Create a comprehensive content analysis report on a brand’s Twitter presence, as compared to a competitor’s.

My group and I chose Wendy’s infamous Twitter account to track if the shenanigans, jokes, and collaborations were effective in driving engagement and promoting the company. We selected McDonald’s as a comparison account because of its tonal similarity.

Using systematic random sampling, we looked at tweets from each account from the start of 2021 up until November 18, 2021. To get an even number of tweets for each, we analyzed every third tweet posted within this timeline (totaling 60 for each brand). We then coded the tweets using one manifest and two latent codes. The manifest code asked if the tweet in question was part of a collaboration with a brand. The two latent codes asked if the tweet was attempting to be funny and if it was trying to be informative. By analyzing the number of likes, comments, and retweets for each of the tweets in each code we found some interesting results. We converted these results into a formal recommendation for Wendy’s to consider.

Since there was no significant statistical difference in how any of the types of tweets were interacted with, we recommended that Wendy’s posts more informative tweets. We believed this would help them generate more business since their tweets get a similar amount of hits regardless, and informative tweets more directly promote Wendy’s products, deals, and brand.