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Read this paper today, and learn what this study of five global hotel brands reveals: that partners and competitors are seriously undermining marketing ROI online, using the brand itself as a competitive weapon. Request Free!

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Brandjacking in Hospitality: What You Need to Know

The South African Deputy Chief of Mission to the United States, Johnny Moloto, discusses opportunities for investment in Africa, and how China is capitalizing off of these opportunities. Hosted by the Center for Finance, Law & Policy, African Studies Program, Center for the Study of Asia, African Presidential Center, Global Development Program and the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future on March 29, 2012.

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The Strategic Implications of China’s Growing Trading Partnership with Africa

A study from the University of Bristol’s Intelligent Systems Laboratory indicates that posts from Twitter users can serve as an accurate indicator of overall public opinion. Researchers Thomas Lansdall-Welfare, Vasileios Lampos and Nello Cristianin monitored keywords in random tweets from July of 2009 to January of 2012, tracking 140-character messages from nearly 10 million users to monitor public moods in the UK. The resulting study, “Effects of the recession on public mood in the UK,” shows correlations between tweets and public opinion. The researchers, who presented their findings at the International Workshop on Social Media Applications in News and Entertainment, noted increases in sadness, anger and fear in summer of 2011 during the London riots. Negative tweets also rose sharply in October of 2010 when the UK government announced sweeping spending cuts. Interestingly, negative emotions dropped during the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Researchers note that these events do not necessarily correlate with the full extent of Twitter users’ changes in tone and mood. While the goal of the study was to monitor Twitter users’ reaction to the recession, researchers did not intend to interpret the significance of specific events. Instead, they intended to show how Twitter’s micro-blogging format and widespread use makes it an accurate tool for monitoring overall public opinion. The researchers note that regular analysis of tweets could allow public officials to predict riots or to gauge the overall hostility of well-connected populations. There are certainly limitations to the study’s applications. Because the researchers used a “word mining” technique to collect their data, their results are less accurate. Some users might use trigger words ironically or sarcastically, which should not count towards an overall assessment of public opinion. The researchers note that their study’s accuracy would improve if they were able to pick through the results by hand. However, as the study looked at more than 484 million tweets, researchers could not have accurately sorted their results without severely diminishing their sample group. The study also has a more obvious skew: it focuses on Twitter users. Twitter users are more likely to be young and female than other social media websites’ users, so the user base’s opinion is less accurate than a general unbiased poll. As the study used basic keyword analysis to track joy, sadness, anger and fear, it also provides a very simplified picture of the UK population’s reactivity. Given Twitter’s 140-character limitations, some users might use more hyperbole in their online updates than they would in their day-to-day interactions, which would trigger an unrealistically dramatic change in the research data. Nevertheless, the research shows the feasibility of tracking public opinion through social media websites. Researchers could see Twitter users react in predictable ways to holidays like Christmas and Valentine’s Day. They could also instantaneously monitor public opinion during major news events to see visible changes in public opinion. The team’s future work will focus on a comparison of traditional media and social media. This will likely mean a comparison of general public polls and the research data to test the accuracy of the data. Until the researchers can test the accuracy of the data, any detailed analysis of the team’s data is premature. The research might show an accurate assessment of Twitter users’ opinions, but those users are certainly biased. This is not to say that the study isn’t exciting–future research on how social media users show their moods could have numerous advantages for social media marketers, political analysts and other professionals. Still, it is important to note that this type of research makes quick headlines, but analysts should give attention to possible biases before reading too far into the data.

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Can Twitter Accurately Show Public Moods?

“If Bubbles told you to jump off a bridge, would you do it Koko?” A new study suggests that chimpanzees and human toddlers are inclined to follow majority rule. The study, which was published online in the journal Current Biology and written by Daniel Haun et al of the Max Planck Institutes for Evolutionary Anthropology and Psycholinguistics, showed that chimpanzees and 2-year old toddlers were both more likely to repeat a peer group’s actions than a single peer’s actions. The research indicates that both chimpanzees and humans evolved to follow majority rule, in contrast with other some other primates like orangutans, which were also tested. Researchers showed test groups a box with three colored holes. Placing a ball in one of the holes would dispense a treat. The subjects would then watch either a group of four peers or a single peer place the ball into one of the colored holes, at which point the subjects were allowed to place the ball themselves to earn a treat. Chimpanzee and human subjects who viewed the peer groups were more likely to place the ball in the same hole as their peers. When a group of orangutans were tested with the same experiment, they were more likely to pick a random hole than following their peer groups. This shows that orangutans do not have a developed detection of or inclination towards social majority. Although prior research has suggested that humans are subject to majority rule, the study, titled “Majority-biased transmission in chimpanzees and human children, but not orangutans,” indicates that an inclination towards majority rule is in place at a very young age. Previous studies have confirmed the effect of a majority opinion in preschool-aged children, but Haun’s team tested an especially young age group to determine whether the effect is learned. Haun and his team believe that humans evolved to follow majority rule in order to make safe, productive and reliable decisions that would benefit early human groups equally. Haun’s research also shows that chimpanzees have the same inclination and that other primates may have evolved to detect and follow majority rule.

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Humans and Chimps Follow the Crowd [Study]

In spite of the doomsday warnings of those who bemoan the disappearance of a generation into the gaping maw of the Internet, a new study has shown that Internet usage does not replace traditional media in the lives of young people. Researchers from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden studied Swedish young people between the ages of nine and 24. They discovered that this group almost universally used the Internet. However, the investigators found no evidence that the study participants abandoned traditional media for the sake of the Internet. According to lead author Professor Olle Findahl, study participants did spend less time than their predecessors watching television, listening to recorded or broadcast music and reading traditional print publications. They still spent more time engaged in these pastimes than they spent on the Internet, though. In the 1950s, the advent of television had naysayers predicting the end of radio and print. What actually happened was that people added television to the list of ways in which they accessed information. A similar trend appears to be occurring today with the Internet. The areas in which the Internet seems to actually supplant traditional media rather than complement it include the delivery of both films and music. However, many uses of the Internet have no counterpart in traditional media. For example, social networks allow people to develop contacts with like-minded people who share their interests. Until recently, long-distance communication between people who shared beliefs, hobbies or passions was usually only possible between two individuals at a time. Even then, usually the two individuals had originally encountered each other in person either socially or during the course of business. The researchers found that more young people are reached by Facebook than by newspapers, and Facebook reaches nearly as many of them as television does. Spotify, a digital music delivery service, reaches almost as many young people as broadcast radio does. Simply being available through the Internet is no guarantee that a service will appeal to today’s youth, however. Tablets, eBooks and Twitter are popular mostly with older users and have little appeal to young people. On the other hand, smartphone use among children and young adults has rapidly expanded in recent years. Previous studies have shown that when people begin using the Internet there is no corresponding drop in their use of traditional media. In fact, research has consistently shown that those who use the Internet most heavily are also heavy users of older types of media.

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Internet Usage Does Not Replace Traditional Media [Study]

How low can you go? According to a report published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, voters may naturally prefer politicians who have deeper voices. Biologists from Duke University collaborated with a political scientist from the University of Miami to determine voter preferences regarding the pitch of a candidate’s voice. The results show that voters of both genders gravitate towards candidates who have deeper voices. What makes this tendency even more interesting is that the researchers determined that the preference for deeper voices is due to biological factors, as opposed to political or philosophical ones. The researchers noted that it has long been recognized that voters often size politicians up quickly without knowing anything about their stances on political issues. According to co-author Rindy Anderson, the current findings may help to explain this tendency. They may also provide insight into the dynamics of social interaction and help researchers begin to understand why women are still relatively scarce in the higher levels of government. Anderson and her colleagues Susan Peters and Casey Klofstad recorded both men and women asking for votes. Then they modified the recordings by making a high-pitched and a low-pitched version of each one before playing them for participants. They discovered that both male and female participants were more willing to vote for the candidates whose voices were lower, regardless of the candidate’s gender. Previous research had established that visual cues have a strong effect on the way a voter perceives a candidate. It is also well established that voice pitch is one of the cues people use to determine a candidate’s honesty, competency and strength. However, until now no one had investigated whether this held true regardless of the candidate’s gender. In the next phase of the study, researchers played the modified recordings to male and female participants and asked them to pick which candidate projected the greatest strength, trustworthiness and competence. Participants of both genders thought female candidates with lower-pitched voices appeared to demonstrate all three qualities. However, women did not perceive the male candidates with lower-pitched voices as stronger or more competent than the male candidates with higher-pitched voices. The researchers speculated that the women might have based their assessments on other factors besides voice pitch. Anderson cautions that the team’s findings may not be applicable outside the laboratory. The findings do suggest that voice pitch makes a difference in elections. They also give researchers clues about the factors behind gender bias in the political arena. However, more research is needed to determine what effect, if any, that the preference for lower voices may have in real political races. “We need to be very careful about interpreting these results in a broader context,” Anderson said. The scientists say that the scope of this study was very narrow, and at this point, suggestions that real voters base their votes partially on voice pitch are merely conjecture. The next step, they say, is to take a careful look at the role voice pitch plays in the 2012 elections. Related posts: Newspaper Endorsements Influence Voters [Study] Can Politicians Gain Ground by Endorsing Green Policies? [Study] New Research Shows Men and Women Both Lower Their Voice to Increase Attraction

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Deep-Voiced Politicians Favored by Voters [Study]