Is Social Media a Function of Social Media?

Posted by Milos Sugovic

Peppercom recently conducted a social media audit to uncover the “white space” areas of opportunity for a client. In the process, we collected data on over 1,200 mentions or social media “hits” for industry competitors, measuring their share of voice vis-à-vis various messaging categories and sentiments. After examining data on Twitter and blogs primarily, as well as Facebook, YouTube, Ning, LinkedIn, Delicious, and MySpace, we decided to do a quick experiment and answer the following question: For each competitor, does a strong presence in one social media channel translate, correlate, or spill-over into a strong presence in another social media channel? The answer was “yes.” 

To answer the question we looked at blog and Twitter activity for three competitors. We graphed the number of Twitter and blog “hits” over the timeframe analyzed, and generated the following three graphs. Do you see any relationships? 

Blog and Twitter activity seem to move hand-in-hand for all three competitors. In fact, as the number of blogs about a competitor increase, so too do the number of Twitter hits, and vice versa. Moreover, when Twitter hits are relatively low, so too are blog mentions. Conversely, when activity via one media channel is relatively high, the same is true for the other media channel. 

So does this prove Twitter activity will increase blog mentions, or vice versa? Hardly. It does show, however, that co-movements are in fact a reality even via social media. Now granted, co-movements are usually a product of “hot button” issues that attract attention regardless of the communication channel. But in the case of our three competitors, there were no major “hot button” issues that triggered a wave of discussion. 

So what does this mean from a marketing and communications standpoint? We always talk about generating buzz, but we forget that generating buzz generates even more buzz. Don’t forget the spill-over effects. If you’re looking to increase your presence in the blogosphere, don’t be shy to look to Twitter, Facebook, or Youtube. Social media activity is, for better or worse, a function of social media activity. And at the end of the day, you have to start somewhere.