“Portland Beer Week” Marketing on Twitter

 

This report looks at the social media presence of Greater Portland craft brewery tasting rooms on twitter during “Portland Beer Week”.

The 5th Annual Portland Beer Week is a series of events celebrating everything craft beer and run from November 6th - 12th 2016.

 

Loading Brewery Tasting Room Data

Link to the data: brewery_location.xlsx

Note: The link to the data works fine in the knit .html version but does not open in RPubs.

To view the data in RPubs: right-click the link and select “open link in a new tab”.

 

Load the brewery location data and obtain geocode information.
Create a data frame isolating breweries located in the Greater Portland area.

 

#Read in Location Name Vector .xlsx
breweryLoc <- read_excel ("brewery_location.xlsx")

#Isolate Greater Portland Breweries
breweryLoc <- breweryLoc %>% 
  select(name,location,screen_name) %>% 
  #grep only greater Portland records
  filter(grepl('04101|04102|04103|04106|04092', location))

#Obtain Geocode Batch Data
geoBatch <- data.frame(cbind(breweryLoc, geocode(breweryLoc$location)))

#Select the Pertinent Data
brew <- geoBatch %>%
  select(name, location, screenName = `screen_name`, lat, lon)
  
#Convert the screen names to all lower case
brew$screenName <- tolower(brew$screenName)

#Sort by name
brew <- brew %>% arrange(name)

#View the New Table minus the "lat" and "lon" fields
pander((brew %>% select(Name = name, Location = location, `Screen Name` = screenName)),
       justify="left",
       caption="Greater Portland Craft Breweries")
Greater Portland Craft Breweries
Name Location Screen Name
Allagash Brewing Company 50 Industrial Way, Portland, ME 04103 @allagashbrewing
Austin Street Brewery 1 Industrial Way, Portland, ME 04103 @austinstbrewery
Bissell Brothers Brewing Company 4 Thompsons Point, Portland, ME 04102 @bissellbrosbrew
Bunker Brewing Company 122 Anderson St, Portland, ME 04101 @bunkerbrewingco
Fore River Brewing Co. 45 Huntress Ave, South Portland, ME 04106 @foreriverbrew
Foundation Brewing Company 1 Industrial Way, Portland, ME 04103 @foundationbrew
Geary Brewing Company 38 Evergreen Dr, Portland, ME 04103 @gearybrewing
Lone Pine Brewing 219 Anderson St, Portland, ME 04101 @lonepinebeer
Mast Landing Brewing Company 920 Main St, Westbrook, ME 04092 @mastlanding
Oxbow Blending and Bottling 49 Washington Ave, Portland, ME 04101 @oxbowportland
Rising Tide Brewing Company 103 Fox St, Portland, ME 04101 @risingtidebeer
Shipyard Brewing Company 86 Newbury St, Portland, ME 04101 @shipyardbrewing

 

Twitter Authentication and Data Acquisition

#Set Environment Variable:  echo = FALSE
knitr::opts_chunk$set(echo = FALSE, warning=FALSE, message=FALSE, results="hide")

The Twitter authentication code is hidden for security purposes

#Download 1000 Tweets containing the hashtag: #207beerweek  
num_tweets <- 1000
beerWeek <- searchTwitter('#207beerweek', n = num_tweets)

#Convert the list of Tweets to a Data Frame
beerWeek_df <- twListToDF(beerWeek)

#Add the "@" symbol to the screenName
beerWeek_df$screenName <- sub("^", "@", beerWeek_df$screenName)

#To preserve the original set of twitter data
#beerWeek_df was exported to a .csv file
##write.csv(beerWeek_df, file = "beerWeek_df.csv",row.names=FALSE)
#while preserving the download code.

#The saved static data is imported here
beerWeek_df <- read_csv("beerWeek_df.csv")

 

Active Users of hashtag #207beerweek

#Set Environment Variable:  echo = TRUE
knitr::opts_chunk$set(echo = TRUE, warning=FALSE, message=FALSE)

#Displays the top 10 and the % of Tweeets
percent_df <- beerWeek_df %>% 
  group_by(screenName) %>% 
  summarize(n = n()) %>%
  mutate(percent = round(100*(n/sum(n)),digits=2)) %>%
  arrange(desc(n))

#Added this to dress up the column headers
percent_df <- percent_df %>%
  select(`Screen Name` = screenName,
         `Number of Tweets Using #207beerweek` = n,
         `Percent(%) of Sampled Tweets` = percent)

#View the active users of hashtag #207beerweek
pander(head(percent_df, n=10),
       justify=c('left','center','center'),
       caption="Top 10 Users of hastag #207beerweek")
Top 10 Users of hastag #207beerweek
Screen Name Number of Tweets Using #207beerweek Percent(%) of Sampled Tweets
@207beerweek 100 20.58
@TheSquadrito82 31 6.38
@ActiveBeerGeek 28 5.76
@TheThirstyPig 20 4.12
@beerbabe 19 3.91
@GreatLostBear 17 3.50
@VlandDistribs 16 3.29
@lobsterboy3 11 2.26
@MastLanding 10 2.06
@cbc_portlandME 8 1.65

Looks like a missed opportunity for Most Portland Area breweries

The official sponsor 207beerweek seems to be doing their part by using the hashtag #207beerweek more than any other user.

Breweries in the Greater Portland area did not actively use the hashtag #207beerweek as demonstrated by the above list representing the top 10 screen names tweeting with #207beerweek.

 

Screen Names Using Hashtag #207beerweek

#Create Aggregate Table of ScreenNames
sn_df <- beerWeek_df %>% 
  select(screenName) %>% 
  mutate(num_sn = 1) %>%
  group_by(screenName) %>% 
  summarise_each(funs(sum))

#Create a wordcloud
pal1 <- brewer.pal(8,"Dark2") 
wordcloud(words = sn_df$screenName,
          freq = sn_df$num_sn,
          min.freq = 1,
          random.order=FALSE,
          width=1280,height=800,
          scale=c(3,.8),
          max.words = 200,
          colors=pal1)

Not many Greater Portland Area breweries appear to use hashtag #207beerweek

 

Screen Name Mentions for Tweets Using Hashtag #207beerweek

#Isolate the individual word tweeted
reg <- "([^A-Za-z\\d#@']|'(?![A-Za-z\\d#@]))"
words <- beerWeek_df %>%
  filter(!str_detect(text, '^"')) %>%
  mutate(text = str_replace_all(text, "https://t.co/[A-Za-z\\d]+|&amp;", "")) %>%
  unnest_tokens(word, text, token = "regex", pattern = reg) %>%
  filter(!word %in% stop_words$word,
         str_detect(word, "[a-z]"))

#Select only words with the "@" sybol
at_df <- words %>% select(screenName = `word`) %>% 
  filter(grepl("@",screenName)) %>% 
  mutate(num_at = 1) %>% 
  group_by(screenName) %>% 
  summarise_each(funs(sum))

#Create a wordcloud
wordcloud(words = at_df$screenName,
          freq = at_df$num_at,
          min.freq = 1,
          random.order=FALSE,
          width=1280,height=800,
          scale=c(3,.8),
          max.words = 200,
          colors=pal1)

A larger number of Greater Portland breweries do appear in the "@mentions" of #207beerweek

 

Tweets with Screen Name Mentions for Greater Portland Breweries

Note: Breweries with 0 mentions are not displayed in the table or barchart.

#filter out the NA values to show only breweries with mentions
set.alignment('left')
pander(brew_at_df %>%
         select(Name = name, `Screen Name`= screenName, Mentions = num_at) %>% 
         arrange(Name) %>% 
         filter(complete.cases(.)),
         justify=c('left','left','center'),
         caption="Greater Portland Breweries with @ mentions for hashtag #207beerweek"
       )
Greater Portland Breweries with @ mentions for hashtag #207beerweek
Name Screen Name Mentions
Allagash Brewing Company @allagashbrewing 10
Bissell Brothers Brewing Company @bissellbrosbrew 12
Bunker Brewing Company @bunkerbrewingco 4
Fore River Brewing Co. @foreriverbrew 9
Foundation Brewing Company @foundationbrew 9
Geary Brewing Company @gearybrewing 1
Lone Pine Brewing @lonepinebeer 2
Mast Landing Brewing Company @mastlanding 24
Oxbow Blending and Bottling @oxbowportland 5
Rising Tide Brewing Company @risingtidebeer 22
Shipyard Brewing Company @shipyardbrewing 2 
#filter out the NA values to show only breweries with mentions
ggplot(
  (brew_at_df %>%
  select(name, screenName, mentions = num_at)  %>% 
  filter(complete.cases(.))),
  aes(x=reorder(screenName,mentions), y= mentions)) + 
  geom_bar(stat="identity", fill="blue") + 
  xlab("Brewery Screen Name") +
  ylab("Mentions") + coord_flip() +
  theme_few() + ggtitle("Number of Mentions per Brewery")

A good marketing goal would be to maximize mentions.

 

Greater Portland Breweries Usage of hashtag #207beerweek

Note: Breweries that did not use hashtag #207beerweek are not displayed in the table or barchart.

#filter out the NA values to show only breweries with mentions
set.alignment('left')
pander(brew_sn_df %>%
         select(Name = name, `Screen Name` = screenName, `Hashtag Usage` = num_sn) %>% 
         arrange(`Name`) %>% 
         filter(complete.cases(.)),
       justify=c('left','left','center'),
         caption="Greater Portland Breweries with @ mentions for hashtag #207beerweek.")
Greater Portland Breweries with @ mentions for hashtag #207beerweek.
Name Screen Name Hashtag Usage
Bunker Brewing Company @bunkerbrewingco 1
Geary Brewing Company @gearybrewing 1
Rising Tide Brewing Company @risingtidebeer 3

Note: At the start of this project there were 3 records in the table.

The volume of tweets is dependant on the most recent cached Twitter data and the folling bar chart is not very interesting with only two objects.

#filter out the NA values to show only breweries with mentions
ggplot((brew_sn_df %>%
select(name, screenName, Hashtag_Usage = num_sn) %>% 
arrange(desc(screenName)) %>% 
filter(complete.cases(.))),
aes(x=reorder(screenName,Hashtag_Usage), y=Hashtag_Usage)) +
  geom_bar(stat="identity", fill="blue") +
  xlab("Brewery Screen Name") +
  ylab("Number of Times #207beerweek was Used") + coord_flip() +
  theme_few() + ggtitle("Usage of Hashtag #207beerweek per Brewery")

Not many of the Greater Portland Breweries used the hashtag #207beerweek

The social media presense of Greater Portland craft brewery tasting rooms on twitter during “Portland Beer Week” represents a missed opportunity.

Maximizing usage of the hashtag #207beerweek during Portland Beer Week would likely increase their Mentions.

By simply tweeting their respective marketing material with the hashtag #207beerweek a few times a day, breweries could spread better awareness of their products.

If you are interested in visiting any of the Greater Portland craft brewery tasting rooms, you can locate them on the map below.

 

Location of Greater Portland Craft Brewery Tasting Rooms

#Create popup meta data
brew_popup <- paste("<strong>Name: </strong>",ptld_df$name,
                      "<br><strong>Address:</strong>",ptld_df$location,
                      "<br><strong>Twitter Handle: </strong>",ptld_df$screenName,
                      "<br><strong>Number of Mentions: </strong>",ptld_df$num_at,
                      "<br><strong>Hashtag Usage: </strong>",ptld_df$num_sn)

#Create a Map and Insert Markers from ptld_df
leaflet(data = ptld_df) %>% addTiles() %>%
  setView(lng = -70.303, lat = 43.68, zoom = 12) %>%
  #Insert Third Party Tiles
  addProviderTiles("Esri.DeLorme") %>% 
  #Add Markers and Pop-up Data
  addMarkers(~lon, ~lat, popup = ~brew_popup)

 

Thank Your for Your Time