Mapping Social Conversations: Hot Topics in the Food and Beverage Industry

People love to eat. People also love to share. So it’s no surprise people love to share what they’re eating or drinking or want to be eating or drinking in social media. From voicing their favorite soda brand to comparing several snack foods, the packaged food and beverage industry proves to be a popular topic in social media. In order to capitalize on the sheer amount of social buzz, food and beverage brands need to understand what’s resonating in regards to their brand, their products, their competition and their industry.

An easy way for a beverage brand like Pepsi to find what’s trending for its brand is to use word or text clouds, which are offered in some social media monitoring platforms—the uberVU via Hootsuite platform has conversation maps. These maps or clouds display the most-talked about topics in relation to a specific keyword or phrase, giving packaged food and beverage brands an inside look into the social conversations that are evolving around a brand, its competition, a particular product or the industry in real time.

Our customers often use conversation maps to evaluate campaigns, but as we’ve shown with our deep dives into the automotive, retail and travel and hospitality industries, they’re capable of so much more. To showcase the insights conversation maps can uncover, we reviewed brand-specific conversation maps for some of the top companies in the food and beverage industry (Capri Sun, Coca-Cola, Dasani, Dr Pepper, Gatorade, Minute Maid, Mountain Dew, Nestea, Nestle Pure Life, Pepsi, Poland Spring, Powerade, Red Bull, Simply Orange, Snapple, Sprite, Tropicana, Ben & Jerry’s, Breyers, Cheetos, Chips Ahoy!, Doritos, Fritos, Hot Pockets, Häagen-Dazs, Kit Kat, Lean Cuisine, Maxwell House, Monster Energy, Oreo, Snickers, Stouffers, Twix)

Love and Cravings

The majority of conversation maps for packaged food and beverage brands were overwhelmingly positive, with multiple brands ranking for “love.” It also appears social is extremely brand loyal when it comes to snacks, even down to individual flavors. People take to social to share not only their love for the products, but when they’re enjoying or wanting their favorites—“eat”, “eating” and “craving” consistently rank across several brands’ conversation maps.

Social loves Cheetos (especially “hot Cheetos”), with “love”, “eat” and “craving” all appearing on the brand’s conversation map. In addition, four different versions of the product were discussed enough to individually rank (“hot”, “Flaming Hot”, “balls” and “puffs”).

What this means for your brand:

• Find insight into what flavors consumers prefer and highlight those in your social marketing messages and campaigns.
• Inform future product innovation. Use social buzz to inspire new flavors or products (and unless you want the wrath of social media, do NOT discontinue social’s favorite flavor!)
• Keep an eye on the overall sentiment level of your top competitors’ maps and find opportunities (positive and negative) that you can use to shape your positioning against theirs.
• Monitor the tone of your conversation map for any dramatic shifts in sentiment. If your map turns quickly from love to outrage you need to be prepared for damage control.

The Competition

The packaged food and beverage industry is highly competitive so it’s no surprise the names of competitors consistently ranked on conversation maps. People enjoy comparing food and beverage brands in social for multiple reasons, whether it be to boast their favorite above the rest or to source reviews and feedback on the products to try.

The social buzz around Poland Spring involved other water brands “Nestle” and “Fiji.”

What this means for your brand:

• Evaluate brand awareness and market share. Comparing your conversation map to those of top competitors will show just how much (or how little) of an impact you’re making in the industry.
• Gather intel to plan competitive campaigns that focus on what your products have that your competitor’s products don’t (and social wants!).

Advertising and Endorsements

Creative advertising, event sponsorships and celebrity endorsements also cause a lot of social buzz for brands in the packaged food and beverage industry.

Nascar driver Jeff Gordon, a Pepsi spokesperson, earns buzz on the soda brand’s map along with his ad “Test Drive,” and “commercial.” Consistent with other themes in the industry, Pepsi also ranks for the competition (“Coke”), flavors (“cherry”, “Pepsi Max”) and “love.”

Doritos earned social buzz for its sponsorship of several events at the recent SXSW festival, including a concert by Lady Gaga.

What this means for your brand:

• Measure your efforts. Use your conversation map to measure the effectiveness of advertisements or endorsements over time. Use the research to inform decisions on future initiatives.
• Gather competitive intelligence. Monitor conversation maps for your top competitors to find what’s working for them and if you can emulate their success.

Get Mapping

Reviewing word clouds or conversation maps of several brands across your industry can offer key insights into your products, your brand’s marketing efforts, your standing in the industry and much more. When you know what generates the most buzz you’ll be able to get the right teams and departments involved and deliver what your target audience cares most about.