Social Media Competitive Analysis and Text Mining

As more Americans use Facebook as one of their primary sources of news consumption, television broadcasters have increasingly added this social media platform in their distribution strategies for program optimization and audience engagement. Within a local market, media outlets not only need to monitor and analyze their own social media content and online audience behavior but also their competitors to increase competitive advantage. This study proposes a social media competitive analysis framework with three aspects: social media utilization, social media content strategy, and social media news engagement. By applying the analytics framework, this study examines the dynamic Facebook competition among five local television stations within a designated market area (DMA) in the U.S. The results show two divergent social media deployment patterns among these five local television broadcasters. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed to help media organizations develop their own social media strategies and gain competitive advantages over their opponents.