On 10 April it was reported that nearly 700 staff at Morrisons may be facing redundancy after the company announced that it was overhauling the way it counts its cash. Cash counting machines are being introduced across all stores as part of a broader programme of implementing new technology to improve efficiency.
The news that 700 jobs may be at risk had a significant impact on social media. Interestingly, we can see that although the same news story was heard on both Facebook and Twitter, the audiences differed between the two social networks.
In terms of reach, we can see a noticeable increase on both Facebook and Twitter. On 9 April, the day before the announcement, just 2.9% of the UK Twitter population heard about Morrisons, rising to 10.6% the next day. On Facebook, 0.79% of users heard about Morrisons on 9 April, rising to 1.4% of the Facebook population on the day of the announcement.
As well as indicating a noticeable increase in reach, SoMA also offers insight into the demographic audiences that heard about Morrisons on each of the networks. For example, on Twitter 56% of those who heard about Morrisons were male, while on Facebook 58% of those who heard about Morrisons were female.
Perhaps most significantly, we know that on Twitter 20% of those who heard about the company were from the north, where Morrisons is the dominant supermarket brand, while on Facebook fully half (50%) of those who heard about Morrisons were from the north.
What this analysis indicates is that while the same message can be heard on different social networks, different demographic audiences were exposed to Morrisons on Facebook and Twitter. Knowing what audiences are exposed on Facebook and Twitter is a unique insight that could be harnessed to effectively navigate a PR crisis. Not only is this important in effectively dealing with ad-hoc PR issues, but having an intimate knowledge of its social media audiences could be used by Morrisons to formulate a social media campaign strategy that targets particular audiences on different social media channels.
