Social media analytics have primarily focused on the conversation surrounding the brand with little attention paid to the characteristics of the audience driving that conversation. By understanding online audience demographics, we provide a deeper understanding of “who” they are. Deeper insights lead to a smarter marketing and advertising approaches.

We analyzed individuals online who discussed the Oscars’ and found that, despite the Academy’s targeted marketing efforts,

• men conduct more online conversations about the Oscars than women and
• Millennials drove most of the discussion

What about the women who are discussing the Oscars online? From the online conversations, we derived information about their interests, their habits, and their lifestyles. This rich understanding of audience demographics helps provide an avenue for the Academy to appeal to and grow their audience by appropriately fine-tuning their media mix.

We examined conversations from January 22 up through February 22, the date of the Oscars. Over 1,000 authors for whom we could identify characteristics discussed the Oscars online – these authors were segmented by age, gender, and the location of their conversations. We then performed a deeper dive into the characteristics associated with women discussing the Oscars online.

The Generational Composition

We grouped Oscar authors by their age into Millennials, GenXers, and Boomers categories. Not surprisingly, online conversations were tied to age with Millennials driving the most, followed by GenXers, and then Boomers.

Geo-location Composition

Not surprisingly, the U.S. dominates the discussion. It is interesting to note however how much conversation came out of India with the success of Slumdog Millionaire.

The Gender Composition

Perhaps somewhat surprising, Oscars discussion is dominated by men. Importantly, the analysis focused on one month of the broader conversations leading up to, and during the Oscars (movie buffs) and not on the red carpet gala (fashion), which may provide some additional explanation for this disparity.

Cross-Affinity Analysis of Women Discussing the Oscars

Cross-affinity analyses provide a deeper understanding of the audience itself. By passively observing social media participants, we bypass some possible biases associated with traditional survey based approaches, making online authors an apt audience to study. Social media analytics can deepen the understanding of online audiences, which helps targeting (marketing or advertising) and messaging strategy.

Using our semantic theme technology we surfaced other components of online conversation for females already discussing the Oscars. This technology allows us to determine in an open-ended way what else this select group of females is interested in and discussing online, for example:

Some emerging concepts – such as “Films” and “Oscars” – are expected. Many of the other affinities – including celebrity gossip, parenting and children, and feelings helps paint a more holistic picture of this audience, which highlights the power of using semantic techniques to distill meaning from online conversations.

The woman who cares about the Oscars:

She stays up-to-date on her celebrity gossip, she may have children, she enjoys reading a good book, pop music, and games and puzzles; she dreams of traveling, and she discusses her feeling about all this and more on her personal blog.

Going beyond conversation analytics to audience analytics suggest specific, testable strategies that brand managers and marketers can take with regards to their target audiences. By better understanding their existing audience, particularly their online audience, brands now have help with their digital (or traditional) marketing strategy. CI provides brands with the guidance that they need to succeed in effective word of mouth campaigns and to effectively drive their marketing strategy.

UPDATE: Due to a typo in the original graph (corrected) highlighting the top countries posting about the Oscars, “Austria” should have been “Australia”. In retrospect, this makes sense given the nationality of both Hugh Jackman and Heath Ledger.