Alright, it’s official: winter holiday bills are in, Valentine’s Day bills are just about in – and your credit card bill is probably eye-popping (am I alone here?, I think not). Last week, we looked at discount shopping, but now it’s really time to tighten our belts until the next round of expenses come our way with Spring Break. And what better topic to look at than that little universal piece of plastic? I, for one, seldom have cash in my pocket and rely solely on my credit card, which fits quite conveniently into the back of my new iPhone case. So, I turned to the NetBase Insight Workbench to see what the social media universe is saying about these five credit cards: Discover Card, American Express, Diners Club, MasterCard and Visa.

I wasn’t surprised to see that Visa, MasterCard and American Express were the big buzz winners here – but what I found interesting were the differences in the other metrics between the three.  Visa emerged victorious across all three metrics with 43.7% of the overall buzz, the highest Passion Intensity of 58 (Ok so not that much passion for the category as a whole) and the highest Net Sentiment score of 73. MasterCard had the lowest buzz volume of the top three, with 22% of the conversation, but trailed closely behind Visa with a Passion Intensity of 54 and a Net Sentiment of 70. American Express came in second with a share of buzz amounting to 31% but had the second lowest Passion Intensity, with a 41 and fell to the bottom with the lowest Net Sentiment of 65. Check out the chart below to see the competitive landscape here:

In this graphic, the amount of chatter about a brand is indicated by the size of the bubble, while the placement of the bubble shows the sentiment and intensity of passion.

Verbatim surfaced about Visa showed that it has the competitive edge with online consumers because of its versatility: there seems to be a Visa card for all types of consumers. Social media chatter extolled the virtues of the card for those developing their credit score, rebuilding their credit score, and those who travel extensively and want to rack up the miles or rewards (guilty as charged for me on the last one).

The Visa Black Card is the world’s most prestigious and versatile credit card today!

The Used Lender Secured Visa is the best card if you are developing or rebuilding your credit score

For frequent fliers, The Chase United MileagePlus Explorer card offered by Visa is by far the best card available

The Justice FCU Visa Platinum Rewards credit card offers an impressive rate AND big rewards 

Visa debit is the safest option in the current financial times

I was interested to delve into the MasterCard data to see why it is that the brand is lagging behind Visa. Turns out that it’s everything from their advertising to difficulties using the card online, to higher fees.

The peelaway World MasterCard ad that opens on every page of TT is the PITS! It’s driving me crazy.

This is what happened, mastercard useless securecode didn’t work, and I had to leave my credit info through email

I have  Deutsche Bank Gold Mastercard, which is a bit expensive

Verbatim about American Express showed that while it clearly has generated a lot of buzz , problems  still remain – largely due to its seemingly unnecessary red tape and the inconveniences it causes its customers.

There are places in the world where Visa and MasterCard are accepted widely but American Express is more difficult to use.

Amex Credit Cards are hard to get approved

American Express is harder on rating customers for their Credit Card

It was much much more difficult to accumulate points with the American Express card, well, because it’s not accepted everywhere.

So who is your plastic of choice? Let me know what your gripes (or your raves!) are for your card!

I’m probably the farthest thing from a big sports fan, but with all of the buzz about New York sports teams recently, I couldn’t help but hear about Jeremy Lin, the New York Knicks’ latest NBA sensation. I don’t have much of an opinion on here – but luckily, you can always trust social media to tell you all sides of the story. The February 18^th installment of the Wall Street Journal Sentiment Tracker, powered by NetBase, covered “Linsanity” and what Facebook and Twitter have to say about the Harvard grad who is being compared to everyone from Michael Jordan to Tim Tebow. An incredible 62% of online conversations raved about Jeremy Lin, while almost 13% complained that he was overrated and getting too much attention. Check out some of the other verbatim that I found:

Jeremy Lin is officially my favorite player. #LINsanity #LinForTheWin #linning

Jeremy Lin is one of the best stories in sports. Very inspiring!

Jeremy Lin is overrated to me. People giving him credit waaaay too fast.

Usually, the commercials or the halftime show are the biggest source of controversy from the Super Bowl. But with football’s biggest night now a week behind us, the chatter about all of the top commercials has died down, and Facebook and Twitter are still buzzing about the controversy surrounding Patriots quarterback, Tom Brady’s supermodel wife and her comments following the Giants’ win last Sunday. For those of you who missed it: Gisele Bunchden had some choice words for a heckler (check out her rant here) – and the social media universe went crazy. Saturday, February 11^th’s installment of the Wall Street Journal Sentiment Tracker covered the response, and I have to say, I laughed out loud at the comparison to Yoko Ono – but then again, can’t blame a woman for standing by her man! Read some more of the comments that got me giggling out loud, and let me know what you thought of the supermodel’s not-so-pretty outburst!

Thanks for your two cents Yoko. I’m just saying 3-0 in the Super Bowl without Gisele, 0-2 with Gisele. Where’s Bridget?

Let’s face it Gisele is Tom Brady’s Yoko..she is the curse.

This is all Gisele ‘s fault , none of this losing Super Bowl stuff happened until she started coming around . she should change her name to Yoko Bunchen…

My days of boutique shopping are long gone – with four little people to clothe and gifts to buy for their friends’ various occasions, that kind of shopping is a distant, yet fond, memory. These days, it’s all about finding great deals, and luckily we have a TJ Maxx right down the block, which is my go-to for finding just about anything at incredible prices. In fact, as I write this, I’m sporting a killer red cardigan that ran me $15, though IMHO, looks more like a million bucks.  When my oldest daughter reminded me this week that she needs to buy a gift for her best friend for Valentine’s Day, I decided to call on social media through the NetBase Insight Workbench and see what they had to say about some of the biggest names in discount retail: Kohl’s, JC Penney, TJ Maxx, Ross and Marshalls.

My initial reaction to the chart was one of surprise – I thought for sure there would be higher passion and sentiment among online consumers for great bargains. But, as you’ll see in some of the verbatim further down, sometimes a cut in prices also includes a cut in customer service and experience. The next insight to raise my eyebrows was that Ross had such a small bubble – Ross advertises as much if not more than all of the brands on the chart, but generated only a fraction of the chatter. Kohl’s emerged as the buzz winner, nabbing an overwhelming 54.6% of the overall chatter among the five brands. Kohl’s followed up this strong showing with the second highest Passion Intensity of 68 and the third highest Net Sentiment of 61. TJ Maxx generated the third highest Share of Buzz, with only 14.4% of the overall chatter, but dominated the other two categories with the highest Passion Intensity of 78 and the highest Net Sentiment, with a score of 68. Marshalls, which is coincidentally also from TJ Maxx’s parent company of TJX, fell to the bottom of all three metrics, with only 4% of the chatter, a Passion Intensity score of 45 and a Net Sentiment score of 54.

In this graphic, the amount of chatter about a brand is indicated by the size of the bubble, while the placement of the bubble shows the intensity of passion.

Verbatim surfaced about Kohl’s showed that online consumers can’t stop buzzing about the bargain chain because of great customer service: everything from fabulous prices to huge selection to a clean and organized store layout. One consumer even noted their success while hunting for the
perfect Valentine’s Day gift!

I got the best Valentines’s present ever, whatever I could find in 30 minutes shopping trip in Kohls!!!

Kohls has a good selection with great prices!

And I love Kohl’s for the return reason too! They  have always been so awesome at taking things back and giving you store credit for them.

Kohl’s stores are effectively arranged, clean plus the shop employees, such as customer support, in our experience have been helpful plus friendly.

A pleasant customer experience resonated throughout verbatim found for TJ Maxx – though online consumers didn’t stop there, also noting the
incredible jewelry selection and wide range of great discounts TJ Maxx has to offer.

Great night shopping and mingling at one of my fab places for every area of my life fashion.home.food Thanks TJ Maxx. #TJMaxxMarshalls

TJ Maxx seems less crowded and easier to shop

I love the jewelry department at TJ Maxx.

TJ Maxx has the best stuff in their jewelry department.

TJ Maxx has some of the best deals around.

TJ Maxx also has cheap maternity wear.

FYI: TJ Maxx has some great, cheap pet stuff!!!!

In a sharp contrast to sister company, TJ Maxx, Marshalls  was dinged for some of the very things for which TJ Maxx was hailed: store experience. Verbatim include complaints of the store being dirty, having ill-fitting clothing and lacking home goods.

I HATE Marshalls — I always buy something there that never fits right!

I will never shop at marshals clothing store and I recommend that no one else does either.

Marshals is kind of dirty.

This Marshall’s is also pretty nice, but it lacks the designer and home goods sections.

So who’s your go to for discount shopping, especially with busy holidays like Valentine’s Day coming up? Let me know in the comments!

I’ve never been too big on football, but I happen to be married to a diehard fan and have two nephews who think the Patriots walk on water, so there was no question that the Super Bowl was going to be on in my house this weekend. Originally from New Jersey, I probably should have been focused on rooting for the Giants yesterday, but because of the business I’m in, many of my clients and my clients’ clients were advertising yesterday – so my excitement was all about the commercials. And according to Saturday February 4^th’s installment of the Wall Street Journal Sentiment Tracker, I wasn’t the only one: 40% of conversations on Facebook and Twitter revolved around the anticipation for the commercials. Check out the rest of the conversations in the analysis below, powered by NetBase:

For last year’s Super Bowl, I did an analysis on the big commercials, so thought I’d see how this year’s ads stacked up in social media, from when they aired yesterday to now. A personal favorite in our house was the TaxAct commercial featuring a little boy relieving himself in a baby pool – my husband laughed so hard, I thought he’d do the same! And like many social media users, our CEO, Peter Caswell, couldn’t stop raving about the
dancing M&M. Below is a Brand Passion Index on some of the most buzzed about commercials grabbing airtime during yesterday’s game:

In this graphic, the amount of chatter about a brand is indicated by the size of the bubble, while the placement of the bubble shows the intensity of passion.  

From the graph, you can see that M&Ms won with sentiment and passion, but what’s interesting is how polarizing Chrysler was – people couldn’t decide if they loved it or hated it! Here are some of the verbatim surfaced about the commercials:

The M&M Super Bowl commercial was amazing!

The Doritos commercial where the dog buried the cat was THE hands down winner, in my opinion.

Budweiser and Coca-cola are dominating the super bowl commercials.

So which was your favorite commercial? And what were you most looking forward to about Super Bowl XLVI?

When the new Google privacy policy was announced last week, I knew there was no chance I’d have time to read through it and take in all of the changes. Luckily, this was the subject of January 28^th’s installment of the Wall Street Journal Sentiment Tracker, so I got to see what people chatting on social media, the world’s largest focus group, had to say about Google’s privacy policy.  Powered by NetBase, the Sentiment Tracker showed that while 55% of social media users on Facebook and Twitter are opposed to the changes, a close 43% support the changes and find them inoffensive. I dug a bit more into the data to see what the 55% have against the changes, check out some of these verbatim:

I’m upset about the new Privacy Policy for #Google . I don’t want them reading my #gmail !

You should read Google’s new privacy policy, it’s pretty evil. As expected.

Maybe time to leave the Google Empire behind!

Are you for or against? Let me know in the comments!

January is the month of New Year’s resolutions – last year we looked at diets and gyms, and this year we’ve taken a look at health food crazes. In keeping with this theme, I decided to round out January with a second Brand Passion Index on the workout gear that is keeping social consumers honest. I’ve never been a big runner, but in the past my sneaker of choice was always Ryka; I have small ankles and a narrow foot and they were always perfect for me. Nowadays, I’ve been hitting the yoga mat, so I’m far from a sneaker expert. Luckily, the newest member of the NetBase Marketing team, Dave Ewart, is both an ardent runner and a triathlete, so I turned to him for a lineup of the biggest names in sneakers, and learned about some new brands in the process. With Dave’s help, we settled on these seven: Skechers, Puma, Nike, VibramFiveFingers, Saucony and Reebok.

Some of these brands were really new to me – I’d previously been referring to Vibram with the incredibly technical term of “foot gloves” (did I mention I’m not a runner?) – so the data surfaced by the Insight Workbench was fresh and interesting. Well, mostly fresh. Surprise, surprise: Nike was the buzz winner, with 44% of the overall conversations, though its other metrics were, compared to the other brands, kind of average, with a Passion Intensity score of 63 and a Net Sentiment of 71. Saucony tied with Skechers for the highest Net Sentiment score of 89, and also generated the second highest Passion Intensity with a 70. VibramFiveFingers generated only 6% of the overall chatter, but showed its presence
with the highest Passion Intensity score of 71 and a high Net Sentiment score of 80. Reebok nabbed the second highest volume of chatter with 26% of the conversations, but fell behind with the second lowest Passion Intensity score of 60 and the lowest Net Sentiment score of 57.

In this graphic, the amount of chatter about a brand is indicated by the size of the bubble, while the placement of the bubble shows the intensity of passion.

Verbatim surfaced about Saucony not only showed that online consumers are loyal to the brand because of its incredible and thoughtful
quality, but also surfaced some fascinating insights. As a CMO, I can see a whole campaign unfolding around the concept of sock-less Saucony shoes – and as an English major, I’m loving the alliteration!

Sooo excited to try out my new Saucony Hattori running shoes! They are minimalist shoes (socks optional) but still have wonderful cushioning on the soles

The cushioning of Saucony shoes is extremely well-designed

I now use Saucony Kinvaras, which are light and flexible and I’ve loved them so far

I love my Saucony Progrid Kinvaras – I just bought my second pair tonight. They’re super light, very flexible in the toes, but they have enough ankle support and stability for me

While I don’t think that VibramFiveFingers necessarily rolls off the tongue, the brand is clearly doing something right. Online consumers raved about the “revolutionary footwear” and all of the perks that come with this purist running technology.

Vibram 5 fingers are by far the best 

Vibram 5 Fingers footwear are probably the most revolutionary footwear available on the market today

The Vibram FiveFingers have really helped strengthen my feet and improve my balance/posture

The Vibram shoes improve posture and practically force proper running form

Verbatim about Reebok really demonstrated to me a classic crisis management use case through the very modern lens of social media: how to
respond to your online consumers in the midst of a PR disaster regarding claims of easy toning.

Whew, Reebok got their hands slapped! Hope you didn’t fall victim to the faulty claims they made for these shoes

RT @MyFiveFingers: Spoiler alert: Those Reebok toning shoes don’t do anything (shocker!)

I got a pair of the Reebok Easy Tone shoes and they don’t do anything for me at all 

I got the reebok easy tones thinking that they would be comfortable and they actually hurt my feet! 

My reebok easytone was not good. It was messing up my knee and throwing off my balance with some of the moves 

Which brand are you lacing up these days? Let me know what your experience has been – tweet me @lisajoyrosner

Seeing pajamas through the eyes of my children reminds me how much I loved them way back when. All four of my little ones are diehard pajama enthusiasts – especially the footie ones, which are adorable.  In fact, they’ve begun a new tradition in our family called “PJ Day” where they stay in them all day, robes and all – sometimes our peace-sign Snuggie even gets some play. Recently, my 4-year-old was invited to a pajama-themed birthday party and was absolutely tickled at the thought of going out in public in PJs and boots. I wonder what her response would be to the recently proposed ban on pajamas in public Louisiana from a county commissioner in Louisiana…and it turns out that the January 21^st installment of the Wall Street Journal Sentiment Tracker was wondering about the response to the legislation as well. Powered by NetBase, this week’s ST looked at the social media reaction on Twitter and Facebook to all things pajama, and found that almost 42% of social media users think it is simply unacceptable to wear pajamas out in public (I better tell my daughter her days of pjs outside are numbered…). I couldn’t get over some of the verbatim; some of these people are riled up!Check out some gems below:

Oh my they are trying to ban people from wearing PJ’s in public! Finally thank God that is really tacky!

A town in Louisiana is trying to ban wearing pj pants out in public!!!! That’s an amazing ban!

I really dislike people wearing pajamas to school, like save that for your house..

Where do you fall? Public PJs as social taboo or no big deal? Drop me a line and let me know!

I had resisted smart phones for the longest time. Finally, when my daughter started to call my traditional phone an “old man phone,” I knew it was time to take the plunge. I’d never liked Apple products in the past … perhaps they were too “intuitive” for my brain. But when I was at the Verizon store (yes, I too switched too) they showed me a demo of the iPhone 4S with Siri and I fell in love with it instantly. It has saved me so much time—I can send paragraphs of email from my iPhone using Siri. And she almost always has an answer for me, even it’s just to back off to using a web search.

Still, I know that Apple makes bold claims for Siri, declaring it “understands what you say and knows what you mean.” Do consumers find it lives up to its billing?

About Siri

Siri is a feature on the Apple iPhone 4S. According to the Siri FAQs page on the Apple website, “Siri is the intelligent personal assistant that helps you get things done just by asking. It allows you to use your voice to send messages, schedule meetings, place phone calls, and more. But Siri isn’t like traditional voice recognition software that requires you to remember keywords and speak specific commands. Siri understands your natural speech, and it asks you questions if it needs more information to complete a task.”

Positive Themes

“Communications” is the biggest positive theme, which is mostly about talking to Siri.

• I like talking to Siri. Me: I love you. Siri: All you need is love. (source)
• Yay I finally got my new iPhone4 S!! And I’m n love!! I love talkn to Siri!! (source)

“Calls me names” is another component of the Communications theme. Siri uses your name when she talks to you and it’s really a delightful feature. Some people (as you can see in the sound bites below) have entered their name as “Big Poppa,” “daddy,” or “Princess Martha.” It must be fun to hear.

• I love when Siri calls me daddy☺. (source)
• I love when Siri calls me slam. #itsAWESOME (source)
• I love when Siri calls me Princess Martha. (source)
• I love it when Siri calls me Big Poppa. (source)

Consumers think Siri is a “cool app.”

• Siri, the intelligent assistant, looks cool… assuming I don’t have to repeat things to it, or be forced to speak like a robot to be understood. But Siri (the company Apple scooped up) is the leader in this stuff, so should be good. (source)
• Siri makes my iPhone cooler than my iPad. (source)

Users think Siri is “great technology.”

• @mchapman22 not this bad boy. Best phone I have ever owned linked to my iPad via iCloud. Plus Siri is great technology. (source)
• Got a new iPhone 4s! And I love it! Siri is the best voice-activated software ever. Way more accurate and intuitive than others. (source)

Users like the fact that Siri comes in various nationalities.

• Ironically the British #Siri is funnier than the American one. But then again, I’ve always loved the British sense of humour. (source)
• The Aussie Siri is great at recognising my voice!! (it uses female voice too ) I must say though, I’ve had just as good success rates with diction using all the English versions… (source)

Negative Themes

Some consumers find Siri “inefficient,” meaning they’re annoyed that Siri often “can’t understand me” or is a poor search assistant.

• Siri is a bad bad girl ! Because of her slang , she didn’t understand what am I saying tsk tsk. (source)
• Originally Posted by Xater: The response of Siri is that it can#t help me out with maps, traffic or directions. I also have trouble asking Siri to tell conversions. I always get the response that it doesn’t understand what I mean. Sorry, but I’m going to have to agree with Siri on this one. (source)

Siri also makes a convenient scapegoat for people who can’t spell. (Maybe this belongs in the Positive themes.)

• From now on I’m going to blame Siri for all my spelling/grammar mistakes. (source)

As we saw above, many people tell Siri to call them a pet name, but there can be a downside to that.

• I hate when Siri calls me Sex Kitten in public. (source)

“Scary” is a negative theme. Apparently some people get creeped out by a smart phone that talks to them and see it as a bad omen of things to come.

• I’m really scared that Siri is the beginning of Terminator. (source)
• Automated soda fountains stress me out. The idea of Siri TV makes me dread the future. I don’t want to live like the Jetsons! (source)

“Dumb” is a negative theme? Some consumers find Siri dumb?

• Siri is a moron I swear!!! (source)
• My Siri is dumber than David rawlins’. (source)

Insights

Reading what people like about Siri makes you think they’re talking about a human friend: They like talking to her, she tells them stories, and they think she’s fun and funny. Also intelligent. But that’s not too surprising, given that Siri understands what you say, acts on it, and calls you by name. Even in the negative comments, which people make when they’re frustrated with Siri, users personify her and swear at her like they would at a person.

Evaluating the utility of Siri, most people accept that voice recognition software hasn’t evolved to the point yet where it’s perfect, but they find Siri pretty darn good. So most users don’t feel Apple’s claims are too bold; instead they find that the iPhone is a very useful device, made much more useful (and fun) by the addition of Siri. Sure, there are some complaints, but they’re often expressions of immediate frustration over Siri not understanding a specific utterance; the users aren’t panning the app as a whole.

A couple of the negative themes—“scary” and “misspellings”—actually consist mostly of tongue-in-cheek comments that are pretty funny.

The iPhone 4S is a device that people enjoy using and Siri gives it an extra dimension of convenience and utility, and a personality that most users really like. Except when it calls them “Sex Kitten” in public … which gives us an idea: Maybe Apple can add the capability for Siri to call you different names at different locations. When I’m at home (which it can detect), call me Sex Kitten. When I’m at work, call me Boss.

About Our Approach

This case study is a form of social media analysis called a netnography—a qualitative, interpretive research methodology that adapts the traditional, in-person ethnographic research techniques of anthropology to the study of online communities.

To write this netnography, NetBase analyzed thousands of posts from consumers about the brand. The posts are automatically sorted into Positive or Negative classifications by our natural language processing (NLP) engine, then we manually sample those posts.

To summarize a netnography as we’ve done here, we distill our findings into useful insights about how the brand we studied is positioned and perceived. We can provide our source data and confidence intervals for the percentages in the theme charts upon request.

After a week of looking at the social media response to health foods in honor of New Year’s resolutions, I found it very interesting (and timely) that the January 14^th installment of the Wall Street Journal Sentiment Tracker focused on junk food giant Hostess filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. I must admit that I have NEVER eaten a Twinkie and do not consider them food. Ever the optimist, I thought that maybe America is turning a corner and we’re finally getting healthier – but the data, powered by NetBase, revealed that online consumers on Facebook and Twitter see things differently. While 25% of the conversations revolved around the health drawbacks to Twinkies and Ho Hos, 33% of social media users felt sad and nostalgic about the cream-filled treats going under. See what some of your online constituents (and the people restoring my faith) had to say about Twinkies and their health:

Wait a minute…. Childhood obesity at an all time high and the #Twinkie company is going out of business. Something doesn’t add up here.

#hostess is filing for bankruptcy one less enemy to fight hopefully in the battle for health.

Like most I have enjoyed a Fruit Pie at 3 a.m. post dive bar yet it is a very promising sign of US health that Hostess has gone bankrupt.

So are you stockpiling Twinkies? Let me know your thoughts on the latest company to file for Chapter 11!