Assessing Brand Perceptions withSocial Media

David A. Schweidel (Emory University)Wendy W. Moe (University of Maryland)

Agenda Can we trust social media data?

Social media and brand health

Assessing the competitive landscape with social media

Why We Question Social Media Data

Pre-PurchaseEvaluation

Purchase Decision andProduct Experience

Post-PurchaseEvaluation

Do I Post? What Do IPost?

Posted Product Ratings

SELECTIONEFFECT

ADJUSTMENTEFFECT

Opi

nion

For

mat

ion

Opi

nion

Expr

essi

on

Variance

Average

Activists

Post frequentlyAttracted by lack of consensusMore negativeVariance and volume make them more negative

Low Involvements

Post infrequentlyDeterred by lack of consensusMore positiveVariance and volume make them more positive

How Online Opinion Forums Evolve

Source: WW Moe and DA Schweidel (2012), “Online Product Opinions: Incidence, Evaluation and Evolution,” Marketing Science

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Pro

port

ion

of P

osit

ive

Com

men

ts

Observation Month

Blog

Forum

Microblog

Aggregate

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15Dis

trib

utio

n of

Com

men

ts

Observation Month

Blog

Forum

Microblog

Other

Venue Correlation

Blogs .197Forums -.231Microblogs -394Average .008

Correlation with offlinebrand tracking survey

Can We Use Social Media to Track BrandHealth?

Source: DA Schweidel and WW Moe (2014), “Listening in on Social Media: A Joint Model of Sentiment and Venue Format Choice,” Journal ofMarketing Research

Potential for GBI as a leadindicator

Correlation with survey (t) GBI = .376 Avg sentiment =.008 Blogs = .197 Forums = -.231 Microblogs = .394

Correlation with survey (t-1) GBI = .881 Avg sentiment = .169 Blogs = .529 Forums = .213 Microblogs = .722

8.75

8.8

8.85

8.9

8.95

9

9.05

9.1

-0.3

-0.2

-0.1

0

0.1

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Ave

rage

Sur

vey

Res

pons

e

GB

I

Month of Overlap Period (t)

GBI in month t-1 Survey in month t

Linking Social Media to Offline Metrics

Linking Social Media to Offline Metrics

Coeff StdErr p-val

Constant -69.045 34.044 0.070

S&P* 0.104 0.031 0.008

GBI(t) -16.695 10.324 0.137

GBI(t-1) 30.693 10.375 0.014

Adj R-sq .475

* Closing price in month

S&P Index

GBI

Lagged GBI

Assessing the Competitive Landscape UsingSocial Media Data Social Media Metrics Volume of mentions of Brand i Comentions of Brands i and j Sentiment of mentions

Incorporate a latent space model where brands are plotted on a latentmap.

Potential applications Benchmarking metrics against competitors Dynamics over time

Metric Map Location

Volume of mentions of Brand i Brand i‘s distance from origin

Comentions of Brand i and Brand j Distance between Brand i and Brand j

Sentiment toward Brand i Location on Brand i on dimension t

Data Top 20 Quick Serve Restaurants (QSR) from The QSR 50

6 months of Twitter mentions from Crimson Hexagon (July toDecember 2013)

Data collected at weekly level Number of mentions of each brand Number of comentions Sentiment associated with (solo) brand mentions (number of

positive, neutral or negative comments)

Assume that the total number of potential posts in each weekis 1.5 million ( number of weekly posts mentioning any of theQSR 50)

Social Media-Inferred Latent Space

McD

Subway

SBUX

Wendy'sBK

Taco Bell

Dunkin Pizza Hut

Chick Fil A

KFC

Panera

SonicDominos

CarlsHardees

Chipotle

Jack in the BoxArby'sLittle CaesarDQ

Papa John's

* Based on July-December 2013

Social Media-Inferred Latent Space

Wendy's

BK

DunkinPizza Hut

Chick Fil A

KFC

Panera

Sonic

Dominos

CarlsHardees

Jack in the BoxArby's

Little Caesar

DQ

Papa John's

Holdout Analysis:Benchmarking SentimentBrand

Actualmentions

Actualcomentions

PredictedSentiment

ActualSentiment

McDonald's 110,049 3,742 0.053 0.060

Subway 49,366 2,049 0.165 0.152

Starbucks 140,616 4,190 0.302 0.235

Wendy's 17,919 890 0.153 0.139

Burger King 12,670 660 0.168 0.008

Taco Bell 78,214 2,958 0.092 0.116

Dunkin Donuts 12,047 616 0.195 0.213

Pizza Hut 12,416 622 0.193 0.173

Chick-fil-A 25,475 1,180 0.892 0.315

KFC 11,711 586 0.168 0.137

Panera Bread 16,554 813 0.204 0.315

Sonic Drive-In 308 15 0.185 0.201

Dominos 7,273 422 0.185 0.144

Carl's Jr./Hardee's 3,942 202 0.180 0.157Chipotle MexicanGrill 57,010 2,342 0.276 0.254

Jack in the Box 5,365 270 0.176 0.160

Arby's 4,852 251 0.174 0.131

Little Caesars 2,496 127 0.179 0.120

Dairy Queen 4,738 241 0.174 0.162

Papa Johns 5,804 426 0.194 0.152

McDonald’s is outperformingbenchmark sentiment givenvolume of mention andco-mention activity.

Burger King reported aproblem with a meat supplier.

Company president made headlines withcomments regarding gay marriage.

Panera launches newcommunity cafes.

Financial Analysis2

21ln btbbbt DbDbCONSTANTR

where R is revenue, D is the differentiation metric

Term Estimate Std Error p-value

Dt 19.09 6.964 0.011

Dt2 -61.381 27.826 0.036

Adj R2 0.994

Term Estimate Std Error p-value

Dt 2.797 1.054 0.010

Dt2 -4.776 2.254 0.037

Adj R2 0.988

BIA

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Conclusions Individuals’ social media contributions are subject to

known biases

Accounting for factors that contribute to these biases,social media can serve as a proxy for brand health

Looking at the competitive landscape via social mediasuggests that brands that are differentiated on socialmedia have stronger financial performance