SeaSalt Clothing is a mid-size company in Cornwall established in 1981, promoting sustainable and responsible clothing and were one of the first brands to use organic cotton for their clothes (SeaSalt, n.d.). They donate to many charities every year and are constantly fundraising for various causes such as the Fisherman’s Mission and other local projects (SeaSalt, n.d.).
Using Gephi, I am able to analyse the social network of SeaSalt’s Facebook page, focusing on the major categories of the pages they like, the degree of each node’s connectivity within the network, post activity and fan count. The graph below shows SeaSalt Facebook analysis in terms of the categories the pages they like fall into and the nodes degree. The categories of the pages SeaSalt likes are extremely varied, however the majority fall under Hotels, Non-profit organisations, communities and magazines. The degree of each page’s connectedness with other pages in the network shown via the size of each node is dense and very connected within some pages, mainly the local pages, and smaller with more popular pages unlikely to like local pages that SeaSalt likes. This can be seen with many of the smaller nodes on the outer edges to the left and bottom of the graph.
From this graph, I find it interesting that the company likes mainly local pages in and near Cornwall, such as the pages “Tall Ships Falmouth 2014”, “The Old Quay House Hotel”, “Dreaming of Cornwall” and other accounts that would most likely be of interest to the community living in and around that area. Based on the curves of the edges in the graph, it is evident that many of the local pages SeaSalt likes also like them back, including “Baker Tom’s”, “7th Rise” and “River Cottage”, which are local businesses in that area. According to their LinkedIn, SeaSalt has 500-1000 employees, which is interesting because at this size, the store would be at an expansion stage, which it has done with over 50 stores in the UK and 400 stockists in the UK and Europe. They however, are evidently attempting to stay close to their roots in Cornwall, only liking local pages with the exception of a few large brands like Good House Keeping and other popular magazines, to demonstrate their brand as an authentic, English seaside family brand.
When conducting diagnostics for the talked about count compared with their network, SeaSalt ranked 14th highest with just under 3,000 posts mentioning their brand. With over 66,000 likes on Facebook, this figure should be higher. SeaSalt is also only posting 0.11 times every hour, with little engagement. This could be improved with better social media strategy implementations and higher interaction between the brand and their consumers.
Seasalt. (n.d.). Our Responsibilities. [online] Available at: https://www.seasaltcornwall.co.uk/m/customer/pages/about/our-responsibilities [Accessed 2 Dec. 2017].
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