Money Can Buy Twitter Mentions but Not Positive Brand Sentiment
Money can buy a lot of things – even Twitter mentions – but it can’t buy your brand positive brand sentiment, according to a recent study from Covario, a company that offers enterprise software solutions and search marketing services.
The social media study found a close correlation between the pure number of Twitter mentions a brand gets and the amount of money it pumps into various forms of digital advertising, including display ads and paid-search advertising.
“However, in this same study of 81 of the world’s largest advertisers according to Advertising Age magazine, the correlation did not hold true when extended to all forms of advertising — digital and offline, adding television, radio, print and out-of-home advertising,” according to the study. “In addition, the study found “zero statistical correlation” between a company’s ad expenditures (whether just digital or in total) and its brand sentiment, as reflected by positive Twitter references.”
From a high-level perspective, the beverages industry segment got the best average brand sentiment (based on the level of positive/negative buzz about those brands in the first seven weeks of 2011) with a 3.26 mark (on a scale of -10 to +10). This was followed by the retail industry segment with a sentiment of 2.65, the high-tech segment with a sentiment of 2.00, the consumer electronics segment with 1.69, the CPG segment with a sentiment of 1.37 and the financial services segment with a sentiment of 1.13.
There was no easily visible correlation between an industry’s total ad budget (from 2009) or its digital budget and its average sentiment. For instance, though the CPG industry spent nearly four times more than the beverages segment, its sentiment wasn’t even half of what the beverages segment achieved.
Kohl’s was the best-received company with a brand sentiment of 9.2, followed by Berkshire Hathaway with a sentiment of 9.0, Coca-Cola with a sentiment of 7.3, Hershey’s with a sentiment of 7.3 and Qwest with a sentiment of 7.1.
Disney (5.6), Campbell Soup (5.3), Lowe’s (4.9), General Mills (4.8) and Nissan (4.8) rounded out the top-10 companies in terms of brand sentiment.
“Clearly, the amount of money spent on digital advertising influences the quantity of brand mentions by people who Tweet, raising overall Twitter impressions,” said Craig Macdonald, chief marketing officer and senior vice president for products at Covario. “Expressions of sentiment, on the other hand, appear to be influenced more by how well the money is used, not the amount.”
Macdonald added that it takes “creativity and relevance” to get the love of consumers, not the brute power of a big advertising budget.
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