I Spy with My BrandsEye: Suzan Boyle pt 2

Last week we introduced you to Susan Boyle and her viral success. Over the last week Susan has entered the top 5 viral videos of all time, accumulating a mammoth 186 million views. Here she stands beside the likes of Mariah Carey and the American ventriloquist and stand-up comedian Jeff Dunham aka “Achmed the Dead Terrorist.”
This week we promised you a more in depth look at what the data is telling us and a discussion of Susan’s online reputation score.
 

Press add more fuel to the viral storm:
 
While the majority of the mentions (79.82%) are still coming from consumer generated media, there has been a marked increase in press mentions, growing from 7.14% last week to 12.28% this week. Albeit late, the press have decided to give credence to good old Susan. These mentions are mainly due to Susan reaching the top 5 in a list of the most watched viral videos of all-time, suggesting that she has more longevity than the press previously anticipated.
 

Twitter mentions decreased from 54% of the total mentions to 49%. However the percentage of consumer mentions coming from Twitter stayed fairly similar, decreasing slightly from 66% to 62%. This shows that while consumers have generally been making slightly less noise about Susan, Twitter still remains their preferred channel of expression. 
 

Enterprise related mentions increased from 3.57% to 7.89%, showing that some businesses are recognising the value of using newsworthy stories to create conversation on their sites.



 “I’m a huge fan of Susan Boyle (from Britain’s Got Talent), What a wonderful voice..God!! Now the dream I have is to meet you Susan!” - Luciano Nogueira, Twitter
 

This was one of the mentions that we picked up this week. I think that it embodies how consumers are feeling about Susan. It also shows how favourable mentions of staff get superimposed onto the reputation of the parent company, Britain’s Got Talent  in this instance.
 

Susan said in her audition that her age is “just one side of her” and similarly the above comment demonstrates just one side of the mentions. In general the mentions picked up this week were positive. Indeed 58.77% of the mentions were rated with a +2 endorsement or higher. This is due to the number of endorsements increasing from 29% to 40% (a major leap) and praises increased from 13.5% to 17.5%. It seems that all the negative press regarding Susan has dissipated with negative mentions decreasing from 13.5% last week to 8.7% this week. 
 

The endorsements can be broken down into Twitter mentions (32.6%), blog posts (41.3%), online news articles (6.5%) and enterprise sites (10.7%). The praise originates mainly from Twitter mentions (60%) and blog posts (25%) and the rest (15%) comes from the press. This shows that consumers are expressing more of their sentiments about Susan from the micro-blogging platform than they are from blogs.
 

Finally Susan’s Reputation:

 
Susan’s reputation has increased from 1.71 to 1.98 (out of a possible 5). This may not seems like a huge increase but it is a very positive reputation score. The main lesson that we can take away from this story is that consumers seem to revel in real life stories, especially ones that are unexpected and surprising. An interesting and compelling point to note for corporate communication is the realtionship between the reputation of the CEO and the company’s staff  which are linked in much the same way as that of Susan’s reputation and Britain’s Got Talent .  
 

Next week’s I Spy:
 

This is our final post about Susan, but not the end of I Spy. Next week we have decided to stick with the entertainment sector and will be tracking the online reputation of Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto, two very good looking men who are soon to appear in the next Star Trek movie.  So look out for a new post next week and some interesting findings. If you enjoyed this post or have a celebrity or brand that you would like to see us track, leave a comment or contact us directly and let it be known!