Social tagging and market research
Social tagging is where consumers supply single-word labels to express their response to products. Such information connects sets of related merchandise and provides marketers with useful data about customer attitudes. Nevertheless, processing such information is not without problems. Hence, the EU-funded SOCIAL TAG MAPS (Mapping products on social tagging networks: Insights for demand forecast and positioning) project investigated whether the semantics of social tagging reflect sales performance. Project researchers developed a new method for analysing tag data. The innovation includes a novel product positioning map, which supports analysis of tags' associative networks. Rather than infer meaning via text mining algorithms, the project's development works from keywords directly. Such a method results in fewer errors and more nuanced interpretations. Marketers can also access real-time updates of product positioning maps, helping to improve market research and sales prediction. Results determined that brand management metrics employing social tagging effectively capture brand familiarity, favourability of associations and competitive overlaps. Furthermore, such metrics can explain unforeseen stock returns. Findings further indicated that in managing brand equity it is more important for strong brands to enhance category dominance. On the other hand, weak brands should emphasise connectedness. The project developed ways for brand managers to monitor brand equity. Such results mean greater insights into customer response and improved sales performance.
Keywords
Social tagging, market research, product positioning, SOCIAL TAG MAPS, forecast, sales performance
