Best Buy's Social Media Buzz Is Trending In The Wrong Direction

With Best Buy Co Inc BBY shareholders looking ahead to the company’s Q2 earnings due out before the market open on Tuesday, the latest data from TickerTags indicates the company’s social media buzz has taken a big hit.

TickerTags monitors social media sites to identify trends by searching for words and phrases that appear together in social media content, such as tweets.

Related Link: Waning Social Buzz Presaged Ruby Tuesday's Store Closures

Adjusting for a spike in mentions in Q2 2015 when Best Buy briefly sold $200 gift cards on its website for $15, total social media mentions of Best Buy were down 28 percent year-over-year in Q2.

In addition mentions of Best Buy in relation to its top product segments were all down more than 20 percent including TVs (-30 percent), phones (-24 percent), computers (-30 percent), cameras (-23 percent) and gaming (-31 percent).

Even mentions of the company’s popular Geek Squad tech service were down 19 percent in Q2.

While these trends are certainly disturbing for Best Buy investors, there is one possible silver lining. Best Buy recently started offering virtual reality (VR) demonstrations in its stores, and it really seems to have gotten the company some much-needed social media attention. Mentions of best Buy and VR are up 291 percent so far in 2016 compared to 2015.

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