How to Choose the Right Brand Partner for Your Business: Insights from Social Media Analysis
Collaborating with brands outside your industry can be a great way to create new value, but selecting the right partner can be challenging. What if you could leverage social media data to identify high-potential brand partners and gain insights into your customer base and that of your competitors? According to recent research, an analysis of social media co-followership patterns can be a quick and inexpensive way to identify non-obvious alliances whose potential might otherwise be difficult to anticipate.
Co-Followership Analysis: A Simple Yet Effective Solution
Our research involved compiling publicly available Twitter follower data for more than 500 brands between 2017 and 2020, across sectors including airlines, luxury goods, retail, automotive, sports, technology, dining, and more. We then used this dataset to identify brand pairs that shared a large number of followers. Based on a series of surveys with more than 1,000 consumers, we confirmed that the pairings that came out of our quantitative analysis did indeed seem to subjectively “go well together” in people’s minds.
This approach can easily be replicated and automated by any brand with a social media presence. With a simple review of freely accessible data, managers can understand their users’ interests across a broad ecosystem of brands, both within and outside their own categories, and identify the partners that are most likely to resonate with their consumer base.
For example, McDonald’s and Coca-Cola shared more than a million Twitter followers, representing about 30% of both brands’ total followers. It’s not surprising that the two companies have enjoyed a successful partnership for years, with countless joint products and promotions targeting their shared customer base.
Social media follower analysis can also help managers identify potential asymmetries in brand partnership potential. We found, for instance, that more than half of the followers of beer brand Stella Artois also followed luxury fashion brand Coach, while only 4% of Coach followers also followed Stella Artois. This suggests that a brand partnership between the two may be particularly beneficial for Stella Artois, but could also offer Coach access to a niche audience that may be distinct from its primary target consumer profile.
Benefits of Co-Brand Alliances
While brands are generally expected to stick to their own product categories, research has shown that these boundaries are often more malleable than one might think. Cross-category brand alliances enable this sort of expansion without the need for costly internal investment, and identifying potential partners through an analysis of social media followers is both faster and often more effective than traditional, survey- or focus-group-based approaches.
Cross-industry collaborations, such as the partnership between Uber and Spotify or Red Bull and GoPro, can benefit both brands by allowing them to cross-promote and access new markets without either party having to develop costly new technologies internally. Similarly creative examples of cross-category collaborations include Disney and MAC Cosmetics’ Aladdin makeup collection, IKEA and LEGO’s storage solutions for kids, and Red Bull and GoPro’s joint promotional campaigns.
Limitations and Risks
Of course, there are certainly limitations to this approach. Alongside social media follower analyses, managers should use their judgment to assess the potential benefits and risks of potential co-branding opportunities, in particular with respect to any legal, logistical, or ethical hurdles that might impede successful implementation. A joint fashion line released by Target and Neiman Marcus was slammed as a strategic misstep, despite initially eager customers and promises that the collaboration was “one not to be missed!”
Conclusion
Social media co-followership analysis can offer managers a quick and inexpensive way to identify non-obvious brand partnerships and gain insights into their customer base and that of their competitors. Brands that share a high number of social media followers often go well together in consumers’ minds, increasing the chances of success if they choose to collaborate. However, this approach has its limitations and must be complemented by a comprehensive analysis of the risks and benefits of a potential partnership. But when thoughtfully implemented, analysis of social media co-followership patterns can be a powerful tool for brands seeking to create new value through cross-industry collaborations.
