Analyzing Social Media Conversations in Agriculture

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Analyzing Social Media Conversations in Agriculture Jay Harrison Maritz Holdings, Inc. [email protected]

description

Jay Harrison shares how social media can be analyzed to identify the most pressing topics of conversation within an industry using agriculture examples, and how businesses can use these insights to get ahead of emerging issues.

Transcript of Analyzing Social Media Conversations in Agriculture

Page 1: Analyzing Social Media Conversations in Agriculture

Analyzing Social Media Conversations in Agriculture

Jay Harrison

Maritz Holdings, Inc.

[email protected]

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About evolve24

evolve24 is an audience understanding company

affiliated with Maritz Research in St. Louis, MO.

www.evolve24.com

We provide integrated traditional and social media

intelligence solutions and consumer insights.

Experience turning

social data into

ACTIONABLE INSIGHT

Backed by a world-

renowned leader in

MARKET RESEARCH

YEARS

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Our data & metrics Data Sources Metrics

• Traditional & social media

• Company-owned (e.g., verbatims)

• Websites

• Blogs

• Micro blogs (e.g., Twitter)

• Message boards

• Online news sites

• Product rating sites

• Print newspapers & magazines

• Cable, satellite, TV

• Professional journals

• More

• Topic and theme extraction*

• Volume

• Tone, Sentiment

• Opinion*

• Emotional Drivers*

• Reputation*

• Customer Perception*

• Trust*

38 languages

200 countries >

*Patent-pending

TRADITIONAL

COMPANY SOCIAL

Integrated

SOLUTIONS

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Influencer

Analysis Competitive

Landscape

Crisis/ Risk

Management

Be Smarter, Faster, Better With evolve24 Intelligence

Sharing Consumer

Insight

Brand Reputation

Management

Innovation &

Trend-Spotting

Campaign/ Event

Effectiveness

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“The depth of insights still has

people around here buzzing.

Where next?” – Social Media Manager, Purina

“Thank you for the immediate

support. We don’t get that quality

of service from just anyone.” – Corporate Communications, BMW

“The perfect chart for a

presentation I’m doing. Thanks for

the new capability!” – Director of Social Media, Cargill

“This is excellent work. Let’s

expand. – Communications Director, GE

Trusted advisor to executive teams

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Social media issues in agriculture,

2013-14

GMO labeling legislation

GMO wheat found in Oregon

Section 735, H. R. 933 (“Monsanto Protection Act”)

Seralini rat study

GMO-free Cheerios

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How can we cope?

evolve24, a Maritz Research company, uses the

following approaches for analyzing comments on

agribusiness in social and traditional media:

• Measuring the emotional drivers in order to advise

clients on appropriate responses

• Detect “combustible” issues early and advise

companies to prepare for them or take advantage of

them

• Measuring changes in the trust that people place in a

brand and make recommendations on building trust

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Challenges of social media analytics

• Massive amounts of data require

storage space and processing

capabilities

• Shifting social media platforms

• Worldwide online accessibility provides

more data in many languages

• Messy data

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Emotional drivers

evolve24 has developed some proprietary methods for

measuring emotional drivers in text from social media.

These are potential risks for an industry because they

compel people to take action.

Examples include:

• Human origin

• Memory

• Poor communication

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evolve24’s PRECISE™ Method

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PREdiction via:

Core messages

Influence

Speed

Emotion

What is the message & sentiment?

What

emotions

are expressed?

Who is

moving the

message?

How fast

is this issue moving?

evolve24’s approach is based on anticipating trends in

an industry instead of simply monitoring them.

Bra

nd

s

Most relevant topics

Landscape

report

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Putting it all together with social media

intelligence

evolve24 applied PRECISETM methodology in April 2013

to find the most pressing concerns in social media that

were likely to affect the agribusiness industry in the

near future.

The analysis involved 2.1 million articles collected from

the large-scale agribusiness industry over 6 months.

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Putting it all together

We identified the most important issues involving

agriculture in social media at that time as:

1. Food safety

2. GMO labeling

3. Food access / scarcity

4. Farm bill

5. Animal rights

Conversations about the #1 topic of food safety

included:

Seralini publication concerning glyphosate and GMOs

Recalls of meat products

Outbreaks of foodborne illnesses

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Putting it all together

The main emotion concerning food safety was

vulnerability.

Issues that are perceived to affect vulnerable

populations, such as children or pets, have more risk

than those that affect the population at large or a

population that can cope with the issue.

Other prevalent emotions were dread (fear, terror, or

anxiety) and irreversibility.

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Putting it all together

For the second-most important topic, GMO labeling,

the main emotional driver expressed was fairness.

Issues in which assets are perceived to be unevenly

or inequitably shared are riskier than those where

the perception is that everyone has the same

benefits and disadvantages.

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As time passes, things change

evolve24 updated the findings with social media

articles collected between February and July 2013.

This analysis included 2.2 million observations from

social and traditional media. At that time, the most

important issues in social media in agribusiness were:

1. Food safety - previously #1

2. Food access/scarcity - previously #3

3. Section 735, H. R. 933 (“Monsanto Protection Act”) –

previously unranked

4. Animal rights – previously #5

5. Nutrition – previously #7

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Downstream: Consumer packaged goods

evolve24 also researched the consumer packaged

goods industry.

This analysis included over 750,000 observations from

social and traditional media for 31 days in June-July 2013.

The most important issues in social media, from a

communications perspective for industry-wide risks, were:

1. Poor health from processed food

2. Affordability of healthy food

3. Perceived dangers of GMOs in food

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Downstream: Consumer packaged goods

evolve24 also researched consumer packaged goods

for marketing opportunities.

The top issues in social media were:

1. Using social media for weight loss support

2. Convenient and healthy breakfast options

3. Avoiding artificial ingredients

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GMO-Free Cheerios

In January 2014, General Mills announced that regular

Cheerios would no longer be made with ingredients

sourced from genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

This affected two ingredients: sugar and cornstarch.

Other flavors of Cheerios will continue to use GMO-

sourced ingredients.

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What led to this decision?

evolve24 analyzed over 825,000 articles from social

media from October 1, 2012 to January 16, 2014.

Sources of articles included Twitter, Facebook, blogs,

boards, and web news.

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Cheerios in pop culture Topics of discussion included …

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Craft projects

Having a bad day

Family Guy

Glee NASCAR

One Direction

Coupons

NBA feud

Grocery ads Recipes Froot Loops

(being different)

Jokes

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Other conversations with Cheerios

More serious topics included:

Consumption

• Eating breakfast, family breakfasts, healthy eating

habits, snacking

Caring

• Babies, pets, household hints, food bank donations,

charities, education, hospitals

Regulations and politics

• Financial reports, marriage equality, GMOs

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Measuring trust in social media evolve24’s patent-pending Trust ScoreTM is based on

peer-reviewed scientific publications in risk

communications.

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GMO discussions through time There were three main periods of activity (measured by volume)

for discussion about GMOs

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Facebook campaign: Dec. 2012 In late 2012, Cheerios invited people to use an app to

post comments about Cheerios on their Facebook site.

What they expected:

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Facebook campaign: Dec. 2012 What happened instead:

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This paradoxical result occurred because trust

components were frequently mentioned in appeals to

General Mills.

Facebook campaign: Dec. 2012 During this period, the trust equity of Cheerios increased.

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Facebook campaign: Dec. 2012

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Subsequent changes in other topics For the topics of breakfast, family breakfast, babies, and

snacking, trust equity accumulated through time, but all lost momentum in March 2013.

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Multiracial family ad: June 2013 At the same time, the GMO-free Cheerios campaign was

rekindled with another argument in the conversation.

Recall the “fairness” emotional driver. European GMO-free Cheerios

were viewed with both hypocrisy and opportunity.

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Before GMO-free announcement After September 2013, Cheerios conversations about healthy

eating did not accumulate as much trust.

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GMO-free announcement: Jan. 2014 The announcement that General Mills would make Cheerios

without GMO-sourced ingredients resulted in a spike in trust

equity within conversations about GMOs.

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GMO-free announcement: Jan. 2014 This announcement gained trust points for caring, but competence

and commitment also contributed.

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Putting GMOs in perspective

GMOs were a topic of conversation in approximately

2.9% of over 825,000 social articles mentioning Cheerios.

In comparison:

• Breakfast - 10.1%

• Healthy eating - 8.6%

• Having a bad day - 5.4%

• Family breakfast - 3.1%

• Froot Loops analogies - 3.0%

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Conclusions

Cheerios cereal is a staple food for every age group

and an iconic brand that permeates our culture, so any

change in Cheerios will impact the CPG industry as a

whole.

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Conclusions

Consumers may be satisfied with this switch, or, feeling

emboldened, they will demand more changes

(independent GMO verification, making all General Mills

cereals GMO-free, aiming for Post and Kellogg’s).

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Conclusions

Potential drawbacks to the decision to go GMO-free

were largely absent from social conversation.

• Potential price increases for ingredients

• Impact on farm family incomes

• Reliability of supply of GMO-free corn and sugar

• Energy needed to transport these ingredients

• Environmental effects of sugar cane production

• Human rights of sugar cane workers

• Safety of foreign ingredients

These topics could have been used for a more

balanced discussion and to emphasize that there are

no easy answers.

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Conclusions

By investing in another commercial with the multiracial

family during the Super Bowl, despite the controversy

with the first commercial, General Mills made a social

statement beyond selling more cereal into advocacy.

The GMO-free announcement occurred just before the

second commercial with the multiracial family, so the

individual effects of each strategy on sales will be

difficult to separate.

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Conclusions

The decision of General Mills to make GMO-free

Cheerios appealed to trust components.

By doing so, General Mills won an immediate dividend

in trust.

By analyzing social media, we can find early indicators

that change is imminent.

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Acknowledgements

evolve24

• Noah Krusell

• Tony Hinrichs

• Carrie Lu

• Heather Bartel

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Maritz

• Tracie Gildehaus

• Michael Bryars

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Thank You!

[email protected]

@GoAntelopes

www.linkedin.com/pub/jay-harrison/64/29/833

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