Authors: Dr. Yangxuan Liu, Assistant Professor, University of Georgia Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics
Dr. John Lai, Assistant Professor, University of Florida Food and Resource Economics Department
Social and online media have hatched their way into nearly every aspect of our daily life from direct marketing and healthcare to political campaigns. According to Pew Research, only about a quarter of Americans used social media in 2008, but by 2019, it was over 70%1. Growth has continued in 2020, especially in light of the reliance on the internet during pandemic adjustments. Worldwide, there are nearly 4 billion total active social media users2.
As the Internet continues to connect people in the era of Web 2.0, users spend an average of 6 hours 43 minutes online2 and generate enormous amounts of content every single day. Particularly, as the pandemic has unfolded and people practice social-distancing, social and online media have become an essential channel for us to stay connected with our friends, family and the outside world.
Traditionally, most of the efforts to understand demand for food products have relied on reports of past market performance, along with survey data. However, unlike traditional methods of measuring perception, the information social media users share online instantly creates opportunities to understand consumer experiences with the products that they use. This allows market-relevant data collection in real-time with great efficiency, while surveys and focus groups ask users to recall information based on their past experiences. Employing this web-derived data for decision making within agri-food firms offers the opportunity for actionable insights tailored to individual businesses or products.
This movement of sharing opinions into the world of social media has garnered the attention of researchers and data scientists alike. Researchers are studying user generated content (UGC) to understand consumers’ perceptions toward agricultural and food markets for commoditized products, such as eggs. Eggs are an affordable source of high-quality protein and key nutrients for the human body. That being said, consumers’ perception of animal welfare could drive their demand for eggs produced in different production systems or technologies.
Recent research conducted by Drs. Nicole Widmar, Courtney Bir, Christopher Wolf, John Lai and Yangxuan Liu published in Poultry Science employs social media listening to understand consumer perceptions of egg-laying hen housing production systems in the United States. The data collected for this analysis were intended to be inclusive of all social media referencing chicken eggs. These eggs are typically produced with the potential of being food and/or consumed as food. Four housing systems for egg-laying hens were investigated, including: free-range, enriched colony, battery cage and cage-free housing.
Food companies can take advantage of UGC on social media platforms and detect shifts in markets sooner than by polling consumers through methods such as surveys. For example, people are communicating about specific housing options unprompted on social media. In the work involving eggs on social media, production systems such as ‘free range’ and ‘cage free’ received a large amount of online attention. Results show that the housing systems cage-free and free-range had the greatest number of online hits in the searches conducted, compared with the other laying hen housing types.
Less online discussion surrounded enriched cages, which could indicate that the ‘enriched cage’ production system is relatively less understood by the public. However, the enriched production system meets many of the preferences and perceptions held by consumers online and marks a potential opportunity to increase communication about this production method.
These results, in conjunction with insights into net sentiment and words associated with different laying hen housing in online and social media, exemplify how social media listening may complement traditional methods (survey questionnaires or focus groups) to inform decision makers regarding agribusiness marketing, food systems, management and regulation.
If you are egg-cited by the egg-splosive possibilities of social media listening, you can learn more about the perceptions of social and online media users here. This link is openly available and will let you download the full research report for free.
Further Suggested Reading
- Pew Research. Demographics of Social Media Users and Adoption in the United States. Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech. Published June 12, 2019. Accessed October 30, 2020. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/social-media/
- Data Reportal. Digital 2020: Global Digital Overview. DataReportal – Global Digital Insights. Published January 30, 2020. Accessed October 30, 2020. https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2020-global-digital-overview
ConsumerCorner.2020.Letter.28
