Public Health Case Study: Tracking Zombies and Vampires using Social Media

Topics that concern the mass market ebb and flow over time. By now the frenzy over the United States Presidential Election has faded and we are knee deep in the next celebrity/government scandal perpetrated by the Rombama administration or the latest outbreak of Beiber fever. Throughout the dynamic of what occupies consumer mindshare two topics seem to remain constant and compete righteously for the top spot. We’re speaking of course of the constant battle between Zombies and Vampires. Whether they are caused by the latest virus discovered in darkest Appalachia or have my Pretty Pony inspired sparkle powers when exposed to sunlight, these two populations have take a bite into our collective psyche and are not letting go. Argus Insights has been tracking these two populations through our social media analytics platform and offer the public service of not only tracking the spread of zombies and vampires across the world but also diving into what drives the warring factions of zompire lover and haters to unpack the real battle between red and blue states (red being the oxygenated blood craved by vampires and blue being the lifeless blood that lies stagnant in the veins of zombies). Argus Insights has developed a way to not only track the spread and adoption of trends (zombies and vampires is just a compelling public health case study) but also diving deep into the conversations of consumers within social media to understand the full dimensions of the attitudinal segments with these two populations. The presentation will unpack the methodology used to not only identify and track these two affinity groups but also how within the groups, new attitudinal segments are both identified and tracked using a novel clustering approach.