Complaining about GW: Is this thing even on?

Having read a few articles about this snazzy new internet thing and social media, I thought I'd take a look at some of tools we have available to get an idea of what these tools would be telling Games Workshop if they were to bother.  Based on the blogs I read, most of them I consider 'mainstream' blogs for the more competitive side of the hobby, my distillation of the dozens of posts were,while mostly positive, many had a strong negative undercurrent.  Nobody is really going to complain about new models after all - especially when for the most part, they look as good as these do (sorry t-wolves, 'nids won the swimsuit and dinner gown competition).  But lots of speculation about the lawsuits, negativity about the size, the two-year delayed release, and GW's staccato business model in general.  So what does all that noise amount to through the lens of a social media analytic?

I started here: http://www.johnchow.com/7-ways-to-track-your-competition-with-social-media/ to check out the tools available, tried a couple, and settled on Social Mention, being that it doesn't require a login, is free, and unlike Topsy, isn't limited to Twitter.  While not intended as an advertisement for Social Mention, there's a lot you can do on this page.    Starting with the "all time" and "all sources" setting, for blogs, tweets, comments, video, podcasts, etc..., querying on Games Workshop had 700+ mentions, with 13% chance their brand is being talked about at any given moment, a 6:1 positive vs negative sentiment ratio, a 39% passion score which is pretty good - measuring repeated mentions by the same individuals, rather than isolated mentions by different people, and a 39% reach - measuring how many authors divided by total mentions: roughly a range of influence measure.

13%

strength

6:1

sentiment

39%

passion

39%

reach

8 minutes avg. per mention

last mention 8 minutes ago

382 unique authors

12 retweets

Repeating this for "Tyranid" as a keyword came back with 538 mentions and the following scores:

3%

strength

7:1

sentiment

38%

passion

35%

reach

54 minutes avg. per mention

last mention 31 minutes ago

279 unique authors

3 retweets

Seven to one positives is pretty spiffy.  With the release tomorrow, "tervigon" had a pretty fantastic ratio:

2%

strength

15:1

sentiment

40%

passion

25%

reach

3 hours avg. per mention

last mention 2 hours ago

150 unique authors

3 retweets

I decided to shift tactics, and see how deep I could get on some more pointed topics.  Given some of the negative comments about the two year wait, I checked "Games Workshop" and "release" - but the happy happy joy joy crowd for tomorrow led to a 20:1 positive sentiment score.  Back to the drawing board.  How about "Games Workshop" and "business"  Ahh..

1%

strength

2:1

sentiment

31%

passion

14%

reach

4 hours avg. per mention

last mention 2 hours ago

70 unique authors

2 retweets

Different story now.  A 2-1 positive ratio and only 139 mentions.  Now that I've let my subscription go due to its pattern of suck last year, how about "White Dwarf" ?  564 mentions:

5%

strength

3:1

sentiment

18%

passion

37%

reach

10 minutes avg. per mention

last mention 22 minutes ago

325 unique authors

8 retweets

3:1 ratio isn't grand.  How about a competitor?  Looking at "Warmachine" returned a 3:1 as well, but interestingly, had more mentions than any of the Games Workshop queries. Note the difference in the passion score as well - a smaller fanbase, but more vocal:

15%

strength

3:1

sentiment

51%

passion

34%

reach

18 minutes avg. per mention

last mention 42 minutes ago

306 unique authors

25 retweets

At any rate - I can (rather obviously) get carried away here.  The point being from a social media perspective, everything looks pretty rosy.  By comparison, Raspberry Pi, the runaway soldout credit-card sized Linux computer storming the tech media over the past two days scores like this:

25%

strength

6:1

sentiment

32%

passion

38%

reach

20 seconds avg. per mention

last mention 40 seconds ago

352 unique authors

45 retweets

The bottom line is if we're as negative as people think, we're not making a big splash.  If we want GW to sit up and take notice, we don't need to do something we don't want to do - not buy more models /grin

We have to hit them where it HURTS: their earnings expectations.

The expectations market is the world in which shares in companies are traded between investors—in other words, the stock market. In this market, investors assess the real market activities of a company today and, on the basis of that assessment, form expectations as to how the company is likely to perform in the future. The consensus view of all investors and potential investors as to expectations of future performance shapes the stock price of the company.

If we can figure out how to leverage the social media sources that market research companies use to write assessments of GW's expected performance, we'll get their attention.