Archive for February, 2012

Analysis of social media buzz around U.S presidential elections – 6 [MAINE CAUCUS]

After a string of losses in the past few weeks, Mitt Romney’s win at the Maine Caucus provided his campaign with a much-needed boost. In comparison to all the candidates running for president, Mitt Romney has the maximum social media buzz this week as well. The GOP front runner occupied approximately 32% of the social media conversations associated with the 2012 election since his big win on Saturday.

 

 

Share-of-voice of candidates

Romney’s popularity on social media sites is evident from the overwhelmingly high amount of tweets, posts on social networks, news articles and blogs written about him. It is interesting to note that although Rick Santorum has had a good run in the past few weeks, his good fortune seems to run out when it comes to online chatter around him on social media sites. Even rival Newt Gingrich, whose performance at the polls has been disappointing leads by 2 percentage points from Santorum. Ron Paul finished last, with a meager 11 percentage of chatter around him.

 

President Obama attracted far less mentions this week, compared to contender Mitt Romney who leads by a margin of 3% points. Barack Obama’s share of conversation although lesser than Romney, had managed to leap from 23% to 29% this week.

Sentiment for the week

Break-up of sentiment for all candidates

Break-up of sentiment for all candidates

Candidate Ron Paul continues to attract maximum positive conversations sixth week in a row, with around 42% of the conversations around him being positive. Ron Paul who has been criticized for his views on cutting social security and medicare recently announced that he will preserve social security and medical benefits for the elderly. This decision was welcomed by the online community and might finally repair some of the damage caused by his remarks in the past comparing social security to a ponzi scheme. Ron Paul’s exclusion from the CPAC did not go down well with the online community. Despite reassurance from Ron about his absence from the event due to travel plans, the news of Paul’s absence was met with skepticism from his fans who accused ACU of excluding him.

 

 

 

 

 

The candidate having maximum negative conversations around him was Rick Santorum, with around 1/3rd of the total conversations carrying a negative undertone. This was primarily due to his pro-life and anti-homosexual beliefs and policies.

Candidate Mitt Romney despite having the highest social chatter did not have a sufficiently high positive buzz around him.  Infact he had the second highest negative chatter after Santorum, primarily due to his constantly shifting stance on abortion and birth control. Mr. Romney’s evolution from abortion rights advocate to abortion foe, brought to light by a New York Times article published recently stirred heated discussions on Twitter.


President Obama whose controversial contraception mandate saw furious remarks from religious groups, was amended recently to pacify them to some extent. However, the Catholic Bishops openly expressed their discontent and said that they have “serious objections” to the new policy.  The online community however maintained a neutral stance towards the subject.

Topical Trends and Associations

Ron Paul

Topical trends for Ron Paul

Topical trends for Ron Paul

Even though Ron Paul flaunts the highest positive chatter amongst all the political candidates, the popular trends seem to be the ones driving negative chatter around him. Previously seen associations such as ‘racist’, ‘anti-choice’ are still made with respect to him.


Another interesting trend is ‘myvotefactor’ which represents the Twitterverse’s  votes and is a reflection of a candidate’s popularity on the platform. Till last week, Ron Paul had the highest percentage of votes in his favour. This week however, Newt Gingrich has tied with Ron Paul in having the highest votes on myvotefactor

Newt Gingrich

Topical trends for Newt Gingrich

Topical trends for Newt Gingrich

During the CPAC, when Newt Gingrich challenged the Republican establishment with some bold ideas, it became a popular topic of debate on social media sites.  Most people held a neutral stance on the subject.

Another popular topic was the various endorsements made in favour of Gingrich. When the likes of Col. Oliver North (Fox News military analyst) and Micheal Reagen pledged their support to Newt Gingrich, it was widely discussed online, especially on Twitter.

Mitt Romney

Topical trends for Mitt Romney

Topical trends for Mitt Romney

Mitt Romney’s contender Santorum emerges as an important trend mainly because after Santorum’s string of victories, Romney’s emergence as the most obvious choice for being the Republican nominee has been minimized.


Another important topic dominating conversations was Romney’s admittance to payment of lower tax than millions of Americans., which was widely criticized on online channels.

There was chatter around a video on YouTube, showing Santorum endorsing Romney during the 2008 republican nomination which caught the online community’s attention. The video was mostly shared on Twitter and the underlying sentiment was largely neutral.


Rick Santorum

Topical trends for Rick Santorum

Topical trends for Rick Santorum

Another presidential candidate facing troubles over his tax returns is Rick Santorum, who is being criticized for not releasing his tax returns. The sentiment around these conversations is predominantly negative, with the online community urging him to disclose his tax returns.

Other topics driving conversations around Santorum were his seeking protection from the secret service and Metal band Megadeth’s frontman Dave Mustaine’s endorsement of Santorum. Although, people held a neutral stance towards the former topic, the latter invoked their interest and was discussed especially on Twitter.

 


Barack Obama

Topical trends for Barack Obama

Topical trends for Barack Obama

Chatter around Barack Obama revolved around his administration’s HHS mandate. This mandate forces Catholic institutions to provide their employees with contraceptives, sterilization and abortificients. The chatter has garnered negative sentiments especially from the catholic community.

Another trend driving negative chatter around Obama was pertaining to the budget cuts on NASA space exploration programs, with people mostly expressing displeasure over the cuts.


The positive chatter was driven by the Obama government giving almost $150 million for research in solar, wind, geo-thermal energy.


With Santorum and Romney being shoulder-to shoulder, the race to being the GOP nominee is becoming even more intense. Will Romney’s popularity on social media sites get reflected in the polls? Catch our post next week as we analyse the results of the Arizona Primary and dissect the social buzz around your favourite candidates.

What do you think about our assessment? Got more ideas? Please leave your comments below.

Ad:tech New Delhi, 2012

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Are you attending?

After its launch in India last year, Ad:tech, the world’s No.1 digital marketing, media and advertising event, is back, promising to be even bigger and better! Spanning three days, from 22nd Feb to 24th Feb, 2012, the event will have an interesting gathering of online marketers, digital marketing specialists, thought leaders from around the world, at New Delhi, India.

After attending the Ad:Tech events in New Delhi, Singapore and London last year, we are excited to be a part of this event in New Delhi again. If you are attending the event as well, and would like to meet us (we certainly would), please contact us to set up a meeting. We would love to meet up with you before, during or even after the conclusion of the event to have a chat about social media monitoring and intelligence. If you are wondering how business, sales, customer and market intelligence from social media and the real time web, impacts your business, we would love to demonstrate our products and reports. We hope to see you there!

Social media and the Grammys: They came, they won but did they conquer?

The ladies surely dominated the 54th Annual Grammy Awards with Adele’s sweeping six-Grammy-win, a moving tribute by American idol Jennifer Hudson to Whitney Houston and a controversy clad performance by Nicki Minaj.

The event which turned out to be the second most watched event since 1984, attracted momentous amount of chatter online as well. The chatter was driven mainly by British singer Adele, who won awards in some of the top categories and became the second female artist to walk away with six Grammys in the same night. As she performed the song that fetched her “Record of the year” award, Twitter saw a blizzard of tweets from an audience that congratulated her for delivering a fantastic performance right after a throat surgery.

Associations and Trends

Topical trends for Grammys

Topical trends for Grammys

#grammys was a trending topic on Twitter as reflected by the topical trends.  The topical trends also point to the most popular topic on social media sites, which was Adele and her historic win at the Grammys. Other popular topics included Jennifer Hudson’s homage to the legendary Whitney Houston who was pronounced dead on the eve of the 54th annual Grammy Awards. Infact, her moving cover of Houston’s ‘I will always love you’ was considered pitch-perfect!

 

Teenage pop sensation Greyson Chance emerged as an influencer as he added to the growing buzz around Grammys with a large number of retweets to his credit.

Share of voice of artists who won/performed at the Grammys

Share-of-voice of artists

Share-of-voice of artists

It surely was Adele’s night as she dominated the chatter on social media sites, where it was unanimously agreed that the awards bestowed to her were well- deserved. Her performance which was low on theatrics still managed to move the audience.

 

Chris Brown’s performance became the second most social moment at the grammys with the second highest share of voice, after Adele. However, a large majority of this buzz was mostly negative by sentiment. Chris Brown might have beaten up his then girlfriend and pop sensation Rihanna three years back, but the social media community has not forgiven him for his past sins. Infact, most of the negative buzz around Chris Brown was pertaining to his winning a Grammy, considered as the epitome of recognition in the music industry, despite being a female beater.

 

Jennifer Hudson’s moving tribute to Whitney Houston garnered the third highest share of conversation, tied with Nicki Minaj. It is interesting to see how  artists such as Bon Iver, Foo Fighters and Taylor Swift  despite winning awards in some of the top categories, did not garner as much buzz as Nicki Minaj, who infact walked away from the event Grammy-less.

Online chatter around Grammy award winners/performers

Topical trends for Adele

Topical trends for Adele

The chatter on social media sites for Adele was overwhelmingly positive which is evident from trends such as love, best, favorite, amazing and good. Compared to all of Adele’s songs, “Rolling in the deep” was most talked about.

While Adele was showered with love and appreciation, Nicki Minaj on the other hand witnessed a lot of hate, especially on Twitter. Even though Nicki Minaj walked away Grammy-less, she sent social media sites in a frenzy with her controversial exorcism themed performance at the awards. Nicki who is no stranger to controversy herself, often donning outrageous outfits, was expected to deliver a larger than life performance at the show.  Her performance which included a skit of “Exorcism of Roman”, followed by her levitating off the stage, attracted an overwhelming amount of negative chatter. Comparisons were drawn between Adele and Minaj, where the former was lauded for her graceful performance while the latter was condemned for the lack of it.      

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rihanna who performed alongside Coldplay flaunting a blonde look, also generated some amount of buzz online. Her collaboration with Kanye West, Kid Cudi & Fergie called ‘All of the lights’ was honoured with a Grammy for the ‘Best Rap/Sung Collaboration’. However, it is interesting to note that her Armani outfit garnered higher chatter than her performance or her Grammy wins. Comparisons were also drawn between Rihanna and long time pal Katy Perry’s outfits and stage performances.

 

 

The band Bon Iver which was honoured with the ‘Best New Artist’ award saw a mixed bag of reactions from social media sites. Twitter lit up with disgruntled Skrillex and Nicki Minaj fans who had no idea who Bon Iver was. A large majority seemed intrigued by the category of their nomination, since the band has been around for a while and is not technically new.

Grammys a true measure of talent?

The Grammy Awards ratings rose sky high primarily due to the popularity of Adele and the unfortunate demise of pop legend Whitney Houston. The award ceremony was traditionally instituted to honour and inspire some of the finest musicians, and this year’s event did just that. Adele’s sweeping win and mounting popularity at the Grammys is a shining example of how sheer talent and a clean performance overtakes any amount of attention seeking gimmicks or stage antics. This is clearly evident from online conversations around the event as well. Overall, this year’s Grammys, although it was a concoction of surprises, glamour and jaw-dropping performances, its defining moment was when an artist stole the show with her soulful voice and a mesmerizing performance.

Did you catch the Grammys this year? What did you think of the awards/performances? Tell us in the comments below

Social media says Madonna has still got it!

The original ‘Queen of pop’, Madonna performed Cleopatra-style at the spectacular Super bowl halftime with backup from Nicki Minaj, M.I.A., Cee Lo Green and LMFAO.

Madonna, the first female Super Bowl halftime headliner since the notorious Janet Jackson “wardrobe malfunction” of 2004, delivered a performance whose reviews ranged from stunning to disappointing.

The singer debuted her new single, “Give Me All Your Luvin,’” during a set that also included classic hits “Vogue,” “Music,” “Express Yourself” and “Like a Prayer.”

According to numbers released by NBC Sports on Monday, Madonna‘s performance was the most-watched Super Bowl halftime show featuring entertainment on record.

 

From the reactions on social media sites, Madonna’s halftime performance seemed to be more popular than the Super Bowl football game itself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Her 13-minute segment featuring a variety of both new and old hits, resulted in a blizzard of tweets, with everyone from Alec Baldwin to Pink raving about it on Twitter.

Her performance of ‘Vogue’ tingled some with nostalgia, while others couldn’t stop talking about the stage concept and her creative costumes.

Associations and Trends

The topical trends reflect the most popular associations made with respect to Madonna. The associations and trends made by people range from Madonna’s religious beliefs to comparisons with Lady Gaga.

Associations made with Madonna and Super Bowl

Topical trends for Madonna

Topical trends for Madonna

Online conversations around Madonna’s performance, almost always had associations with pop celebrities Nicki Minaj, LMFAO and Cee Lo Green who performed alongside Madonna during the show.

Janet Jackson’s infamous wardrobe malfunction was remembered and talked about, as Madonna publicly promised no such mishaps during her performance. Another popular topic was Madonna stumbling during the energetic Super Bowl.

Adding to the long list of past halftime controversies was this year’s finger flipping by the British rapper M.I.A. During the performance, when the singer flashed her middle finger to the crowd, it created significant outrage on social media sites, especially on Facebook, which is evident from the topical trends.

Other associations – Age, Religious beliefs and more

The topical trends also mirror the underlying sentiment of online conversations. Positive trends such as ‘love’, ‘awesome’ and ‘fantastic’ are greater in size than negative trends such as ‘terrible’, which point towards the underlying sentiment of conversations being largely positive.

It seems almost inevitable that any discussion around Madonna will have references to the pop sensation Lady Gaga. Online conversations were brimming with comparisons between the two pop divas. This was amplified by the latest issue of ‘The Advocate’, where Madonna allegedly trashed Gaga while comparing her to Britney Spears. The trend ‘Kabbalah’ conveys how Madonna being a Kabbalah worshiper seems to have stuck with her.

Madonna’s age seemed to be a popular topic of online conversations, with people mostly marveling at her ability to carry off a performance of such magnitude, with style and grace at the age of 53.

 

 

 

 

 

Apart from her age, another topic that caught people’s fancy was her lip syncing the songs on stage. There was a lot of contention around whether she sang the songs live, where a large majority believed that she had lip synced instead.

 

 

 

 

 

Fans who were worried that Madonna might be losing inspiration after crossing fifty, as seen from the disappointing performance of her second directorial debut, W.E, can be at peace now. With the Super Bowl, Madonna danced her way back to worldwide visibility, reclaiming her title as the Queen of Pop. Although Madonna implied that mounting the Super Bowl performance had been one of the most difficult projects she’s ever tackled, she managed to pull it off with sufficient grace and style. In the process, she also drummed up publicity for her upcoming album MDNA, due sometime in mid- March. The Super Bowl from being a football match became the most watched album promo slot of all time instead, with pre-orders for MDNA going through the roof since Sunday night.

The reigning queen of pop

Despite rumours of lip syncing, obscene finger flashing and stage stumbling incidents, Madonna delivered a stellar performance at the nation’s most watched event. As Madonna dazzled at the Super Bowl, she once again proved that she can still rock it, even at the age of 53. She reminded the Gagas and the Beyonces of today’s generation, how she’s still the reigning queen of pop.

Did you watch the Super Bowl? What did you think of Madonna’s performance? Let us know in the comments below

 

Analysis of social media buzz around U.S presidential elections – 5 [FLORIDA PRIMARY]

After a disappointing performance at South Carolina, Mitt Romney‘s victory in the Florida Republican presidential primary on Tuesday, restored his status as the frontrunner in the GOP race. Last week, we saw how social buzz around Mitt Romney dropped precariously, primarily due to his loss at the Primary. This week however is strikingly different. For the first time in weeks, Romney’s social chatter exceeds Obama’s by an impressive 11% points. This was primarily due to the excitement and anticipation which was built up due to an impressive performance at the Republican debate and finally Romney’s landslide victory at Florida. This indicates Romney’s consistently growing popularity across social media sites and hints to his possible nomination as the Republican candidate to take on President Obama.

Share-of- voice

Overall share of voice of candidates

Overall share of voice of candidates

There is sufficient cause for alarm for President Obama whose share-of-voice was perilously low. This points to the growing popularity of Republican candidates, especially Mitt Romney who galloped his way to an impressive 34% share-of -voice. Surprisingly, although Romney managed to bag the highest share of conversations around him, not all buzz was positive. This was primarily due to his recent gaffe where he told a CNN reporter that he is not concerned about the very poor. Newt Gingrich tied with Barack Obama for third place, while Ron Paul’s share of voice remains undeterred at 11%. Rick Santorum had the least amount of social media conversations dedicated to him, with a meager 9% share-of-voice.

Channel Chatter

Break-up of chatter across channels

Break-up of chatter across channels

Barack Obama who till last week was dominating the buzz on microblogs, was outrunned by Mitt Romney who has the highest number of mentions on microblogs this week.

After Romney and Obama, Gingrich had the third highest share of conversations on microblogs. Apart from microblogs, social networks and online news generated significant amount of buzz for Gingrich.

The platform that generated the highest amount of traffic for Mitt Romney was microblogs, with a whooping 46% of mentions. As pointed out earlier, an overwhelming majority of this buzz was negative.

 

 

 

 

Topical Trends

Topical trends for Newt Gingrich

Topical trends for Newt Gingrich

Gingrich’s stunning victory was overshadowed by Romney’s big win in Florida sometime back. When Gingrich took a swing at Romney by referring to his opponent’s campaign as “pathetic” for the negative tone adopted by him; it caught the online community’s attention.

 

Topical trends for Mitt Romney

Topical trends for Mitt Romney

Mitt Romney basking in his victory at the Sunshine state was the topic dominating online conversations. Social media sites could not get enough of the Republican debate prior to the Primary where he knocked out his opponent, Newt Gingrich with a string of polished comebacks.

 

 

Topical trends for Ron Paul

Topical trends for Ron Paul

Most popular topic pertaining to Paul was Gingrich’s security personnel’s attack on Ron Paul’s supporter during the Florida Primary. Ron’s campaign has been trying, without success, to expose the person who uploaded a YouTube video in his name, attacking former rival candidate Jon Huntsman. When news broke out that Ron Paul has lost his suit against the video sharing giant, it was discussed widely on social media sites.

Topical trends for Rick Santorum

Topical trends for Rick Santorum

It was popularly believed that Rick Santorum‘s performance at the Florida debate was one of his best so far. Most conversations in the recent past compared his performance at the debate with his contenders, namely Gingrich, Romney and Paul.

 

Topical trends for Barack Obama

Topical trends for Barack Obama

During the debate Mitt Romney claimed that President Obama threw ‘Israel under the bus’ with his policies which have only created a greater sense of aggression on the part of the Palestinians. As Romney’s popularity grows on social media sites, so does his influence. This means that Obama’s abrupt drop in the share of conversations could have been a ripple effect of Romney’s recent comments made during the debate. Also, it is interesting to note that Obama’s recent initiative to having a digital interview, by way of a Google+ hangout did not create as much buzz as anticipated on social media sites.

The Nevada and the Colorado GOP Caucuses now assume a rather unique role after an increasingly divisive early voting season. Catch our update next week as we dissect the social buzz, sentiment and topics around your favourite candidates subsequent to the conclusion of the Caucuses.

What do you think about our assessment? Got more ideas? Please leave your comments below.

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