1. Do Twitter Promotions Work?
ABSTRACT - Recently we came across a promotional Twitter campaign which interested us from
a purely analytical perspective, because the subject matter of this campaign actually enabled its
effects to be potentially separated from other types of promotional activities. The Twitter
campaign intended to raise awareness of a particular subject, which is not related to healthcare.
We selected keywords related to that subject, which did not feature in the actual Twitter
campaign, so as to see whether the campaign succeeded in increasing on-line conversations
about the subject, beyond the actual words used in the campaign itself. We found some
interesting results, specifically an increase in on-line conversations about the subject matter
according to the selected keywords that directly correlated with the start of the campaign.
Furthermore, while unsurprisingly this increase was particularly seen in microblog
conversations, it was also seen in other types of on-line conversations, including social network
conversations, postings to message boards and forums, and also traditional on-line media
sources. While correlation is not causation, nonetheless these results are thought-provoking.
Introduction
The analyzed Twitter promotional campaign was run by an organization called “Just Label It”,
using the handle @JustLabelIt. The text of the tweet stated “You deserve the #RightToKnow
what’s in your food. Tell Congress to Just Label It!” and gave a URL, which led to a webpage
(http://salsa3.salsalabs.com/o/50202/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=8366) on which the
reader could request labeling of GMO (genetically modified organism) foods by Congress, and
also sign up for further email updates from the organization itself. The tweet itself did not
mention GMO or genetically modified foods.
The organization Just Label It is no stranger to controversy; on March 30 2012, according to an
article in Yahoo! News (http://voices.yahoo.com/fda-erases-1-million-signatures-just-label-
11180574.html), the FDA allegedly “erased” one million signatures and comments from the
organization’s signature collection drive, by lumping these signatures together without counting
them as separate comments or signatures. As the article stated “the sole purpose of the 'Just
Label It' campaign was to call for the labeling of genetically modified foods in America's
consumer markets”; apparently because the comments were identical, the FDA counted them
as duplicate comments. Just Label It chose in this case to ask its virtual advocates to make its
case directly to members of Congress.
The particular campaign which this article analyzes started on September 14 2012, as a
promotional Twitter campaign as noted above. This article does not relate to the organization
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2. Just Label It itself, its backers or its motives, nor is any opinion intended or rendered on the
organization, its campaign, or GMO foods. In fact, as noted above, this campaign was selected
solely because its subject matter meant that one could potentially determine the actual effect of
the Twitter promotion, without excessive background “noise” from other types of promotional
activity. Therefore, this article asks the question, Do Twitter promotions work? in the context of
this specific campaign. The answer is that it depends on what one defines as a successful Twitter
promotion.
Analysis of the Twitter Promotional Campaign
For this article, an analysis was run on social media, using the keywords GMO OR "genetically
modified organism" OR "genetically modified crops" OR "GM crops", thereby intending to
capture the trends for this topic generally, and not those results directly related to the
campaign. The results showed that the campaign correlated with a significant increase in social
media having the above terms, especially on microblogs such as Twitter, and that the campaign
also correlated to a significant increase in traditional on-line media using the above terms.
Figure 1 shows the daily volume of hits, related to the above terms, for any type of on-line
media.
Figure 1
As shown, starting on September 16 2012, two days after the promotional Twitter campaign
launched, the number of hits with terms related to the above keywords started to peak, and in
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3. fact the number of hits was still higher on September 30 2012, two weeks after launch, than
before the launch date. Therefore, the campaign seems to correlate with an increase in on-line
conversations about this subject. In addition, the total number of results with these keywords is
much larger between September 14 to 30 2012, with 36,258 total results, than between
September 1 to 13 2012, with only 11811 total results – an increase of more than 300%!
Figure 2 shows that, unsurprisingly, most of these hits were found on microblogs such as
Twitter; however, the increase in Twitter activity also correlated with an increase in traditional
on-line media activity related to this subject. Furthermore, the increase in Twitter activity also
correlated with an increase in message board and forum activity, and also to an increase in
social network activity, such as Facebook for example.
In this regard, the on-line campaign might very well to be considered to be a success, since its
intent was to spark interest in GMO containing food ingredients and more specifically, in
labeling such foods. An analysis of the hits after September 14 2012 indicated that many of
them did relate to food (10,174 results, an increase from 3589 results between September 1 to
13 2012 but a similar percentage of the total results). However, only 798 of these conversations
mentioned Congress (an increase from 178 results between September 1 to 13 2012), while
2483 mentioned the term “label” (more than double than between September 1 to 13 2012,
which only saw 1006 results).
Furthermore, looking at the themes of these on-line conversations in relation to the above
keywords, between September 1 to 13 2012, the top themes related to “food”, “GMO”,
“organic”, “health” and “Monsanto”. Between September 14 to 30 2012, the top themes also
related to “food”, “GMO” and “Monsanto”, but “Monsanto” became a much more prominent
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4. theme. New top themes included “genetically” and “corn”. The terms “health” and “organic”
became much less prominent.
As an interesting aside, looking at the microblog results alone, the Just Label It campaign also
correlated with a change in geographic distribution of the results, with an increase seen in many
agricultural states, including Illinois, Ohio, Texas and Florida, after the launch of the campaign.
Perhaps because the Twitter campaign did not itself mention GMO or any words related to
genetic modification, the Twitter handle @JustLabelIt was not in the top 10 authors between
September 14 to 30 2012 for the above keywords, whether for all types of on-line media or for
microblogs alone. However, in a separate analysis of the term ”JustLabelIt” alone, far fewer hits
on any type of social media were sent (from September 14 to 30 2012, 223 results for this term
alone in all types of social media as opposed to 36,258 results for the above terms), but
@JustLabelIt was unsurprisingly the top author for microblogs for this specific term.
Conclusions
In answer to our initial question, it appears that the Twitter campaign by Just Label It correlated
with an increase in on-line conversations about genetically modified organisms and crops, but
did not lead to a huge increase in the popularity of its own Twitter handle. Of course, it is
difficult to state that the campaign itself was the cause of this increase, but it is interesting that
the increase is clearly seen in the second half of September 2012, following the launch of the
campaign. Furthermore, the increase also included an increased number of on-line
conversations about genetically modified foods and also labeling.
If you are interested in our social media analyses, for Twitter or any other type of social media,
please email us at info@imedsocial.com. We would be happy to discuss such analyses and our
tips for successful social media campaigns, particularly in the areas of hospitals and medical care
providers, and also life science companies, including pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device
companies, as well as suppliers to hospital and medical care providers.
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