With the growing impact of social media there is an ever increasing need to understand what is being said about you, by whom, and what effect it is having on your organisation’s reputation.
Looking at the E.coli outbreak as it was recently prominent in the media we thought we would investigate its effect on the reputation of five supermarket chains within social media.
Using Metrica Radar, our social media monitoring tool, we tracked over 40,000 items to determine the buzz surrounding the E.coli outbreak.
- E.coli outbreak over time
Even though there are significantly less mentions of cucumbers and vegetables, compared with the outbreak as a whole, there is still a visible correlation and consumers express concern regarding fresh produce.
- E.coli and the supermarket chains
The Co-Operative and Tesco generated the most buzz, although after closer examination the spike in Co-Operative content was largely due to false positives i.e. “‘We don’t know how we’ll recover’ said Carlos Blazquez, president of Asaja Malaga, a farming co-operative representing the 4,000 vegetable growers whose losses total €6m so far”.
This illustrates that when you try to explain the outcome of an event human involvement is critical when assessing social media output – Metrica’s expert account team is on hand to help you build insight on top of the fundamentals of an automated service.
Tesco’s mentions were driven by the revelation that Tesco had “small quantities” of cauliflower, cabbage and sweet corn from Germany in its stores, adding that it’s suppliers adhere to the “strictest hygiene standards”.
On the whole supermarket mentions were neutral and were in the tens, whereas the outbreak itself generated content in the thousands, and the majority of the items referred to their change, or no change, in sales figures.
Do you know what your reputation is like in the world of tweets, forums and blogs? Do you have a crisis management strategy for social media?
