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Social Media Audit And

Conversation Analysis

By: Brody Foster-Cohen, Donavon Hampton, Ashlee Peterson, Kenzie Yoshimura

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PURPOSE: Boneyard Beer is a microbrewery located in Bend, Oregon. A young company, Boneyard

Beer began in 2010, when owner Tony Lawrence collected a “boneyard” of old brewing equipment gathered from 13 different breweries around the country. In May 2010, he and cofounders Clay and Melodee Storey used the second-hand gear to brew the first Boneyard beer.

Though the old fermenters have since been replaced, Boneyard still utilizes the original, refurbished 20-barrel system to brew its beers. To date, Boneyard has brewed 17 different beers. At this time, it is a draft-only brewery, offering beers and dock sales at its Bend tasting room and distributing throughout Oregon and Washington. It currently offers seven rotating beers on tap in-house, including the popular RPM and Bone-a-Fide brews. Boneyard Beer currently has 10 employees and big plans for expansion with a new production facility on the east side of Bend. Boneyard offers seasonal brews, and tasting room specials and participates in brew festivals and other events. Though the company is growing, it maintains a commitment to high quality, balanced, hoppy beers and keeps with the “boneyard” theme, using secondhand and recycled facilities and equipment where possible. Oregon currently has one of the highest counts of microbreweries per capita in the nation. Boneyard is a growing company in an area of intense competition—Central Oregon has 31 breweries, 24 of which are located in Bend. The purpose of this social media audit and conversation analysis is to examine the social media channels utilized by Boneyard and two of its main local competitors: 10 Barrel Brewing and Deschutes Brewery. We will discuss and assess the effectiveness of important social media channels, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and company websites, as well as what is being said about the companies externally by consumers and key publics on channels such as Yelp and independent blogs. The social media audit and conversation analysis is invaluable in comparing social media use and interaction between Boneyard and its competitors and evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of each company. METHOD:

Our team examined and analyzed Boneyard Beer’s and its competitor’s Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest usage. For the social media audit, our team measured the varying levels of interaction on each company’s various social media platforms within the established time frame of July 29, 2015, to Oct. 29, 2015.

Within our social media audit and conversation analysis, Facebook interactions were defined as shares, comments and likes; Twitter interactions were defined as replies to tweets from the companies’ followers, retweets and favorites; additionally, Instagram interactions were defined as comments and likes.

To collect our information our team used: SocialMention, Google Blog Search and Statigram. RESULTS: SOCIAL MEDIA AUDIT Brand Consistency

Boneyard has achieved solid brand consistency on all examined platforms. Each of its main channels utilize the company name, Boneyard Beer, as the site or username. This includes the main website, www.boneyardbeer.com, facebook.com/boneyardbeer, and both Instagram and Twitter handles @boneyardbeer as well. All display a uniform color scheme and the Boneyard Beer logo: a red-and-black circular emblem of a skull and crossbones with wrench

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heads at one end of each bone. A widget on the company's website provides direct links to the social media accounts, and each account has links to the other two. One facet in which Boneyard is less consistent is in the use of taglines. The phrase “Let it be known” appears in some hard-to-find corners of the main website, and can be found in the company’s Twitter bio (although there it is followed by an exclamation point). However, the tagline is not used on any other channels, nor does it seem to appear on any of its many different merchandise items. Boneyard’s competitors have slightly less consistency in usernames and search terms across all platforms. 10 Barrel, for instance, is called 10 Barrel Brewing Co. on its logo and 10 Barrel Brewing Company on its Facebook accounts, but simply 10 Barrel Brewing on Twitter, Instagram and its website, www.10barrel.com. Deschutes Brewery, which shares its name with the Deschutes River and Deschutes County, Ore., uses @deschutesbeer as its Twitter and Instagram usernames, though its other channels use the full company name. Channel Frequency FACEBOOK

To analyze how often Boneyard Beer uses its channels of communication and compare

those numbers to its competitors, we conducted a manual audit of post frequency on various social media accounts. To gain a broad understanding of each company’s social media use, we observed posts over a 90-day period, from July 29-Oct. 29, 2015. With the exception of Facebook, on which Boneyard posted more than Deschutes, we found that Boneyard Beer consistently posts less often than its competitors.

Over the three-month period, Boneyard Beer posted on its Facebook page 32 times. The

majority of these posts were photos shared to Facebook from Boneyard’s Instagram account. Also included are a few taproom specials and events, as well as shared news or blog articles about the brewery, Bend, or the beer industry.

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10 Barrel Brewing Co had 52 Facebook posts during this time period. 10 Barrel’s Facebook also contained many posts from Instagram, but there were far more individual photos, albums and videos, mainly centered around 10 Barrel’s popular Pray For Snow Winter Ale, which includes a hashtag and a launch party by the same name, among other promotions. It is interesting to note that 10 Barrel creates actual Facebook events, whereas Boneyard simply posts information about its events. 10 Barrel’s Facebook page also includes a widget that states “Very responsive to messages” and “Typically replies within minutes” and provides a direct link to send a message. 10 Barrel also has two other Facebook pages for its Boise and Portland locations.

Deschutes, despite being the largest of the three breweries, had only 30 Facebook posts during this time. The company’s posts, though infrequent, are similar to Boneyard and 10 Barrel’s, with many photos and some shared articles. However, Deschutes does offer some unique content such as special recipes that use its beer, and beer-and-candy pairings for the Halloween season. TWITTER

In our Twitter frequency analysis, we counted the number of original tweets posted by

each company. Retweets and replies will be addressed in the Conversation Analysis. Between July 29-Oct. 29, 2015, Boneyard Beer tweeted 74 times. Almost every one of those tweets accounts for a daily tap list, in which the company posts which beers are currently available in its Bend taproom. Boneyard Beer also has a secondary Twitter account, username @BY_taplist, that posts only the daily tap list. This Twitter feed can also be found on Boneyard’s website, under the “What’s On Tap?” page.

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10 Barrel tweeted 81 times in the 90-day timeframe, often using the #prayforsnow

hashtag and promoting events and contests. Despite being a smaller brewery than Deschutes, for example, 10 Barrel has a verified account. Verification is a tool used by Twitter to “establish the authenticity of key individuals and brands” (Twitter, ‘FAQs about verified accounts’”), and is often reserved for big names and highly sought-after accounts. This could be in part due to 10 Barrel’s recent purchase by beer industry giant, Anheuser-Busch InBev

Deschutes Brewery was by far the most active of the three brands on Twitter, tweeting 306 times in the given period. The company not only tweets about events and promotions, but also continues to offer unusual or interesting information, like even more recipes using its different beers or ads using obscure national holidays.

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INSTAGRAM

Boneyard posted 36 photos to its Instagram during the three-month period. The posts

are a variety of pictures of employees, products, and memes or other humorous reposts. Recurring themes include merchandise with beautiful Central and Eastern Oregon scenery in the background and women sporting Boneyard gear.

10 Barrel Brewing has 81 Instagram posts from July-October. 10 Barrel’s Instagram features many event and professional-grade photos and numerous of videos. The account has a cohesive and artful feel, with simple, colorful and clear photos.

Deschutes Brewery again had the highest frequency of posts on this channel, with 124

photos. Many of them were the same or similar to the photos posted on its Twitter account during that time period.

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VOICE Boneyard Beer prides itself on a very casual, no-nonsense style, and that is equally as

evident in its social media channels as in its products. The company’s tweets, for example, are extremely minimal, mostly just sticking to a comprehensive list of the beers currently served in the taproom. Boneyard Beer comes across in its social media as having the personality of a fun-loving, outdoorsy, goofball uncle, often posting jokes and memes and bikini-clad women. Boneyard Beer interacts and replies to consumers on Twitter, where it frequently replies with “Awesome!” “Cheers!” or an old-fashioned smiley face “:).” Boneyard’s competitors, as larger companies, take on the persona of much more established, professional brands. INTERACTION AND CLIENT RESPONSIVENESS FACEBOOK To measure the amount of interaction our client and its competitors have generated on Facebook, we took the number of total interactions (Likes + Comments + Shares) and divided that by the total number of posts over the past 90 days to find the average number of interactions per post. Those figures are as follows:

# of interactions # of posts Boneyard: 14,566 36 10 Barrel: 4,994 51 Deschutes: 9,510 31

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These numbers show that Boneyard has a very high level of public interaction on their Facebook posts. They don’t post too much, and they are doing well in posting content that their

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following is eager to interact with. Boneyard would be wise to take notice of 10 Barrel’s interaction data, as they have the highest number of posts but also the least amount of interaction out of the three organizations. Most Popular Facebook Post:

Least Popular Facebook Post:

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INSTAGRAM To measure the amount of public interaction our client and its competitors have on Instagram, we divided the total number of interactions (Likes + Comments over the past 90 days) by the total number of followers for each organization. This tells us the number of interactions the average follower has had with them over the past 90 days.

The numbers show that Boneyard has had the lowest average interaction per follower

over the past 90 days, but not by much. We feel that Boneyard’s Instagram account is its weakest social media platform; the photos could be higher quality (smart use of Instagram filters) and the overall tone of the account could be more professional, even though the Boneyard brand prides itself on being simple, laid back, and all about the beer. Finding that happy medium between professional and casual is what Boneyard needs to focus on in terms of its Instagram strategy.

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Most Popular Instagram Post:

Least Popular Instagram Post:

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TWITTER: To measure the amount of interaction generated from twitter for our client and its competitors, we took the total number of interactions (replies, retweets, favorites) and divided that by the total number of posts over the past 90 days. Here are the results:

This graph shows that Deschutes has a much higher amount of interaction per tweet, but

that is a direct correlation the amount of followers they have. Deschutes has 97,300 followers on twitter, since it is a much larger organization. This explains why their average number of interactions for a given tweet is so much higher than the others. Boneyard is doing well in comparison to 10 Barrel, a company of similar size; the average number of interactions per tweet is higher than that of 10 Barrel, even though they have less followers. They are doing a better job of generating twitter interaction than 10 Barrel. Most Popular Twitter Post:

Least Popular Twitter Post:

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RESULTS: CONVERSATION ANALYSIS Sentiment Analysis BLOGS AND PUBLICATIONS Over the one-month period, Sep. 29, 2015 through Oct. 29, 2015, Boneyard Beer was rarely mentioned in blog posts, publications, or both. In the couple incidences where the brand was discussed, bloggers simply wrote of the actual beer Boneyard produced; restaurants where one could find Boneyard on tap; or upcoming events in which Boneyard planned to participate in. The feeble mentions pertaining to Boneyard all came from local Oregon bloggers as well. Due to its relatively young reputation and fewer follower base, the company appears less frequently throughout the blogosphere and publication realm in comparison to its fellow competitors, Deschutes Brewery and 10 Barrel Brewing.

Deschutes and 10 Barrel have both gained undeniable followings due to their older,

more rooted reputations; those followings play a significant role in the ways writers discuss the brands on various blogs and publications, whether positive or negative. In the recent weeks, several trends--locally and nationally--arose regarding both Boneyard’s competitors. Deschutes and 10 Barrel were often discussed hand-in-hand in either a neutral or negative light as a result Anheuser Busch-InBev buying out both companies. Source Weekly, an Oregon-based blog, posted an article calling into question the craft beer companies’ intentions post sell-out: “It's a little hard to believe, considering all the news from 10 Barrel Brewing Company over the past year, that they're still only going to produce about 25,000 barrels of beer in 2015—a tiny percentage of Deschutes Brewery's output.” On the other hand, freshpints.com highlighted the success Deschutes experienced after it “set up the world’s largest pop-up pub in Denver earlier this month and raised a total of $56,000 for Bicycle Colorado… The one-day-only event donated 100 percent of proceeds to Bicycle Colorado.” Deschutes’ recent national Street Pub tour helped to increase its relevancy not only in Oregon but across the country.

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Although Boneyard seems to receive comparably high rates of engagement with its existing followers through its own organizational social media, its physical absence within the community affects its chances of appearing as a subject on blogs and publications.

YELP Because our client is in the food and beverage industry, we felt that Yelp would be a very key platform to examine during our conversation analysis. Yelp is a very influential source in our client’s industry since many consumers can be very choosy about their food and beverage businesses. We examined the last 30 Yelp reviews for our client and chosen competitors, and found out the average rating that people gave each organization (Yelp operates on a 1-5 rating scale)

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Boneyard Beer had a very good average yelp rating over the last 30 posts, weighing in at an average of 4.43 stars per review. Deschutes was very high, as all their reviews over the given time period were five-star ratings except for three. 10 Barrel had the lowest average yelp rating, and many of the posts seem to hint at the reason: 10 Barrel was recently bought out by beer mogul Anheuser-Busch, to much dismay of the craft beer community. Deschutes has also been bought out by a larger organization, but has a competitive advantage over 10 barrel due to its size, reputation and brand longevity. Boneyard Yelp Comments:

Positive: • Great-tasting beer • Simple • Laid-back atmosphere • Friendly employees • Good customer service

Negative:

• Small facility • No food • No cans or bottles sold in draft or tasting room

10 Barrel Yelp Comments: Positive:

• Good beer • Good food • Quality employees and service

Negative:

• “Sellouts”

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• Too crowded or busy Deschutes Yelp Comments: Positive:

• Impressive customer service • Good-tasting food and beer • Free beer samples

Negative:

• “Sellouts” • “Too touristy”

SOCIAL MEDIA Positive Sentiment

Using the social media analytics tool SocialMention, we gathered what social media users are saying about our client and its competitors. The analytics tool sorted mentions by positive, neutral and negative sentiments. This graph shows the what percentage of each company’s mentions were positive:

These percentages may not look great, but that is because the number of “neutral” were very high for each company. Here is breakdown of all three categories for each company: Positive Neutral Negative Boneyard: 7% 92% 1% 10 Barrel: 13% 84% 3% Deschutes: 9% 90% 1%

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As you can see from the data, these positive sentiment percentages would be much higher if they were only categorized by either positive or negative. SocialMention’s use of a neutral sentiment rating for a post decreases the percentage value for both the positive and negative categories. Total Social Mentions Again using the analytics tool SocialMention, we discovered the total number of times that our client and its chosen competitors were mentioned over a variety of social media platforms:

The results from this search were very interesting. Even though Deschutes has a much

larger follower base, the SocialMention query we performed showed that Boneyard and 10 Barrel were both being mentioned more in conversations. This may reflect their consumer’s brand loyalty since it seems that there are willing to talk and discuss the company and its products. DISCUSSION Boneyard Beer utilizes its various social media channels considerably to engage with its stakeholders. The discussion among the company’s fan base plays a vital role in maintaining existing relationships in addition to its reputation. The 4-year-old brand sees overall neutral sentiment when mentioned on various social media platforms, various blogs and publications. In comparison to its competitors however, Boneyard falls short in the levels of interaction on Twitter and Instagram; it posts less on both Twitter and Instagram and in turn receives less interactions. Consequently, Boneyard updated less frequently on Facebook than 10 Barrel and posted only twice more than Deschutes in a three-month period but saw a significant an increase in the average amount of interactions per post--more than both its competitors combined in fact. Although its Facebook engagement has proven to be extremely successful and indicative of creating personal connections, it could achieve greater public awareness by using Twitter and Instagram to the same caliber. RECOMMENDATIONS

1. Boneyard needs to take on more of professional tone, appearance, or both; the company walks a fine line between coming off as friendly and approachable, and almost racy in its social media.

2. A more cohesive Instagram is imperative. The a majority of its current photos are often dark, blurry or simply uninteresting to the viewer. As Instagram continues to be a popular

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visual platform, making the account cleaner and sharper (i.e., 10 Barrel Brewing and Deschutes Brewery) could be a major advantage in promoting the brand and the company.

3. Use the fact that Boneyard is still a privately held organization and has not been bought out by a major corporation to its advantage. Many people in the craft brewing community are unhappy that Deschutes and 10 Barrel have been bought out, use that craft beer loyalty as a selling point in marketing and or social media.

4. Try to come up with public events that gain media attention in the both the Bend area and the rest of Oregon. There has not been much talk about Boneyard in the media, so holding a public outreach event (e.g., Deschutes’ Street Pub) to get the organization interacting face-to-face with the public and to possibly generate some media attention. In addition, a CSR program would benefit Boneyard and its public image. Boneyard should take advantage of the adventurous, outdoor vibe of Bend and partner with some local organizations or hold events benefitting programs dealing with nature conservancy and outdoor recreation.

5. Incorporate hashtags on twitter and Instagram that are more broad and user friendly. The hashtags Boneyard uses frequently are very specific to a movement or campaign (e.g., #UCCstrong, #thankyoufirefighters #inBend), which is great for the local audience, but they should try to use some broader ones as well (e.g., #beer, #craftbeer). This could expose them to social media audiences that may have never heard of boneyard before.