Comparing Online Brand Conversations (Sports Apparel)

Over a long enough period of time, maps of who is talking with whom mostly look the same.  Many conversations start to overlap with each other, and eventually you see a large central core and any number of outliers.

However if you look over short enough periods, you can see patterns of how those conversations start to merge.  And, you can tell a lot.  Easily.

Brand A
Brand B

Here we have a mapping of conversation partners mentioning two of the top sports apparel manufacturers, measured over the same period. Compare the shapes of Brand A (on left) to Brand B.

Brand B (on right) has a few larger clusters of conversation, lightly linked together by a few individuals participating in a number of the conversations.

Brand A has a lot of smaller conversations, interspersed with a handful of larger dense clusters; all webbed together in wide mesh.

So which is better?

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