Social Media Report Card: Microsoft earns straight A’s for its swift responses on Twitter

Some brands, however, are still struggling to catch up.

A recent study published by eMarketer found consumers are more likely to purchase from brands that answer them on Twitter, proving brands cannot afford to ignore social media as a consumer channel. Knowing this, the team at Alterian conducted an analysis of the social media customer engagement of top brands across six industries: travel, banking, cable, mobile, gaming, and consumer electronics.

Using the social media monitoring tool SM2, Alterian’s Jim Reynolds analyzed both the volume of conversations and net sentiment of two top competitors in each industry, pitting them head to head. He examined more than 348,000 conversations about the 12 brands over a period of six months. Volume considered the number of consumer-driven posts about each brand; net sentiment looked at the overall favorability and positive versus negative posts about each brand.