Exploring social media data to understand consumers' perception of eggs: A multilingual study using Twitter

Abstract Since Twitter covers a broad spectrum of topics, this study aimed to evaluate the consumer perception of an agri‐food product using its data as source of information. The keyword “eggs” was searched in different languages (English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese) and a content analysis was performed in tweets that had terms referring to the product in a food context. Although most of the perceptions regarding the use/consumption of eggs were shared among the languages, some differences could be highlighted such as the period of consumption of eggs or important concerns related to the product, such as quality, animal welfare, special diets, and price. In conclusion, we can highlight the use of Twitter as a practical source of information about consumers' perception of eggs and a dynamic tool to guide the different agents in the egg production chain. These findings can drive improvements both in zootechnical procedures (such as the way chickens were raised, feed formulation, egg processing, etc.), egg quality assurance, as well as identifying global or targeted trends in the poultry sector. Practical Application Social media has emerged as an important tool to obtain market and consumption trends around the world, attracting special attention from academics and scientists in the consumer research area. Among them, Twitter stands out, which is easy to use and a pertinent crowdsourcing platform for acquire spontaneous information elicited in real‐life situations. This is the first multilingual study available for the public on consumer's trends on eggs using Twitter and we believe that can be used by producers and traders in the egg production chain to improve production variables and quality parameters, as well as to invest in marketing strategies that are global or targeted at the different segments of egg consumers.