Monitoring Twitter To Determine Impact Of Coronavirus On Brands

The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games are scheduled to run between July 24 and Aug. 9, and will likely rely on brand-driven sales and sponsorships, marketing and advertising revenue. Will the spread of the Coronavirus keep brands away -- and keep countries from participating in the event?

The U.S. State Department on Saturday called for increased caution when traveling to Japan amid reports that the coronavirus, which originated in China, is spreading through Japanese communities.

Sprout Social is using its social listening tools to monitor online reactions to the coronavirus and analyze potential brand impact regarding events.

The data aims to help marketers make better decisions after Mobile World Congress Barcelona organizers canceled the event when companies like Amazon pulled out, citing the spread of the Coronavirus.

AT&T announced that it would not participate in RSA -- which kicks off today and runs through Feb. 28 -- due to similar concerns. Last week, Facebook and Sony backed out of the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

To determine the impact on brands, Sprout Social analysts built a data snapshot based on specific, themes, conversations and brands.

The company identified 65,532 Twitter mentions related to MWC and GSMA plus Coronavirus between Feb. 7 and Feb. 21, with conversations spiking between Feb. 12 and Feb. 13, the date the show was canceled. There were 39,379 Twitter mentions at the time -- about 60% of all conversations.

Conversations related to MWC and GSMA plus Coronavirus and Amazon were tracked with 6,245 Twitter mentions between Feb. 7 and Feb. 21, with a spike on Feb. 9 and Feb. 10, the day Amazon announced its withdrawal from the conference. The mentions accounted for 5,149 of all Twitter mentions -- about 82% -- during that time period.

Sprout Social tracked a higher volume of conversations related to MWC and GSMA plus Coronavirus and Sony, with 7,276 Twitter mentions between Feb. 7 and Feb. 21, with 6,991 of those mentions -- 96% -- taking place between Feb. 10 and Feb. 13.

There have been 190 Twitter mentions related to RSA and Coronavirus plus IBM between Feb. 7 and Feb. 21, with a spike between Feb. 14 and Feb. 17 following IBM’s announcement that it would no longer be participating at RSA. This announcement accounted for 80% of Twitter mentions, or 152 tweets.

2 comments about "Monitoring Twitter To Determine Impact Of Coronavirus On Brands".
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  1. Douglas Ferguson from College of Charleston, February 25, 2020 at 12:39 p.m.

    Yesterday the WHO declared it peaked in China but the media won't lead with good news. Fear sells attention. 

  2. PJ Lehrer from NYU, February 26, 2020 at 11:30 a.m.

    COVID-19 is a slow moving economic train wreck.  The only question for investors is whether or not their loss averison is stronger than their FOMO.
    http://pjlehrer.blogspot.com/2020/02/whats-driving-your-investment-strategy.html

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