Using Social Media Measurement to Gauge Consumer Opinion-New Observational Research adds breadth to prior thinking on golf's greatest player

From November until just recently, singular yet disparate topics seemed to dominate much of the conversation surrounding two of my favorite topics, golf and marketing research. To the former, it seemed like everyone that I ran across either had an opinion on Tiger Woods or wanted to know mine. In the research world, the chatter abuzz was all about the potential for social media to become a reliable qualitative barometer for people's opinions and attitudes.

The team at Sports and Leisure Research Group decided to meld these two topics together. Utilizing some of the latest methodologies available to cull and analyze online conversations, we sought to track the magnitude and tonality of web conversation and opinion about Tiger Woods and see if it was consistent with attitudinal research that was part of our winter 2010 omnibus study. Recall that in the winter omnibus a national sample of nearly 1,000 golfers largely agreed that the rancor regarding the transgressions of golf's greatest player would dissipate significantly by the summer months. Our research tracked and analyzed online postings across over 1,100 different and relevant web sites from January of 2009 through mid March of 2010, right after Woods' public statement in February.

As one might expect, the level and tonality of buzz regarding the matter, was at its peak immediately after Tiger's November accident. But it quickly and precipitously dropped in the first month of the new year, spiking again, though at nowhere near the level of November, around his mid February statement. By March, the level of online conversation was back to pre-“scandal” levels. While such analysis is not as representative as a well designed quantitative attitudinal study, it does yield strong directional insights and provides breadth to our earlier findings. Further, SLRG's expertise includes the ability to measure not only the magnitude of the conversation, but the intensity of discussion surrounding key topics. For additional charts and illustrations of our findings surrounding the Woods' story, click here for a further look. To learn more about how we can utilize a similar analysis to measure the conversation around your brand, contact us.