Clorox employs social media tool to track flu trends

 

 

OAKLAND, Calif. - Based on a study of online flu conversations that showed a strong correlation between these conversations and actual flu cases last year, Clorox launched a cold and flu conversation tracker that is a social predictor of the flu. People tweet about the flu before they treat it, so they may be sharing more than 140 characters offline.

 

The Clorox Cold & Flu Pulse analyzes millions of conversations in real time and reports how cold and flu is trending online, including what topics are being discussed, top cities where it's trending, and tips related to the current virality of the cold and flu. Clorox is using the Bottlenose Stream Intelligence system to find the words, hashtags and topics about cold and flu that define a trend and measure conversation volume. 

 

In the study of flu conversations, Clorox worked with Jonah Berger, social media expert and bestselling author of "Contagious: Why Things Catch On." By identifying trends in flu conversation online, Clorox will help consumers identify predictors of increased flu activity and take steps to #stopthespread of the flu offline.

 

"We aimed to uncover what people talk and share about online when it comes to the flu and see if there is a link to flu virality offline," said Berger. "Our findings reveal a strong correlation between the two. Online flu conversation tends to spike a week earlier than number of flu cases confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."

 

Online conversations about flu prevention also peaked before the flu was most severe, underlining the importance of prevention throughout cold and flu season.