Social Media Mavenism: How celebrity chefs appeal to consumers on Twitter

In this paper, we investigate the communication of celebrity chefs on Twitter and its effect on consumers’ responses. We demonstrate that the analysis of big data can be used to explain relationships, and not just to develop propositions. Drawing on the notion of the market maven to underpin the research, we suggest that celebrity chefs on social media are perceived as market mavens, and a source of food related consumer information for their audiences on Twitter. We collected data from the Twitter accounts of three world famous chefs, analyse their Tweets and the impact on followers in terms of Re-Tweets. We look at the person Tweeting, whether the content is original, the structure of and content of the Tweets in terms of how language is used. The results indicate that consumers prefer to spread content that is delivered with expertise and confidence. Consumers also seem to prefer bad news over good news. That is, they seem to prefer content that is confronting rather than conforming.