A brand’s image is related to the characteristics of who their fans follow on Twitter, a new study has found. Aron Culotta and Jennifer Cutler from Illinois Institute of Technology in the US examined accounts of millions of fans of over 200 brands across a variety of sectors on Twitter.
They first searched Twitter lists for accounts that were identified as exemplars of attributes like eco-friendliness, luxury, and nutrition. Next, they computed a social perception score for each brand on each attribute based on the overlap between each brand’s followers and the followers of the exemplar accounts. They found their Twitter perception scores matched direct survey ratings of brand image on each of the attributes.
“We find social network connections contain valuable information about brand image,” said Culotta. “Traditionally, marketing researchers rely on customer surveys to gain insights about how brands are perceived — but surveys can be costly and time-consuming,” said Culotta. —PTI
