Consumer Insights for Finance with Twitter Data

Twitter is all about what is happening in the world. Since it's founding over 11 years ago, the platform has always been a candid snapshot of what the entire world is thinking about on any topic, at any point in time. With users across the globe sending out billions of Tweets every week, it’s easy to imagine how that information can be aggregated and analyzed to better understand consumer preferences, and how those opinions expressed through Tweets can offer insights related to future company performance. In our last blog post, we highlighted how Bloomberg identifies Tweets from across the globe to help their users stay ahead of major market-moving events.

In this post, we wanted to invite LikeFolio (@LikeFolio) to share some of the innovative work they are doing to help uncover deep insights related to consumer behaviors on Twitter.    

By creating a highly structured product and brand map, LikeFolio is able to aggregate consumer conversations on Twitter related to specific companies and their products. As companies release new goods and services, Twitter users share their thoughts, opinions and reactions in real time. That data is then compiled and analyzed to predict how successful those offerings will be, and how those predictions confirm or contradict Wall Street expectations. Looking at the results over time, LikeFolio has been able to help investors detect shifts in consumer behavior well before the market has factored them into the stock price.

I’d like to let Andy Swan (@AndySwan), co-founder of LikeFolio, tell you about some of the interesting insights they’ve observed over the past few months:

__________________________________________________________________

Twitter has always been a place where interesting and diverse conversations happen. While some users discuss news stories or current events, other users talk about their daily personal lives. Those conversations can range from excitement about upcoming product launches, to experiences while riding on an airplane. LikeFolio looks to sift through that information, to understand how customers are engaging with brands, and how that can change over time. Let me show you what I mean.

Where’s the (social media) beef?

The restaurant chain Wendy’s has rewritten the book on social media in 2017, going on the offensive when it comes to their food offerings relative to the competition, including…

Those that question their commitment to quality…

As well as their competitors….

Their customers are liking it, engaging with the company at impressive rates, and even racking up world-record numbers of Retweets in exchange for delicious chicken nuggets.

But has this massive social buzz moved the needle for Wendy’s in terms of how consumers see the brand?

For this, we reference LikeFolio’s Consumer Happiness Score for the company.  This score is determined by looking at the Tweets mentioning Wendy’s and its proprietary brands/products and determining if the person authoring the Tweet was speaking positively or negatively about the company.  

This sentiment data is expressed as a percent positive score from 0-100 as calculated using the following equation:  (# of positive Tweets)/(# positive Tweets + # of negative Tweets).  Note that neutral Tweets are not considered in this metric.

The higher the score, the more positive Tweeters are about the brand/product/cashtag.  

Here’s what Wendy’s consumer happiness level has looked like over the past six months:

As you can see from the graph above, Wendy’s saw a huge increase in overall mentions near the beginning of the year (green and red bars).  But even as mention volume spiked, the percentage of those Tweets that were positive in nature (purple line) also grew.  This 1-2 punch of increased mention volume and higher Consumer Happiness Score is usually a very positive sign for a company’s future growth.

This mention boom has clearly been good for their social metrics… but has it translated into an increase in customers ringing the cash register?

To answer, we looked into purchase intent mentions about Wendy’s on Twitter, and compared it to McDonald’s as a baseline.  Instead of just looking at the volume of conversation, we focused exclusively on Tweets that strongly indicate a user is actually buying food from the restaurant at that moment.

The results were fascinating….

As you can see, the Wendy’s approach to Twitter started paying dividends at the start of the year.

The spike in January is impressive, but what’s really impressive is how the purchase intent metrics for Wendy’s actually stabilized at a higher baseline than they ever reached in 2016, closing the gap with their biggest rival McDonald’s.

It’s safe to say Wendy’s has a new approach to marketing, and their fans are really liking it.

___________________________________________________________________

As you can see, Twitter’s developer ecosystem has built a wide variety of innovative solutions for investment community. Information that was previously immeasurable using publicly available insights and technology is now being analyzed and disseminated throughout the financial services industry in realtime. Thanks to the power of Twitter Data, investors are now armed with greater access to information and tools to gain deeper insights, and answer questions with greater accuracy than ever before.

Stay tuned, as we are excited to showcase additional innovative solutions brought to you by Twitter’s financial data community over the coming months.