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It seems it is tough to have a “long term” relationship with anyone these days.

When it comes to switching conversation it’s focused on the “Big 4” (Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile). The battle for loyalty sways mightily as consumers take to social media to voice negativity about their experience and look for deals on new phones; all the while carriers try to “woo” customers and entice them to give them a chance. Let’s take a look at some of the biggest pain points driving consumers to consider switching.

:: Consistently Poor Performance

After too long with connectivity and speed issues consumer are looking for a change.

“@TMobile internet has been so bad lately im wondering if i can switch to 28.8k dialup. On the plus side im now taking bids from other cellular providers to get my business (must provide reliable internet). Dm me with offers. @verizon@sprint #notacceptable #beyonddone”

“@sprint 3 times since 8 am where I lost service. @TMobile@verizon @ATT I’ll switch TODAY if y’all pay my deactivation fee”

:: Troubling Customer Service

When customer service can’t provide the right support, the internet hears about it.

“@att has the worst customer service ever can’t reach them after 8, they don’t stand by what they tell you!! I want to switch ! @TMobile @verizon @sprint help”

:: No Love for Current Customers

The only way to get a deal on a new phone is to switch carriers…frustrating for sure.

“I call @ATT to upgrade my iPhone 6 to an iPhone X after 4 years. They offer me it for $450. I call them back and the price is now $1100. Which is better for you guys cuz it’s getting ridiculous and I’m low key thinking about switching @verizon @TMobile @sprint”

“BTW @sprint doesn’t do anything for their loyal customers either. Cellular is turning into cable/satellite where you have to switch every few years to get the “new subscriber” deal.”

“@TMobile @TMobileHelp disappointed all the good phone deals are always for new customers, or add a line Sad when you’ve be a loyal customer for over 6yrsand have 7 phone lines,the only way to get a good deal is to add another line really thinking about switching @ATT@verizon”

:: Carrier Attempts at Courtship

When carriers do their part to engage consumers results can be…well…hit or miss.

T-Mobile’s “National Break Up with Your Carrier Day”

“As America’s Most Loved Wireless Company, we know a little something about love…. So, we’ve OFFICIALLY trademarked 2/13 as National Break Up With Your Carrier Day. Our goal, to get you out of your loveless relationship with your carrier.” — John Legere, CEO of T-Mobile.

“Funny is being on #ATT & getting voicemails out of the blue six months after they were left, then going to #Verizon and being told I can’t have an account because I owned my iPhone outright. Went to #TMobile and signed up in under 10 minutes.” #MyFunnyBreakupStory

“@Sprint customers — are you ready for #SizzlingSprintSaturday this weekend? Now is the best time to #SwitchtoSprint and we’ve got a great offer to help you do it. https://sprint.co/2SwBfL0” — Michel Combes, CEO of Sprint

“How is this a deal for sprint customers if we have to switch????? Wouldn’t this be aimed at @TMobile @verizon and @ATT customers? Don’t know ur own customer base but you want us to believe you can deliver on a real 5G network?”

:: Loyalty Does Exist

While negativity dominates conversation, there are a few happy with their relationship.

“Yo listen guys, I’m w/ @verizon . I seriously need @TMobile @sprint and @ATTto stop putting ads on my feed. IM NOT LEAVING THE VERIZON NETWORK! That would be idiotic.”

audience.ai analyzes conversation just like this to develop data segments and leads for our Clients. Within the Switching a Phone category, we have segments of ‘cord cutters’, ‘carrier haters’, ‘heavy data users’, and more.

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:: Home Repair Hacks

“Don’t call a pro, be your own handy woman with these home repair hacks! By Blossom”

“Home is where the hacks are! Seven easy home repairs, from your cabinets to your stairs! By Blossom”

:: DIY Challenges

“OP used up all his DIY home maintenance luck in one project. RIP OP’s sanity during the next project.”

“I hate diy youtube videos that are like “i made this aquarium light for $20!!” but its like. The lights were free because they were refurbished from an old set that was $200 new. Stand was made from extra metal in the garage. Free. Wiring from home depot $20. Anyone can do it!”

:: DIY Inspiration

“Best way to remember what paint color you used. #paitingtip”

“Want to learn how to install hardwood floors? Lowe’s will show you all the steps from preparing sub floors through installation and finishing with trim. #DIY#Renovations #Maintenance #Home #Improvements” [YouTube Video]

“Oh, this is a total DIY project!!! Total cost, about $250–300. Lowes, Home Depot, get the kit.”

“Several people have shared that they are going to DIY some home upgrades this spring. PLEASE for the love of chocolate and sanity- check with the city FIRST and obtain proper permits! Here’s more on how to NOT build an expensive disaster [LINK]”

“Many thrifty homeowners would rather save a few bucks by taking on upgrades themselves (after a few hours binge-watching HGTV and YouTube tutorials, of course) than by calling in the professionals to install new floors or retile the bathroom. Paying the pros is basically throwing money away, right?

If done right, going DIY to fix up a property can lead to some hefty savings. But DIY fails can cost folks big time, according to a recent report from Porch, an online network that connects folks with home improvement professionals.”

“While you might be a dab hand with a paintbrush or can apply wallpaper like a pro, there are some home improvement projects you would be smart to avoid. It is common for some home-owners’ DIY dreams to get ahead of their skill-set, which can lead to damage to their property.”

“So, I just moved out of a shared rental & wanted to take my Ecobee with me so I uninstalled it yesterday. In the process, I somehow messed up the HVAC system such that it no longer works with either thermostat. Does anyone have any theories about how badly I might have messed up and what could be wrong? I’m probably going to hire a HVAC technician today, but I’m really frustrated that I couldn’t figure it out myself. :(“

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Home Movers + Renting

:: Roommates

:: Paying Rent

“can’t believe i have to start paying rent next year. this is the true broke life”

:: New Home

“First night at my new apartment and my feelings are all over the place… I’m kinda sad :(“


“Just spent my first night in my new apartment. Wow I’m so at peace”

“@hgtv House Hunters say a vanity is $1200… Pretty sure most are under $1000 at Home Depot or Lowe’s unless they go custom which is outrageous.”

“15 Ways to Save Money on a Home Renovation — https://buff.ly/2lPrKJ8#budget #DIY”

:: Looking for Inspiration

“Are you looking to redo your kitchen on a budget? Here are some great ideas to get you started. Patty Teachman RE/MAX Elite http://SearchingBrevardRealEstate.com http://www.trendir.com/update-your-kitchen-on-a-tight-budget/ …”

“Spray foam insulation nightmare: What can happen if it’s not installed c… https://youtu.be/0Hh5MYv7lWc via @YouTube”

:: Enjoyment of the Renovation Process

“Harbor Freight is like a grown dudes toy store haha. Have a great Sunday sir!”

:: Frustration with the Renovation Process

“When I realized my home improvement projects were stuck together by swear words just as much they were nails, screws, and glue.”

:: Finding the Right Contractors and Materials

Home Movers + Empty Nesters

:: New Purpose

“I have college age children. Its hard enough trying to keep children, who can now make adult decisions, happy, healthy and frankly from self-destructive behavior. Without the entire country criticising and scrutinizing every move.”

:: Love and Relationships

“And as an Empty Nester..about to turn 50…Hubby and I have been together..32 yrs…and Yupp..I am modest..but will say..the passion doesn’t stop…We Love.. and Argue…with Passion…you betcha!”

“Since I became an empty nester, I stopped cooking meals from scratch. Food is sustenance for me, but preparing food is an act of love for those I care about.”

“Just realizing that in 24 hours the girl will be in flight, on her way back to school. And that we won’t see her for another 4 (!) months. I’m happy to have had her home for 3 weeks, but I’m so sad to see her leave…again. I love being an empty nester but these goodbyes suck!”

Others posted about enjoying being empty nesters.

“Today, I officially became an empty nester. My soon to be 20 year old son just moved into his own apartment! 🥳 Why don’t we have #EmptyNest parties like we have #Babyshowers? I want that to be a thing!”

:: Downsizing

“Brand new empty nester here. I have a senior and fresh,an in college but they both work and school summers. House is big and quiet. I’m on my husband to sell and downsize.”

“I used to have a 3 bedroom 2,100 sq ft house on half an acre, and it owned me more than I owned it. Now I live in a 2 bedroom 1,000 sq ft apartment and it feels good. I’ll be an empty nester in three years, so I intend to move far from here, and downsize again. Maybe radically.”

“Yes it’s actually done. Just waiting on inspections now. I should be back the 1st of the year. Then, I’ll have a bunch of estate stuff to sell / clear & going to list & sell the place. Shouldn’t be hard w/80% renovated. heh. I’m an empty nester so downsizing to condo life. ;)”

Home Movers + HELOCs (Home Equity Line Of Credit)

:: Seeking and Sharing Knowledge, Looking for Help

“Home equity line of credit #HELOC research findings. Looks like we need to know more about this financial option #realestate #financialplanning”

“I added a video to a @YouTube playlist http://youtu.be/KquS98k1sjc?a A Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) Explained by RMLEFCU”

“I can’t seem to set a date, other than today’s date, to schedule a transfer of funds from my HELOC to my checking account. Am I missing something? I hate to have to remember to do something that technology could be scheduled to do for me.”

“Thank you! And I didn’t. I’m gonna take my time to finance the projects I want. I think I’ll be able to do one out of pocket, get another appraisal and get a HELOC to do the rest. I got a killer deal.”

“Beyond excited about my heloc!”

“I had a harebrained idea to swap your mortgage for a HELOC and then use it as your primary checking account so each paycheck gets optimum rate of return.”

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How The Flexibility Of Conversational Audiences Can Help You Win March Madness.

With tens of millions of people glued to TVs, computers, and smartphones during the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, advertisers are all fighting for their digital attention. At audience.ai we approach things a little bit differently than most to create the optimal digital targeting audiences to reach those (still) passionate eyes.

March Madness is in full swing. We are approaching the Sweet 16 and of the original 68 teams, only a portion remains. Brackets have been busted, people have lost interest, some are even on spring break and a more than a little pre-occupied.

At this point in the tournament, what are your options? You can leverage activity-based audiences built on people who navigated an NCAA website or app sometime in the last few months. Or even behavioral based segments of people who watched a basketball game in the past year. The problem with this is that by defining targets based on things that happened a long time ago there is a good chance you’re firing ads to people who no longer care about the tournament.

Cue audience.ai’s Conversational Audience approach and a Sweet 16 audience of over 10 million people that remain engaged. How do we know they are still engaged? They are still talking about it online. They are posting on social media celebrating their teams’ victories. They are cheering for their conferences to come out on top. Or even discussing who they need to advance in their brackets so they can earn those ever-important bragging rights.

We decided to create Conversational Audiences for three main reasons:

1. If you’re targeting online, why not create audiences of people very engaged online?
2. To connect advertisers to people who express interest in the content they’re creating
3. To be smarter and safer with the millions of dollars being poured into ad targeting

Our audience evolves at each major tournament milestone to include fans of teams that remain in the field, people still passionate about their brackets or NCAA basketball fans that are still excited about the games.  

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It’s official, one of the top 5 emotions expressed online about the game was boredom, not just for the game, but for the ads too. Only a SpongeBob meme saved the day… sort of.

This year’s Super Bowl sparked over 5.5 million social media posts, and by using a data science technique known as ‘conversational analysis’, we can see that ‘boredom’ was officially a top emotion felt by the viewers.

“73% of emotions were positive. The top emotions were: Success, Desire, Happiness, Boredom, Love. These conversations were held mostly (68%) by males.” — Mitchell Grunin @ Networked Insights / audience.ai

When we dive into the data, boredom was the predominant sentiment felt in 495,000 social posts on Sunday, relating largely to the low-scoring game and the two teams that were playing. In previous years the game is only one factor in the Super Bowl experience though, with the half time show and the commercials playing a big role in the general mood. However, even though brands managed to trigger 470,000 posts of their own this year, the data shows the audience was let down on that one too.

This year, the commercials just didn’t have the same sort of impact that they usually do. Sure, each year there are winners and losers, and everyone has their own feelings about what was good and what was bad, but this year, well, it was much more of a damp squib feeling across the board.

In search of some positive news, Budweiser’s “Bud Knight” ad campaign came to a dramatic finish and brought in elements from the hit show “Game of Thrones”, triggering a decent response from the audience.

And Disney got a huge boost in publicity after the Patriots Victory, when Tom Brady and Julian Edelman proclaimed, “We’re going to Disney World!” (they were actually seen at Disney world today.)

But, it was a unique campaign run by Redditors and social media users that was shining light.

On November 28th, 2018, Stephen Hillenburg, creator of SpongeBob SquarePants, passed away. This prompted a petition to play “Sweet Victory” (a song played by the titular character during the ‘Bubble Bowl’) during the half-time show. This petition rapidly circulated across the internet and eventually got over 1.2 million signatures.

During Maroon 5’s half-time show, a scene from the SpongeBob episode came on screen — and the “Sweet Victory” song began to play — only for it to be cut off by the introduction of Travis Scott’s “Sicko Mode.”

It could be argued that the movement had its moment of success and that any nod to their request during the most expensive airtime ever was a success, but the data reveals that the internet was not happy.

“On Twitter alone, there were 380K posts (38% highly negative) calling out the NFL for teasing and ultimately deceiving its fans.” — Mitchell Grunin @ Networked Insights / audience.ai

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Love, happiness, and desire might feel like natural emotions to associate with candy, but what about ‘success’, ‘remorse’, ‘amusement’ and ‘relief’? Using powerful AI to interpret what we say online, Networked Insights has spent the last decade perfecting its picture of how language translates to emotions, and how those strong emotions translate to actions, in this case, candy consumption!

By factoring in the volume and intensity of 38 emotions, we ranked how the nation really feels, state by state. And, well, as we might expect, emotions always reveal some very real curveballs!

Illinois is the most representative of the nation’s overall feelings ranking Snickers in the top spot, followed by Skittles and then Sour Patch Kids.

But Utah gets the warm and fuzzies for Ghirardelli, Minnesota just can’t show enough how much it loves Sweet Tarts, Montana is all about the Grandparent’s favorite, Werther’s Original, and Arkansas must be watching its figure with its passion for…. 5 Gum!

What does your state love? Check our complete ranking….

Alabama — (1st) Reese’s (2nd) Twix (3rd) Kit Kat

Alaska — (1st) Snickers (2nd) Sour Patch Kids (3rd) Twix

Arizona — (1st) Skittles (2nd) Sour Patch Kids (3rd) Big Red

Arkansas — (1st) Twizzlers (2nd) Skittles (3rd) 5 Gum

California — (1st) Air Heads (2nd) Twizzlers (3rd) Sour Patch Kids

Colorado — (1st) Skittles (2nd) Snickers (3rd) Twix

Connecticut — (1st) Almond Joy (2nd) Twizzlers (3rd) Smarties

Delaware — (1st) Reese’s (2nd) Twizzlers (3rd) Snickers

Florida — (1st) Twix (2nd) Skittles (3rd) Jolly Rancher

Georgia —(1st) Skittles (2nd) Twix (3rd) Twizzlers

Hawaii — (1st) Kit Kat (2nd) Sour Patch Kids (3rd) Big Red

Idaho — (1st) Butterfinger (2nd) Hershey’s (3rd) Red Vines

Illinois — (1st) Snickers (2nd) Skittles (3rd) Sour Patch Kids

Indiana — (1st) Reese’s (2nd) Hershey’s (3rd) Twix

Iowa — (1st) Baby Ruth (2nd) Kit Kat (3rd) Snickers

Kansas —(1st) Jolly Rancher (2nd) Sour Patch Kids (3rd) Skittles

Kentucky — (1st) Swedish Fish (2nd) Skittles (3rd) Sour Patch Kids

Louisiana — (1st) Airheads (2nd) Skittles (3rd) Smarties

Maine — (1st) Red Vines (2nd) Starburst (3rd) Twizzlers

Maryland — (1st) Reese’s (2nd) Swedish Fish (3rd) Skittles

Massachusetts — (1st) Hershey’s (2nd) Reese’s (3rd) Snickers

Michigan — (1st) Starburst (2nd) Skittles (3rd) Twizzlers

Minnesota —(1st) Tarts (2nd) Tootsie Pops (3rd) Starburst

Mississippi — (1st) Snickers (2nd) Skittles (3rd) Starburst

Missouri — (1st ) Hershey’s (2nd) Twix (3rd) Reese’s

Montana —(1st ) Kit Kat (2nd) Werther’s Original (3rd) Jolly Rancher

Nebraska — (1st) Hershey’s (2nd) Reese’s (3rd) Snickers

Nevada — (1st) Skittles (2nd) Jolly Ranchers (3rd) Smarties

New Hampshire — (1st) Butterfinger (2nd) Snickers (3rd) Milky Way

New Jersey — (1st) Snickers (2nd) Hershey’s (3rd) Reese’s

New Mexico — (1st) Snickers (2nd) Twix (3rd) Kit Kat

New York — (1st) Sour Patch Kids (2nd) Snickers (3rd) Skittles

North Carolina — (1st) M&Ms (2nd) Snickers (3rd) Reese’s

North Dakota — (1st) Skittles (2nd) Starburst (3rd) M&Ms

Ohio — (1st) Airheads (2nd) Skittles (3rd) Smarties

Oklahoma — (1st) Skittles (2nd) Twix (3rd) Kit Kat

Oregon — (1st) M&Ms (2nd) Reese’s (3rd) Snickers

Pennsylvania — (1st) Twizzlers (2nd) Kit Kat (3rd) Jolly Rancher

Rhode Island — (1st) Butterfinger (2nd) Hershey’s (3rd) Twix

South Carolina — (1st) Kit Kat (2nd) Hershey’s (3rd) M&Ms

South Dakota — (1st) Tootsie Pops (2nd) Andes (3rd) Snickers

Tennessee — (1st) Twix (2nd) Snickers (3rd) Reese’s

Texas —(1st) Sour Patch Kids (2nd) Skittles (3rd) Jolly Rancher

Utah — (1st) Skittles (2nd) Snickers (3rd) Ghirardelli

Vermont — (1st) Starburst (2nd) Skittles (3rd) Jolly Rancher

Virginia — (1st) Reese’s (2nd) Hershey’s (3rd) Kit Kat

Washington — (1st) Sour Patch Kids (2nd) Skittles (3rd) Snickers

West Virginia — (1st) Snickers (2nd) Sour Patch Kids (3rd) Smarties

Wisconsin — (1st) Snickers (2nd) Reese’s (3rd) Skittles

Wyoming — (1st) Kit Kat (2nd) Jolly Ranchers (3rd) Reese’s

Learn more about using emotions to help your brand conduct audience research or find new segments of audiences for targeting: Why We All Need A “LOVE / HATE” Relationship With Targeting Data)