Volume 5 of the Bazaarvoice Conversation Index

TheConversationIndex Volume 5

The Conversation IndexVolume 5

TheConversationIndex.comGet your digital copy TheConversationIndex.co.uk TheConversationIndex.de

#BVINDEX5Table of ContentsWhat to expect........................................................................................................................................ 6What we’ve found.................................................................................................................................... 9Stock prices move with Twitter mentions...................................................................................................... 10Twitter evolves from portal to destination..................................................................................................... 12Brands get more tweets, but less of the conversation is about them................................................................. 16Search interest doesn’t correlate to Twitter mentions, stock performance, or TV & radio coverage........................ 20The bottom line? Social and “the real world” are becoming inextricable........................................................... 24The methodology behind The Conversation Index Volume 5 / Contributors...................................................... 27Contact us............................................................................................................................................... 28About Bazaarvoice ................................................................................................................................... 31 5

THE CONVERSATION INDEX VOLUME 5What to expectWe’re used to hearing social discussed as if it’s some kind of vast parallel universe, free of the cause andeffect of “the real world.” This view gets at least one thing right: the social universe is vast, and like ourphysical universe, mostly unexplored. But where does social intersect with our everyday experiences,in life and in business? How do social and the real world affect and reflect one another on a larger scale?We’re starting to see patterns emerge that tell us that social refuses to contain itself; its effects are spillinginto the real world nearly everywhere we look: in politics, innovation, education, and of course, businessand the economy.In this volume of The Conversation Index, we ride along the collision course of social data, traditionalmedia, and business performance, with an emphasis on Twitter. With over half a billion active users, andan average of 340 million tweets per day, Twitter is like a social seismograph for the entire world. Weworked with enterprise social data provider Gnip to acquire 26 million tweets for this analysis. Everytweet in this research mentioned at least one of 13 brands from the BrandZ™ Global 100 Brands list,including Adidas, Clinique, Colgate, Gillette, Hugo Boss, Nike, Pampers, Pepsi, Ralph Lauren, Samsung,Intel, Tesco, and Sony.6

#BVINDEX5We compare, contrast, and combine those 26 million tweets with over 8,000 TV and radio mentions, 17 monthsof stock price data, more than a year and a half of Google search interest data, and 270,000 pieces of consumer-generated content from online reviews—all for the same 13 brands.This Index reveals some fascinating patterns and relationships at the intersections of all these data streams, aswell as a few places where we found—counterintuitively—no correlations at all.Social data offers a critical new stream of insights for brands and the industry. The social ecosystem is broad;conversations happen on brand sites and on social channels, across an ever-increasing set of devices. As socialcontent and social data expands, so does the scope of our knowledge about how it both influences and mirrorsactivity across the digital and physical worlds. Sharing these insights with our clients and the industry is thedriving force behind The Conversation Index. We’re excited to share this edition with you.Erin Nelson (@erinclaire)Chief Marketing Officer, Bazaarvoice 7

#BVINDEX5What we’ve foundHere’s what we uncovered:• Twitter volume for brand mentions is highly correlated with stock price• Twitter is becoming a destination, not just a portal• Brand mentions in Twitter lag behind overall Twitter growth• Search interest for brands doesn’t correlate to Twitter mentions, stock performance, or TV and radio coverage 9

THE CONVERSATION INDEX VOLUME 5Stock prices move more about brands as they perform well on the exchanges, but quiet down a bit as their stocks fall.with Twitter mentions Other analyses have shown social data to reflect economic factors. Product reviews mention price more when consumer confidence is low (a -.66 correlation).1 In February 2009,It is becoming clear that both quantitative and qualitative when consumer confidence hit its lowest point, mentionsanalysis of social data can be useful for establishing of price hit their highest point, accounting for 11.5% of allrelationships and in predicting real-world events. Stock US reviews. When we map these price references to theperformance for the brands in this analysis increased and Dow Jones Industrial Average, an even stronger negativedecreased in line with the fluctuating volume of tweets about correlation (-.68) is revealed. Price mentions fall as the Dowthese brands. This is a remarkably high positive correlation average rises, and they rise as the Dow falls. And a 2010 studyof .91, meaning that high Twitter volume tends to coincide by academic researchers at Indiana University and Universitywith high closing price, and vice versa. The same things that of Manchester found that measuring select dimensions ofmake stocks move upward tend to make social chatter spike “Twitter mood” can be 86.7% accurate in “predicting the up(such as well-received product announcements and high- and down changes in the closing values” of the Dow Jonesprofile executive hires). But there’s a piece of this finding that’s Industrial Average.2 As more of these predictive relationshipscounterintuitive. Shouldn’t the same factors that send a stock are discovered and subject to rigorous testing, social datadownward (such as a lawsuit, product flop, or poor earnings will be incorporated into things like demand forecasting andcall) be just as likely to trigger a bump in conversations about product release timing.the brand? Apparently not. It seems that Twitter users buzz1 The Conversation Index Volume 1.2 http://www.relevantdata.com/pdfs/IUStudy.pdf10

#BVINDEX5 CLOSING PRICE CORRELATES TO TWITTER BRAND MENTIONS 200 200 190 180.2 190 180 173.7 180 stock performance and Twitter mentions. 170 170 159.2 AVERAGE BRAND MENTIONS ON TWITTER (in thousands) 155.5 156.6 160 160 150 142.6 150 135.4 136.9 140 134.2 132.9 154.3 140 130.9 130.9 131.4 129.9 129.9 131.4AVERAGE CLOSING PRICE 125.6 144.8 130 121.1 130 133.7 120 120 124.5 110 110 100 100 107.1 90 99.7 90 80 80 88.4 70 80.8 70 73.4 74.8 60 68.2 60 68.1 50 62.4 62.2 60.9 50 40 51.0 40 45.8 44.7 30 30 20 20 10 10 JAN FEB MAR APR MAY JUN JUL AUG SEP OCT NOV DEC JAN FEB MAR APR MAY JUN 2011 2012 11

THE CONVERSATION INDEX VOLUME 5 Twitter evolves from portal to destination As Twitter grows, it is becoming a destination rather than a portal or midpoint. People are increasingly going to Twitter for the experience it delivers — conversation and timely information — not as an intermediate step between them and what they’re really after. And they’re staying longer. But Twitter is used much differently than other social and web channels, and its data should be used differently, too. For example, we compared online search terms that include “Adidas” to mentions of “Adidas” on Twitter. Since search takes place when someone is looking for specific information, the terms that appear during a search vary greatly from other types of content. Top “Adidas” search terms tend to be at the level of product lines and categories, and of the top 20 searches, only three are for specific products. The top 20 search terms associated with “Adidas” also included the names of two competing brands, indicating that comparison shopping begins in the search box.12

#BVINDEX5Twitter users tend to reveal their personal interactions with include product suggestions, and a fifth of all four-star reviewsor in relation to brands. When we dig into what people on provide this type of feedback.3Twitter are saying about Adidas, they mention what “new” Use search patterns to optimize your brand’s searchAdidas products they’re wearing “today,” and use words such engine marketing and optimization strategies.as “my” and “I.” Some of the top Twitter terms associatedwith Adidas reference specific campaigns, like the hashtag And use the words you find in tweets about your brand when“#branch309adidasday.” Businesses interested in doing you tweet about your brand. Optimize your marketing copy bytheir own text analysis on tweets should think of it as a way using the language of your top reviewers—or better yet, quoteto roughly gauge consumer response to news, events, them. When you reflect what consumers say online in yourcampaigns, and as a method of identifying enthusiastic own social efforts, you’ll create content that’s more shareable.customer advocates. But they will have to develop repeatable Quantify this over time by testing optimized tweets, UGC-methods of separating relevant, authentic tweets from the rich copy, and SEM strategies derived from the actual termsabundance of noise. people use when searching for your brand and products, and compare each to the non-optimized, marketing-derivedIn contrast to search and Twitter language, reviews tend to alternative.focus on specific product qualities (“light,” “looks,” “fits,”“comfortable”), adjectives (“awesome,” “great,” “different,” Tweets that mention brands are using fewer links over time.“perfect”), and other expressions of sentiment (“love,” In the last half of 2010, 68% of tweets that mentioned brands“disappointed,” “happy,” “recommend”). Since every single also had links in them. In all of 2011, the number droppedreview is tied to a specific product, they are a rich social data to 55%. In the first half of 2012, the number drops further tosource for product-level insights. In fact, 12% of all reviews 51%, signaling a clear downturn in link usage. This means3 The Conversation Index Volume 3. 13

THE CONVERSATION INDEX VOLUME 5 TIME ON TWITTER AND PAGES PER VISIT ARE GROWING 780 20 760 Time on site (in seconds) 19 740 Pages per visit 18 720 17 700 16 15.1 15.2 680 14.1 15 714 684 660 14 12.9 TIME ON SITE (in seconds) 666 640 13 12.0 PAGES PER VISIT 620 12 10.8 600 10.3 10.4 9.9 11 10.1 602 9.9 9.7 580 10 583 583 578 579 593 560 8.4 8.4 9 8.1 8.1 8.0 540 7.7 7.6 8 551 7.4 7.3 7.4 566 544 6.9 563 520 6.6 6.5 7 528 500 6 480 5 486 460 4 467 458 457 456 440 3 448 434 420 2 428 425 423 421 400 1 G P T OV C N B R PR AY N L G P T OV C N B R PR AY N L G JU JU DE DE SE A SE A AU OC AU OC AU FE FE JA JU JA JU A A M M N M N M 2010 2011 2012 Source: COMPETE.COM14

#BVINDEX5that content about brands on Twitter is becoming increasinglyconversational, and less transactional. Users are talking aboutbrands instead of just pointing to what they bought or want tobuy with a link to external sites.External data confirms this. Twitter users are spending more timeon Twitter, and visiting many more pages within Twitter.comwhile they’re there. According to data from Compete.com, from2010 to 2011, there was a 19.8% increase in average time on site;in 2011 to 2012, so far, there is a 19.7% increase in time on site.And average pages per visit decreased 9% from 2010 to 2011,but increased by an incredible 58.7% from 2011 to 2012.Pages per visitincreased by anincredible 58.7%from 2011 to 2012 15

THE CONVERSATION INDEX VOLUME 5Brands get more retweets. So far in 2012, 22% of all brand mentions on Twitter have been retweets, and only 78% of brand mentionstweets, but less of are original.the conversation is There’s good news and bad news for brands in this data. The increase of brand mentions overall means there is moreabout them data to learn your customers’ thoughts about you, but as the retweet analysis shows, that data is increasingly redundant. Retweets are becoming a bigger part of the Twitter brandThe volume of tweets per day has grown 143% from 2011 story, but a retweet is a weaker social signal than an originalto 2012; however, mentions of brands on Twitter have only tweet from, say, an advocate or detractor. Retweets alsogrown 113% in the same period. To maintain and improve contain less original data, and may not represent the usersTwitter share of conversation, brands should analyze their data behind them as much as a wholly original tweet from the sameto find which tweets are generating positive conversation user. Our research also found that some of the most retweetedabout them, emulate these tweets, and continuously optimize content is the work of automated bots (nonhuman scripts)and add fresh content. and spammers that have set up networks of auto-retweetingOriginal tweets about brands are declining over time, accounts to spread their inauthentic messages across theas retweeted brand mentions are rising. social web as quickly as possible before Twitter shuts themIn other words, more and more content is simply repeated down. Altogether, this means that businesses need to applyverbatim or with little alteration from the original source. In more scrutiny to Twitter data. Perform spot checks, weight and2010, 85% of brand mentions on Twitter were original, and filter your metrics to place less emphasis on retweets about15% were retweets. In 2011, 18% of brand mentions were your brand if you find they are far more noise than signal.16

AGGREGATE OF BRAND MENTIONS (in thousands) 2500 500 1000 1500 2000 JU L 537,332 AU G 539,864 SE P 536,894 OC 2010 T 615,218 second half of 2010. N OV 638,983 DE C 587,469 JA N 681,455 FE down from 82% in 2011 and 85% in the B 695,041 78% original tweets in 2012 (as of June), M A 784,875 R A PR 879,132 M AY 1,031,875 JU N 919,238 JU L 897,434 2011 AU G 967,993 SE P 1,039,532 OC T 1,130,981 N OV 1,067,332 DE C 1,247,513 JA N 1,372,390 FE B 1,507,232 M A 1,724,314 R A PR 1,829,344 M AY 1,977,783 2012 BRAND MENTIONS VOLUME GROWING; ORIGINAL TWEETS DECLINING JU N 2,229,620 10% 70% 30% 20% 50% 60% 90% 80% 40% 100% ORIGINAL TWEETS (i.e., not retweets)17 #BVINDEX5

18 PERCENTAGE OF TWEETS WITH LINKS 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 JU L 537,332 AU G 539,864 SE P 536,894 2010 OC T 615,218 N THE CONVERSATION INDEX VOLUME 5 OV 638,983 DE C 587,469 JA N 681,455 (as of July), down from 55% in 2011 FE 51% of tweets contain links in 2012 and 68% in the second half of 2010. B 695,041 M A R 784,875 A PR 879 , 132 M AY 1,031,875 JU N 919,238 JU L 2011 897,434 AU G 967,993 SE P 1,039,532 OC T 1,130,981 N OV 1,067,332 DE C 1,247,513 JA N 1,372,390 FE B 1,507,232 M A R 1,724,314 A PR 1,829,344 M 2012 AY 1,977,783 JU N 2,229,620 PERCENTAGE OF BRAND MENTIONS CONTAINING LINKS IS DECLINING JU L 994,291 500 1500 1000 2000 2500 AGGREGATE OF BRAND MENTIONS (in thousands)

#BVINDEX5The increase in retweets also illustrates that news travels faster network (and, as this Index shows, beyond) by creatingthan ever before—and that a single piece of content can have consistently retweetable content—they are the greatestmajor consequences for the companies involved. In fact, distributors of social currency. Reach them, highlight, andmany of the most retweeted messages about brands in our promote them if they are advocates, and address theiranalysis were highly negative in sentiment, and concerned concerns if they are detractors. Determine whether they arethings like scandals, lawsuits, and negative press coverage. influential in other channels: Are they a top reviewer as well?Now is the time to prepare social crisis communications plans Give them exclusive access: insider news, early productif you haven’t already. testing, event invitations, and the like. Make them feel like a part of your brand instead of a spectator, and in all cases,It’s also important for brands to get to know the real people locate them as soon as possible.that are creating the ripple effect for their brand across the 19

THE CONVERSATION INDEX VOLUME 5Search interest doesn’tcorrelate to Twittermentions, stockperformance, or TV and Unpaidradio coverage coverage doesn’tWhile it may seem that people tweet what’s top of mind, they’renot tweeting about what they’re searching for. While we saw drive muchthis across the board, we’ll use Clinique as an example. Twittermentions for “Clinique” spike in April 2011, August 2011, and search activityMarch through June 2012. During these Twitter peaks, however,we saw either no correlation with search interest or a decline insearch interest (search interest is Google’s normalized indicatorof “the likelihood of a random user to search for a particularsearch term” on a 0-100 scale). When we compared the stockperformance of the brands in this analysis to search interest forthe same period in time, we found no correlation.20

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NETWORKS GROWING FOR USERS THAT MENTION BRANDSTHE CONVERSATION INDEX VOLUME 5 FOLLOWER GROWTH FOR USERS THAT MENTION BRANDS JUN 1566 MAY 1309 APR 1287 2012 MAR 1161 FEB 1299 JAN 1183 DEC 1041 NOV 1087 OCT 1155 SEP 1177 AUG 1194 JUL 1067 2011 JUN 1067 MAY 1208 APR 1130 MAR 993 FEB 1097 JAN 995 Average Twitter followers per user 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 2022

#BVINDEX5 We analyzed 8,000 brand mentions in closed captioning data from television broadcasts (most TV ads are not closed-Brand captioned, so ad mentions are not reflected in this data), andadvocates radio transcripts (this data does include ads) to determine whether brands being mentioned in traditional media saw aand detractors corresponding bump in search interest. Surprisingly, they do not. This suggests that unpaid coverage (news pieces, etc.)have wider doesn’t drive much search activity, but findings from a study by Efficient Frontier show television ad campaigns correlating toaudiences in a 60%-80% bump in brand-name search during the life of the campaign.4 So, while unpaid coverage in traditional media2012 may be a great awareness mechanism, it’s not driving the consumer search behavior many businesses are craving. For that, television ads still seem to do the trick.4 http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/7731-how-can-marketers-use-offline-ads-to-drive-people-online 23

THE CONVERSATION INDEX VOLUME 5The bottom line? Social Convergence is a new concept for many companies, but it’s actually nothing new in practice. In fact, it’s the “place” we’veand “the real world” are called home since 2005. Reviews, Q&A, and stories are all forms of earned social content that live on owned digital realbecoming inextricable estate. And while we were helping clients across the globe integrate owned and earned, Twitter launched, Facebook opened to the public, and search became more and moreThe borders between “social” and “the real world” are social. Channels blossomed, and are now converging. Datadifficult to pinpoint, but they’re being redrawn in some places, exploded in volume and then fragmented, and is now comingand eliminated in others. Consider this: Just a few years ago, together again. Convergence will soon cease to be thethe terms “in-store” and “online” gave us a clear, differentiated exception, and will become the rule, just as product reviewsway to talk about channels. But as channels converged, and on company websites were once the exception.consumers began to use the mobile web while in the physical Social’s connection to the world around us is has beenaisles, the terms no longer accurately described the way established in some areas, cannot be found in others, and hasthat people actually shop. The same is true of social—and yet to be discovered or quantified in most. But it’s far bettereverything it touches. for businesses to look for it everywhere and find it only in some areas, than for them to stumble over it where they least expected it.24

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THE CONVERSATION INDEX VOLUME 526

#BVINDEX5The methodology behindThe Conversation Index Volume 5Volume 5 is based on an analysis of social content and other data surrounding 13 brands appearing on the BrandZ™Top 100 Global Brands list, which ranks the “most valuable global brands” of 2012. The brands analyzed are Adidas,Clinique, Colgate, Gillette, Hugo Boss, Nike, Pampers, Pepsi, Ralph Lauren, Samsung, Intel, Tesco, and Sony.The data includes 26,000,000 tweets, over 8,000 TV and radio mentions, 17 months of stock price data from relevantexchanges, more than a year and a half of Google search data, and 270,000 pieces of authentic user-generatedcontent from online reviews across the vast Bazaarvoice network.ContributorsColumn Five Media created the visualizations for The Conversation Index Vol. 5.columnfivemedia.com 27

THE CONVERSATION INDEX VOLUME 5Contact usContact us to see how we help brands gain invaluable consumer and productinsights by putting consumer conversations at the heart of their organizations. United States: (866) 522-9227 Germany: +49.89.24218508 bazaarvoice.com bazaarvoice.de United Kingdom: +44 (0) 208.080.1100 Netherlands: +31.20.301.2169 bazaarvoice.co.uk Australia / Asia-Pacific: +61.2.9362.2200 France: +33 1 56 60 54 45 bazaarvoice.fr Sweden: +46.8.463.1083 San Francisco: (866) 345-146128

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#BVINDEX5About BazaarvoiceBazaarvoice brings the voice of customers to the center of business strategy, transforming business performance for nearly2,000 clients globally, including over half of the Internet Retailer 500 list of the world’s largest retailers, over20 percent of the Fortune 500, and over one-third of the Fortune 100 brands. Bazaarvoice social software helps clientslike Best Buy, Costco, Dell, Macy’s, P&G, Panasonic, QVC, Travelocity, and USAA create social communities on their brandwebsites and Facebook pages where customers can engage in conversations. These conversations can be syndicatedacross Bazaarvoice’s global network of client websites and mobile devices, making the user-generated content that digitalconsumers trust accessible at multiple points of purchase. Through Bazaarvoice, manufacturers can also connect directlywith consumers on retail sites to answer questions and respond to reviews about their products. The social data derivedfrom online word of mouth translates into actionable insights that improve marketing, sales, customer service, and productdevelopment. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Bazaarvoice has offices in Amsterdam, London, Munich, New York, Paris,San Francisco, Stockholm, and Sydney.For more information, visit www.bazaarvoice.com, read the blog at bazaarvoice.com/blog, and follow on Twitter attwitter.com/bazaarvoice. #BVINDEX5 TheConversationIndex.com TheConversationIndex.co.uk TheConversationIndex.de 31

Volume 5 of the Bazaarvoice Conversation Index

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