As was similarly the case in Boston, the New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade lost one of its major sponsors, Guinness. The deliciously thick Irish brew opted out of its sponsorship after parade organizers ran into the same problems those of the Boston parade did: allowing LGBT organizations to march at their own discretion.
Boston favorite Sam Adams declined to sponsor Southie’s annual St. Patrick’s Day parade after the local brewer was boycotted by the likes of Club Cafe, which refused to serve Sam Adams beer in protest.
Local social media analytics company Crimson Hexagon, which guzzles Twitter data the way you did frosty cold ones throughout the weekend, found that between March 14 and 17 the Sam Adams situation was met with both support and opposition, though, more for the former.
The word cloud and topic wheel show that some of most mentioned keywords include: Samuel Adams Beer, Support, LGBT, Equality, Gays, Exclusion, and Support.
Between that same timeframe, @SamuelAdamsBeer, the official Twitter account for what’s arguably Boston Beer Co.’s most popular alcoholic concoction, gained a three percent increase in followers. Though three percent seems such a minuscule statistic, keep in mind that a three percent gain for the Twitter handle equates to approximately 1,000 new followers.
Total engagement – an aggregate of total retweets, replies and mentions – skyrocketed to near 1,500 on Friday, March 14, when it became known that Sam Adams would cede its sponsorship. The following day, total engagement hovered just over 1,000.
But what’s perhaps most enlightening is how divided Tweets were on the subject. Using a library of keywords categorized in terms of positive and negative sentiment, Crimson Hexagon was able to determine how many Tweets about Sam Adams were cast in a good light, as well as a poor one.
They were able to determine that the majority of Tweets were positive, though, close to 500 were negative. That trend continued throughout the rest of the weekend into Monday morning.
Overall, the data determines that Sam Adams made the popular move, standing strong with the likes of Mayor Marty Walsh who also declined to participate in the parade.
Have your own thoughts about Sam Adams dropping out of the parade? Feel free to share your ideas in the comments section below.
