Chapter 10: Social media analytics
Chapter overview
This section of the text is dedicated to using social media data for research and for assessment. In
Chapter 10, students learn how marketers can use social data to listen, monitor and analyse
sentiment and other variables of interest.
Mini-Case Study: 221BC’s Social Listening for Market Research
Critical Reflection: Is It Ethical to Mine Social Conversations?
Teaching tips and resources
This is a rich area for student activities.
Learning objectives
When students finish reading this chapter, they will be able to answer these questions:
1. How do companies utilise social media data and research to inform marketing
decisions? What are the primary approaches to social media research?
2. What is the research process for collecting, processing and analysing residual social
media data used in social listening and monitoring?
3. What are the common errors and biases associated with social media research?
Chapter outline
I. The Role of Social Media in Research and Analysis
• Secondary research is information already collected and available for use.
• Primary research collects data for the research purposes at hand.
• Social media research is the application of scientific marketing research principles
to the collection and analysis of social media data such that valid and reliable results
are produced.
A. Social Customer Care
1. Brand mentions can be used to identify service satisfaction issues.
2. Many people write complaints online and they expect a response, yet the
Sprout Social Index report found that only one in every ten customer care
requests made on social media get a response.
3. Table 10.1 illustrates brand and consumer index spotlight by industry.
B. Market Research
C. Campaign Assessment
1. Social media research can also be useful for providing feedback on how a
campaign or other brand communications was received by others.
II. Social Media Listening: The Research Process
• Observational research involves recording behaviour or the residual evidence of
behaviour.
A. An Overview of Social Media Listening and Monitoring
1. An automated monitoring service may be retained to crawl the web (much
as search engine bots do), collecting conversations according to established
criteria (called scraping) for inclusion in a database.
B. Sentiment Analysis
1. Sentiment refers to how people think or feel (especially feel) about an
object such as a brand or a political candidate.
2. Sentiment analysis is at its core attitudinal research. In fact, sometimes it is
called opinion mining.
• Table 10.2 illustrates steps to conduct sentiment analysis.
C. Content Analysis
1. Text mining is the gathering and analysis of text data from relevant
sources.
2. Content analysis is an analysis approach used to identify the presence of
concepts and themes within qualitative data sets, uses a top-down approach
that applies theory or empirical evidence to the coding process. Codes are
labels that classify and assign meanings to pieces of information.
3. Table 10.3 illustrates coding categories for content analysis.
III. Caution! Research Errors and Biases
A. Coverage and Sampling Errors
1. One of the first decisions we must make is to establish the population from which
we need to collect data.
2. If we were collecting primary data using survey research or interviews, we would
specify the units of interest, likely the people or families to which we wish to
generalise the study results. This is known as defining the population.
B. Nonresponse Bias
1. Nonresponse error is the potential that those units that were not included in the
final sample are significantly different from those that were.
2. This can result in nonresponse bias, a skewing of the results of a survey.
3. Table 10.4 illustrates word-of-mouth conversations online and offline.
4. Sampling weights are adjustment factors applied to adjust for differences in
probability of selection between cases in a sample.
IV. Social Intelligence
• Social intelligence is capturing, managing and analysing social data to
identify and apply insights to business goals.
• Predictive analytics is the use of data, statistical algorithms and machine
learning techniques to identify the likelihood of future outcomes based on
historical data.
V. Primary Social Media Research
A. Netnography is a rapidly growing research method that adapts ethnographic
research techniques to study online communities.
B. The steps are as follows:
1. Identify online venues that could provide information related to the research
questions.
2. Select online communities that are focused on a particular topic or segment, have
a high ‘traffic’ of postings, have a relatively large number of active posters and
appear to have detailed posts.
3. Learn about the group’s culture including its characteristics, behaviours and
language.
Chapter summary
1. How do companies utilise social media research? What are the primary approaches to
social media research?
Companies use social media research to answer the same kinds of questions traditional marketing
research can answer. The advantage is that there is an enormous amount of data available in social
2. What is the research process for collecting, processing, and analysing residual social media
data used in social listening and monitoring?
Social media monitoring uses software to systematically search key words it finds in social spaces
such as blogs, social networks and forums. By carefully choosing and searching the appropriate
key words and the relevant social communities, the researcher can gather insight into customer
3. What are the common errors and biases associated with social media research?
Social media research is prone to coverage error, sampling error and nonresponse error. Coverage
error occurs when there is a failure to cover all components of a population being studied.
4. How do brands develop social intelligence systems?
Social intelligence systems are capable of capturing, managing and analysing social data to
identify and apply insights to business goals. According to Brandwatch, a social intelligence
5. What is netnographic research in social media communities?
Brands can also use social media in ways that do not incorporate social listening. One of the most
useful approaches is known as netnography. In this approach, the researcher embeds herself or