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Comparison matrix geometric index: A qualitative online reputation metric

Abstract:

Previous scientific studies as well as consulting firms have developed numerous Online Reputation Indices (ORIs), i.e. custom-tailored metrics intended to measure the emotions that people express towards a brand, product, or service in social media. These ORIs can provide useful information to assess the impact of marketing campaigns, social approval, and viral behavior of news and memes, among others. However, traditional ORIs are isolated metrics; thus, they are not suitable for determining the relative preference between two alternatives; e.g.: twice the number of “likes” does not imply that a given product is preferred two times as much as its competitor. This is an important constraint for ORIs, because stakeholders are driven to make relative and qualitative comparisons to weigh the alternatives’ value. Furthermore, relative comparisons are crucial for the systematic evaluation of alternatives in social decision making processes. The aim of this paper is to present a novel qualitative online reputation metric, a Comparison Matrix Geometric Index (CMGI), that considers both the accumulated emotions and the direct comparisons expressed in social media communications to infer the relative preferences among a set of alternatives.