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Josie won Big Brother 11 on Tuesday and then walked from the follow-on Ultimate series saying she could not cope with being in a house of celebrities and the claustrophobia of it all. So, the remaining ten are now battling to become the Ultimate champion.
Figure 1: Topic cloud for the Ultimate Big Brother conversation – 25/8 to 27/8
Josie was again odds-on favourite to win and the leading topic in the Ultimate Big Brother conversation. Brian is now favourite at 2/1, closely followed by Chantelle at 11/8.
The other big topic in social media is Sam Pepper and the viral campaign to get him back to liven up the house shows no sign of quietening down. But, maybe now Josie has left?
And, what’s going on tonight? Michelle and Victor from BB5 will go into the house, stay in a ‘bedsit’ in part of the studio for a couple of days and watch the show before joining the main group. Sparks may fly between Victor and his nemesis Nadia, who won the fifth series. Coolio and John McCririck are up for eviction this evening. Looks like John might go.
Figure 2: Sentiment expressed towards nominated housemates – 25/8 to 27/8
What are the trends and memes in social media at the moment? What’s hot off the server? One of the biggest discussions is around Facebook Places, and the future of location services, widely tipped to join the top table of social media.
Figure 1: Topic cloud for the launch of Facebook Places – 19/8 to 25/8
Here are a couple few pointers to help you to keep up with the location conversation from a brand perspective.
Top 5 Ways Big Brands are Using Foursquare
Matt Silverman on Mashable (24/8) looks at on the way brands are working to connect location services to their wider online footprint. Silverman points out ‘many predict that when cultural acceptance, mainstream social integration, and business value finally coincide, location sharing will be as common and natural as updating your Facebook status’. If so, will your brand be ready?
Location is Now Part of the Social Graph — 3 Implications
Irfan Kamal on Ogilvy PR’s 360 Digital Blog (25/8) posts his comments on the implications of exponential growth in location for marketers, agencies and social location start-ups.
Irina Slutsky on Advertising Age (18/8) offers tips on how marketers with physical locations can benefit from Places. Facebook has not yet released details on advertising opportunities.
Josie didn’t have to pack her suitcase for Friday night’s eviction because she had a free pass to tonight’s Big Brother final. It looks like she won’t have to pack up this evening either and will stay put for the Ultimate show as series 11 winner.
John James, Steve, Sam and Corin were all evicted in Friday’s semi-final. This caused a bit of stir with criticism that the ‘boring’ housemates (except Josie) have made it to the final. The show’s producer Endemol has been under a bit of fire for asking viewers ‘to evict’ housemates which, it’s been claimed, meant the public was more driven to vote out the stronger personalities. It could well have been a different line-up if the vote had been ‘to win’.
Layla Anna-Lee on the OK! blog posted: ‘Our Twitter went nuts last night and Big Brother forums all round took a big hit … in my view, Sam Pepper would have still been in and, of course Corin – two of the most entertaining housemates of all time’. (OK! 21/8)
Anyhow, Josie, Mario, Andrew, Dave and JJ are battling it out to win tonight. A quick look at the sentiment analysis for all five shows Josie is almost in a league of her own and is still the bookie’s favourite to win at 1/10. Mario is at 9/1, Dave 10/1, Andrew 18/1 and JJ is the outsider at 40/1.
Celebrity hairdresser Lee Stafford has been in the house to give them all haircuts as part of their ‘Perfect Day’ on Sunday, which started off with breakfast in bed from Anthea Turner and included a meal cooked by Nancy Lam.
Figure 1: Sentiment expressed towards final five housemates – 20/8 to 23/8
And, what’s the news on the Ultimate series? Sam fans have started a Twitter campaign to get him back for the show. Will Endemol bow to the power of the people?
Sam’s new Twitter account has also created a real buzz and 30,000 followers have signed up to his new account since Saturday night. John James has 20,000. Sam has more followers than previous winners Sophie Reade and Brian Belo.
Anyway, first things first, the final’s tonight and it looks like Josie will win BB 11.
Do believe the hype. Facebook has unveiled Places, its location-based apps service. Mashable (19/8) has described it as ‘fascinating’. Initial users will need an iPhone or log onto the networking behemoth’s smartphone site. Android and Blackberry users haven’t been overlooked and will soon be able to use the service.
Places uses GPS on smartphones and users can check-in to find places, share where you are or find your Places friends. Friends can also tag your whereabouts. Facebook has pinned its strategy on the idea that after home and work the third area of our lives we talk about a lot is where we’ve been or going.
Privacy will be controlled by the user and details only seen by friends. But one of the trending articles on Tweetmeme yesterday was advice from Gawker.com (19/8) on the downsides of being tagged, which although can be deleted, can cause all kinds of mayhem if you haven’t chosen to check-in yourself. The site recommends avoiding the function all together.
So, what’s the potential of Places and peer location services for your brand in terms of engagement and promotion? Well here’s a bit of a heads up for any businesses planning a location-based marketing campaign. There’s been a real surge in mobile users accessing such services, which has helped create a tailored customer pool for brands to engage at the point of purchase. There are 150 million Facebook followers using a mobile to access the networking site.
One of wider questions has been whether Facebook’s foray into location has sounded the death-knoll for pioneers such as Foursquare. TechCrunch (17/8) acknowledged that Facebook would no doubt be a competitor.
But, it suggested the real Achilles heel for all location players will be if the social networking site directly partners venues on loyalty deals and promotions. This could hit the revenues beyond the incumbents – and even ripple as far as Yelp and Google.
One week to go and housemate eyes have been firmly focussed on Big Brother final on 24 August. The collective message was winning wasn’t important, it’s the taking part, the experience. Straightforward then? Never.
Big Brother started to stir things on Friday night by giving the housemates one minute to give a free pass to a fellow housemate for the final. It went to Josie, who’s also odds on favourite to win. Corin’s still second favourite. The eventual winner will join housemates from past shows for the two-week Ultimate Champion series starting on Tuesday.
Figure 1: Sentiment expressed towards all housemates – 11/8 to 17/8
There weren’t any nominations on Monday. Relief for about a minute … then they were told all housemates except Josie faced the vote for Friday’s eviction. Four will go. It looks like JJ and Dave could go. John James could go as well. He’s been accused of bullying Corin and Josie has had a go at him for his behaviour. Sam has also been involved in the whole Corin thing but his positive mentions may help save him. It’s tight on the fourth evictee between Steve and Andrew.
So what’s the news on the Ultimate series. Horse racing pundit and ex-celebrity housemate John McCririck has been a leading topic and widely tipped to join the new cast of housemates. The Star printed its line-up for the two-week show:
We drilled down to look at the topic cloud for racing man and as you can see the buzz echos the Star list.
It’s all a guessing game at the minute and Alex Sibley from BB3 and BB7 winner Pete Bennett have both stated they’re not going in.
Pete claimed he had been ‘snubbed’ by producers: “I will not be watching BB anymore. Good luck whoever wins.” He added that he was disappointed that he wasn’t give another opportunity to promote awareness of Tourettes Syndrome. (Digital Spy 17/8)
Alex Sibley tweeted “They don’t want me … I can’t believe who else got the call to say they weren’t going in.” (Digital Spy 17/8)
In reality, no-one knows yet. We’ll all just have to wait and see.
There have been a flurry of media invites to a ‘news’ event at Facebook tomorrow to discuss products and services. Industry insiders are expecting the launch of the networking site’s much-anticipated location-based products. It’s just speculation at the moment but the blogosphere is buzzing about the prospect of Facebook joining trailblazers Foursquare et al.
A couple of months ago we had a quick look at the impact of the Unite strike on BA. In the past month, the airline has made a couple of key announcements including news on its proposed merger with Iberia and forecasts it would break even by the end of the year, despite posting a Q1 loss. There have also been several comments on, and about, Twitter. So it’s been a good time to revisit the UK’s leading airline to gauge the mood in social media.
A bit of social media monitoring using Sentiment Metric’s system helped us to make sense of, and measure, the key drivers of the BA discussion during July. We monitored thousands of mentions in real-time.
The research was tailored to buzz volumes, the BA discussion, trending topics and the key drivers of positive and negative sentiment. We also added a human touch to our research to interpret and assess the valuable information generated by our system.
Figure 1: Buzz volumes for the BA discussion – 1/7 to 31/7
Figure 2: Sentiment expressed towards BA in social media – 1/7 to 31/7
So, what’s the mood been like in social media?
In terms of sentiment, there were a couple of stand-out peaks during the month, which generally mirrored the significant spikes in buzz volumes. These included positive comment on news-driven topics such as EU approval of BA’s merger with Iberia (14/7) and excitement that passengers could for the first time check in using an iPhone app (19/7).
On the merger, BA CEO Willie Walsh said: “We await the DOT’s final decision, but welcome this important and vital step forward.” (CNN 14/7)
airnewz (19/7) tweeted: ‘Wow… blogger gets all excited because british airways passengers can use iPhone to board’.
Figure 3: Topic cloud for the BA discussion – 1/7 to 31/7
Looking at the topic cloud, we noticed Twitter was a trending topic in itself. BA’s move to add details of its micro-blog account on boarding passes was one of the key drivers of mentions (20/7).
But, there were also negative mentions, reflected in a spike on 5 July. These included furious tweets from cricketer Shane Warne.
Warne said: “I hate British airways, way to arrogant and rude towards people!! Will not be flying with them again after my return from Vegas.” (Sky News 6/7)
The failed strike negotiations (20/7) and prospects of passenger disruption also generated less favourable mentions.
The airline’s quarterly loss (30/7) sparked a mixed response. The negative sentiment score by our system was high regarding its £122m Q1 loss. However, this was countered by a positive message from BA that it was in recovery and forecast to break even by the end of the year.
Alistair Osborne on Telegraph.co.uk (30/7) pointed out the strike action had cost the airline £150m during the quarter: ‘No business can carry on like that’ and talked of recent ‘carnage’.
On the flipside, Osborne acknowledged that striking staff might eventually pick up on the fact ‘… they are working for a business finally going somewhere’. BA posted a ’surprisingly strong’ hike in revenues from seats at 13.5% and the outlook remained positive buoyed by its merger with Iberia, a deal with American Airlines and its non-reliance on a cyclical recovery. There could well be blue skies ahead for BA.
