Results

Given enough sales data, we can explore correlations between social media buzz and actual sales. We can also align rises and falls in social media buzz to marketing and PR calendars.

Movies

With over 200 movies in our system, we have created modeling systems to make box office predictions based on our social media data. Our forecasting algorithms use raw volume of positive, negative and neutral social media chatter, the average box office for the particular weekend (averaged over the last 5 years), the number of screens a movie is appearing on, and genre averages.

Based on social media buzz, average box office for the weekend and number of screens, our R^2 for estimated openings is .77. We then layer in genre and comps to refine our weekly predictions, which are available for subscribers on Tuesdays. Earlier prediction ranges are available up to 3 weeks before opening weekend.

A few examples:
Movie Title	Fizziology Estimates	Actual Box Office
MegaMind	$45 - $47 million	$46 million
No Strings Attached	$19.5 million	$20.3 million
The Other Guys	$35.5 million	$35.8 million
Dear John	$29.5 million	$30.4 million
Paranormal Activity 2	$38.1 million	$40.6 million
Easy A	$18.4 million	$17.7 million

While no perfect crystal ball exists (since a multitude of factors – from reviews to weather – influence box office), social media is proving to be a reliable predictor of box office success. Each of the above examples was a surprise to traditional tracking services, but Fizziology was able to accurately estimate performance.