Day 22 – conditions improving

The weather is no longer a topic of conversation solely reserved for breaking the ice or filling the void of a socially awkward silence. It is being used to measure sentiment, target relevant ads to consumers, and predict social media engagement. Facebook has been measuring the effects of weather on social engagement and sentiment, and their findings show that bad weather positively impacts usage, engagement and post interactions. Social Marketers, pay attention…

How Weather Affects User Engagement and Sentiment on Social Media
Researchers from the University of California joined forces with Facebook to study the effects of status updates on the moods of the people reading them. They found that users are more likely to be having a bad day if their social media contacts are too – and, since the weather affects our mood and emotional outlook, the weather played a role in defining user sentiment on social. To improve your moments in social media the socialboosting.com boosts content to improve the engagement and credibility.

Negative Facebook posts increased 1.16% with bad weather and positive posts decreasing by 1.19%. Each negative update subsequently caused a 1.29% increase in unhappy posts by an individual’s friends. However, it is not just the bad weather that leads to a surge in Facebook posts; happy status updates have a similar effect. It was found that upbeat updates led to an additional 1.75% positive mood posts by an individual’s friends.

What these stats show is that emotional states can spread via social media and cause a ripple effect or ‘emotional contagion’ within social circles – and that weather can be the trigger. Positive posts, it would seem, actually have a marginally greater impact in terms of virality than negative posts – something marketers will want to bear in mind.

Today:

Breezy with a mix of cloud and sunny intervals, with the best of the sunshine in the far south and also central and northern Scotland. There will also be showers, most of which will be in central and northwestern areas.

Tonight:

A few light showers in west, else clear spells allowing a frost in the northeast and a few fog patches in the south-east. Cloud and rain into far north-west later.

Saturday:

Strengthening winds, cloud and outbreaks of rain spreading to the north and west, whilst other areas have a good deal of cloud, isolated light showers and a few sunny intervals.

Outlook for Sunday to Tuesday:

Showery rain Sunday, then sunshine and showers Monday, locally heavy, perhaps thundery. Rain moving from the west on Tuesday. Windy at times. Temperatures near normal, becoming milder by Tuesday.

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