Conversition Social Media Market Research » tessie ting

Social Media Sentiment: H8ers and

Conversition Team — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 13:50:56 +0000

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.

Social Media Sentiment: H8ers and

Conversition Team — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 15:50:56 +0000

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

Conversition Team — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 14:26:17 +0000

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!

Conversition Team — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 19:04:08 +0000

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?

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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.

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Are Only Crazy People Commenting About Brands in Social Media?

Conversition Team — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 17:47:04 +0000

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.
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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.
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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

Conversition Team — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 15:05:03 +0000

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!
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openview: e-Rewards acquires Conversition

Conversition Team — Wed, 18 May 2011 12:27:39 +0000

e-Rewards acquires Conversition: A Marriage of Social Media and Market Research

Tuesday, May 17, 2011 by Faria Rahman
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Last week, e-Rewards acquired social media market research agency Conversition. Conversition applies scientific principles to the collection and analysis of social media data. Its solutions include TweetFeel, MatterMeter and EvoListen. Its product EvoListen, which is currently under development, collects data from online social media outlets; cleans, filters and weighs it, and then formats the information into quantitative data sets. This will allow e-Rewards’ clients to listen and analyze what customers are saying on social media.
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Read the full article here.

There is no question but the research validity question

Conversition Team — Tue, 17 May 2011 15:16:04 +0000

As a budding field, social media research is a magnet for questions from both experts and novices alike. People are curious about the processes and methodologies used to accomplish the various aspects of the research. Some of the more common questions we field on a regular basis are as follows:

What sentiment analysis system do you use?
How do you carry out the text analysis process?
What is your method for identifying and eliminating spam?

In fact, each of these questions is one and the same. They have nothing to do with sentiment, text analysis, or spam. They have nothing to do with processes or methods or systems. In fact, they have everything to do with validity.

Validity refers to truth. Is the sentiment scored accurately? Is the text analyzed accurately? Is the spam identified accurately? Is the entire process valid? Among all the pieces of the puzzle, this is the one question that must be answered.

Unfortunately, there is no single method that automatically identifies a sentiment analysis, text analysis, or spam detection system as being the most valid one. You simply have to evaluate a large, representative sample of data and determine the answer for yourself. Are your results valid?

Also see
The Sharks and Icebergs of Social Media Measurement
5 Ways to Fool An Automated Sentiment Analysis System
A Formula for Perfect Sentiment Analysis

MR Web: e-Rewards Buys Conversition Strategies

Conversition Team — Mon, 16 May 2011 12:41:33 +0000

e-Rewards Buys Conversition Strategies
May 11 2011

e-Rewards, the parent of online panel firm Research Now, has acquired social media market research agency Conversition Strategies, just two years after its launch by former Ipsos and NPD executives Jean Davis and Tessie Ting. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Conversition, which has bases in the US and Canada, applies scientific principles to the collection and analysis of social media data. Its flagship product EvoListen collects data sourced from online social media outlets; cleans, filters and weights it; and then formats it into quantitative data sets.

Read the rest of the mrweb announcement here.

Research Live: E-Rewards to buy social media researcher Conversition

Conversition Team — Mon, 16 May 2011 12:38:12 +0000

E-Rewards to buy social media researcher Conversition

11 May 2011 | By Brian Tarran

US— E-Rewards, the parent company of online panel firm Research Now, has agreed a deal to acquire social media research agency Conversition Strategies.

The business was founded in early 2009 by two former Ipsos executives, Jean Davis and Tessie Ting, and its primary product is the EvoListen platform, which collects data from social media sites, cleans and filters it and applies scientific sampling and weighting to report the results, formatted into quantitative data sets.

Read the rest of the Research Live announcement here.