Getting insight or getting lost? An integrated mixed-method approach to social media discourse and its impact on marketing decision-making

Scholars agree that web 2.0 is a mine of important information for companies, representing a privileged observatory to explore spontaneous discourse among consumers. However studying web 2.0 interactions and discourse is not easy and there is no current consensus on procedures for doing so. In fact, web 2.0 analysis for marketing research purposes is still at an early stage and usually follows a bricolage approach. On the basis of these premises, we have adopted a mixed-method approach to map consumer discourse related to brands in social media contexts. This integrated approach appears promising as an ecological and insightful analysis of the web 2.0 discourse arena. Here we discuss the results from a study aimed at mapping web 2.0 exchanges among Italian consumers regarding a brand of well-known Italian soft drink over a period of 6 months. The different steps of the study and the methodological choices made are discussed in detail