotion for every online conversation. Specifically, we determined whether the emotion of the conversations was extremely happy, somewhat happy, neutral, somewhat unhappy, or extremely unhappy.
4. Finally, we created the pretty little charts that you see on the right of this page.

What’s the first thing you notice from these charts?

Not one single chart has two bars that look the same. What is the percentage of tweets that reflect an extremely happy opinion? 15%. What is the comparable number for the entire internet? 5.6%. I hope it’s not just me, but 15% doesn’t look like 5.6%, not even if the 5.6% is averaged up to 6%. There is a big difference in the percentage of people who have extremely happy opinions on Twitter vs the entire Internet.

The same trend is apparent when we look at the percentage of people who are extremely unhappy with the iPad. 11.3% of tweeple are extremely unhappy compared to just 1.9% of the entire internet space. All five of the charts lead to the same conclusions. Twitter results do not equal Internet results.

It’s not 1 to 1

Clearly, the relationship between Twitter data and total internet data is not 1 to 1. It’s impossible to gather Twitter data,  analyze the sentiment, and be confident that it represents a wide, more general audience.

Perhaps people on Twitter have more extreme opinions than everyone else; perhaps they are less likely to guard their remarks so that the more extreme opinions are shared; perhaps Twitter opinions are in fact the closest to the average American opinion. Whatever the reason, it is undeniable that the mood on Twitter is unlike anywhere else.

Prepare to be wrong. Prepare to explain contradictions. Generalize Twitter mood at your own risk.

Links that might interest you:
iPad on EvoPlay
New York Times article
Conversition on Facebook

Introducing EvoPlay: A new way to look like you’re working when really you’re playing

Friday, July 23rd, 2010

Sentiment, sentiment, everywhere!

Today, we introduce to you, fresh out of the box…. EvoPlay! A fun new visualization for watching how people talk about brands and people online. If you love trying things out for yourself, there’s no need to go any further. Check out EvoPlay for yourself right now. Go! Now! For those who prefer a little bit of handholding, there’s no shame in that! Let’s take a quick walk together and see the cool things you can try.

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1) Welcome to EvoPlay! Simply click on the black arrow to begin.

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2) What brand interests you? A person? A product? A movie? Make your choice here by clicking on the name. That in itself is a bit of fun! (Enough already, I want to play now!)

3) Wooooohhhhh, coooooool. The bubbles disappear into the screen or fly crashing into your face! These represent just a small sample of the thousands or millions of conversations out there. Imagine if you could see them all! Click on one to see the conversation it represents. (OK, OK, Let me play now!)

4) What are the conversations about? Right now, conversations about all of these topics are showing. Click on one to see what the bubble stream looks like for it! Are most of the conversations about humor? Or are they about recommendations? It’s up to you to find out! (I got it now, let me play!)

5) Where are these conversations coming from? Right now, everywhere! Click on a checkmark so that conversations from there disappear! Try turning on one data source or two or more. See if there are conversations happening in each of the places. See where many or few conversations are taking place. (Cooooool, let me play now!)

6) What do the colors mean? Well, red is always negative. And here, yellow means positive. Sure, we could have made green mean positive, but then it would just look like Christmas all year round.  Perhaps that’s not so bad? (Christmas present? Let me play now!)

7) Want to fly through space yourself? Click on the black button and drag yourself forward and backward though time. It’s yours to discover. Just don’t blame the motion sickness on us! (I figured that out by myself, I’m going to play now!)

Want to try another brand? Simply click on left arrow at the bottom of your screen and choose another brand. Is there a brand you’d like to see here? Just send us a note, or a leave a comment here, and we might pick your favorite! Are you ready to begin??

I WANT TO PLAY NOW!!!!!

Flipboard Day 2: Server crashes and failed connections bow to true love

Friday, July 23rd, 2010

We heard it all yesterday. The amazing, brilliant, stunning, and incredible Flipboard for the iPad had a few problems from server overloads to failed connections with twitter and facebook. Did that phase people at all? Let’s have a look at the most recent online conversations to see how consumer sentiment changed since yesterday.

• Overall sentiment: A very slight decrease from 61% positive to 58% positive with 3% (as opposed to 0%) of opinions now in the negative zone. The problems with crashing and connection failures may have bothered a few people, but they just couldn’t damper overall spirits. The Flipboard is still “amazing,” “awesome,” “brilliant,” and “incredible.”
• Recommendations: Remained stable at 58% positive. The app still comes highly recommended as the “greatest” thing since the last greatest thing.
• Ease of use: Decreased from 70% positive to 62% positive. This is a noticeable decline but still stunningly high given that 30% positive is a score most brands would hope to achieve.
• Fashionable: Decreased from 79% positive to 74% positive. A small decline but not nearly enough to take away from the app being “beautiful,” “sleek” and “very cool.”
• eReader: Decreased from 68% positive to 64% positive. Today, we also saw 2% of the opinions fall into the negative zone, but overall, people like the app as an ereader.
• Facebook: A small decrease from 68% positive to 65% positive. And, today brought 1% of scores into the negative zone, again likely because of the connection issues. People like how the works with facebook.
• Twitter: Another small decrease from 65% positive to 61% positive, plus 1% of scores in the negatives also because of the connection issues. People still like how the app works with twitter.

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For the most part, scores decreased by several points. However, since the average positive score for most brands is around 30%, the fact that Flipboard is still registering scores in the mid to high 60s, even after a decline from day 1 is a stunning achievement. With negative opinions reflecting only 1% or 2% of overall opinions, the Flipboard seems to have continued its winning streak directly into day 2.

Apparently, even the crashes and failed connections are unable to counter the boxes of chocolates and bouquets of roses that are being handed to this pretty little app.
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Links you might be interested in:
Flipboard on EvoPlay
Flipboard – The greatest thing since, well, the iPad came out
Conversition on Facebook

Photo credit: hotblack from morguefile.com

Flipboard – The greatest thing since, well, the iPad came out

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

What product launched barely one day ago? What product is “just an app?” What brand new app can’t keep up with consumer demand after just one day on the market?

It must be Flipboard, a new app for the iPad, an app that promises simplicity in all things from using your social networking tools to reading books and magazines. And so far, the buzz isn’t just the hype of anticipation, it’s the hype of reality.

Conversition gathered thousands of conversations that have happened only within the last few days and analyzed the results. Let’s consider the percentage of opinions that were positive, as opposed to neutral or negative, in respect to a few different measures:
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• 61% positive: Overall, it’s a good app, but if you need to know the specifics, the most common comments are that it’s “amazing,” “awesome,” “brilliant,” and “incredible.”
• 58% positive: The app comes highly recommended. People say it’s the “greatest.” We’re assuming the greatest since the iPad and sliced bread that is.
• 70% positive: The app is “easy,” “effortless,” “straightforward,” and “simple” to use.
• 79% positive: The app is “beautiful,” “sleek” and “very cool” or “really cool.”
• 68% positive: The app is a good ereader.
• 68% positive: The app works well with facebook.
• 65% positive: The app works well with twitter.

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Given this stunning level of positivity, we can’t wait to see what the trend line turns out to be. Are we witnessing the birth of the next amazing piece of software, the iPad of software? Or, is this just a temporary fad fueled by great marketing and social media celebrity endorsements.

Regardless, if you’re looking for an easy application for using twitter and facebook, one that is brilliant, effortless, and sleek, the internet community highly recommends that you try the Flipboard. If you can finagle yourself an invite that is.

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Links that might interest you:
Flipboard on EvoPlay
Flipboard on MediaFile
Flipboard App website
Apple pie, Apple orchard, Apple cider, or Apple iPad

Conversition on Facebook

How to overcome your fear of social media research

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

Photo credit: chelle from morguefile.com

Social media research has stepped out of the shadows and into the limelight. Phrases like sentiment analysis, content analysis, text analysis, microblogs,  and web 2.0 have begun to clog up our already over-flowing research dictionaries and caused us to question this strange beast. How can market researchers possibly make sense of it given that it is completely different than anything we’ve seen before?

Let’s consider a few points:

• If you have uploaded survey data into SPSS, you already know how to upload social media research data into SPSS
• If you have used survey data sets with numeric and string variables, you already know what a social media research data set looks like
• If you have selected variables, grouped cases, and run SPSS crosstabs with survey data, you already know how to do those things with social media research data
• If you have built a frequency bar chart or tracking line chart using survey data, you already know how to do it for social media research data
• If you have read survey verbatims before, you already know what you’re looking for in social media research verbatims
• If you have drawn conclusions from survey data before….. why haven’t you transferred your expertise to social media research yet?

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Bet you didn’t know you’re already an expert in analyzing social media data.

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Other blogs that might interest you:
10 things you need to know about social media research
Annie Pettit Discusses Social Media Research at the ARF Audience Measurement conference
Social Media Research: Conversition’s Presentation at MRA Boston
Conversition on Facebook

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10 things you need to know about social media research

Monday, July 19th, 2010

The Good

1. Anyone can benefit from social media research even if you have no social media presence. You can research your own brand, your competitors’ brand, the category, or the industry.
2. You can measure far more types of information than the longest survey can. When your survey must be cut-off at 60 questions or 60 minutes, social media research answers questions that might require a 10 hour survey.
3. You can listen to the voice of the consumer in their own, real, unfiltered words. Unlike surveys and focus groups where consumers may clean up their voice, or try to conceal hatred or indifference, genuineness is clear and strong in social media research.
4. You can measure data using any scale imaginable. 2 points, 5 points, 10 points, 100 points. Your wish is our command.
5. You can impress your boss with the statement that you are using data fusion technologies to combine the insights of survey research with those of social media research.

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Photo credit: snowbear from morguefile.com
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The Bad

1. You need to sample your data sources properly, or you won’t be able to predict to the general population of internet users
2. You can’t measure incidence. Just because people don’t say they are using your brand, doesn’t mean they aren’t using it. They just haven’t said so.
3. You can’t measure awareness. Just because people aren’t talking about your brand online, doesn’t mean they haven’t heard of it. They just don’t talk about it.
4. Because most people don’t share their personally identifying information when they contribute online, demographic and geographic is less precise than what you are used to with surveys or focus groups.
5. The validity of sentiment and text analysis differs by vendor. Users of social media research need to ask their provider how they validate their results.

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Buyer beware. Buyer be smart.

The Conversition Hierarchy of Social Media Insight

Thursday, July 15th, 2010

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is a well known theory of human motivation that starts with meeting our basic physiological needs for food and water, and ups the ante to needs of safety, love, self-esteem and self-actualization. The theory behind Maslow’s hierarchy can be used to understand other processes as well, including the application of the scientific method to terabytes, petabytes, and yottabytes of social media data to create social media insight.

No matter the size of your business, social media matters to you. You want and need to know what consumers are saying about you. There are many different approaches to this learning, each building on the previous stage.

This, we have outlined in the Conversition Hierarchy of Social Media Insight.
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Conversition's Hierarchy of Social Media Insight

1. Stage 1 Happenstance reflects the most basic level of social media data understanding wherein social media information is consumed if and when it happens to come your way. Perhaps employees email YouTube comments to you, or consumers leave postings on your website. What you learn depends upon what you happen to hear.
2. Stage 2 Searching reflects active seeking out of information, such as through the use of an internet search engine like Yahoo, Bing, or Google. The search may be a one time occurrence and likely isn’t exhaustive or representative of all the information that actually exists. This is our ‘Need to Hear.’
3. Stage 3 Alerts is the first attempt to gather information using an unbiased and standardized method. Setting up an alert system through a third party, such as Google Alerts,  gives you access to data from a wide range of sources on a regular basis. Though all relevant data will not be identified, at least the data won’t be biased due to the constraints associated with manual searches. This is our ‘Need to Hear Regularly.’
4. Stage 4 Monitoring is the first attempt to put some rules around the data collection. Search terms are now broader, more comprehensive and higher quality. Data is automatically added to databases which allow you to track the volume and source of data over time. Some offerings even include sentiment analysis such that you can determine overall levels of positive and negative sentiment of the opinions collected. This is our ‘Need to Hear the Masses.’
5. Stage 5 Research is the stage that finally turns data into knowledge. By applying strict scientific principles to the collection and analysis of the gathered opinions, valid and reliable generalizations can be made from data which may otherwise be biased, skewed, and unrepresentative of any population other than itself. Regardless of how much or where the data comes from, it has been assembled in ways that allow you to grasp the opinions of the average online consumer, not just the most talkative online consumer. This is our ‘Need to Hear Validly.’
6. Stage 6 Insight is the last stage, the one that all data fans aspire to. This is where data, which has been properly assembled and analyzed, empowers analysts to create insight, that amazing and powerful idea that comes out of nowhere to guide action plans and strategy.

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May your insights be valid and reliable.