Among fast casual restaurants, Applebee’s generated the largest online impact between November 2010 and January 2011, according to the latest quarterly report on the segment from media measurement technology firm General Sentiment.
Applebee’s realized online exposure that would translate to more than $9.5 million if purchased through traditional media. Its buzz was driven in large part by its addition of three new Weight Watchers-endorsed entrées (it already offered two), according to the report.
General Sentiment tracks volume of mentions across online news media, social media and Twitter and factors in positive and negative sentiment to calculate purchase equivalent media values.