Social media warms up to Momentum after hitting sentiment low of -98%

Momentum scored points on social media on Tuesday evening when it announced that it would pay a life policy claim to Durban widowDenise Ganas.

The negative sentiment against the insurance giant dropped on social media from 98% to 68% overnight.

Acumen Media's analysis showed that by 10pm on Tuesday night social media users were not hating Momentum as much as they did during the day.

Social media analyst Tonya Khoury told TimesLIVE that in 98% of online conversations about Momentum on Tuesday, social media users expressed disgust, anger, surprise and sadness at the insurance company’s decision not to pay Ganas.

"Momentum’s net sentiment dropped to an all-time low of -98% in a seven-day period with people speculating that the damage to their brand will be worth more than R2,4m." 

"We had similar statistics on Tiger Brands with listeriosis. I think the Tiger Brands story made more of an impact because it went on for a long time. There was a great deal of positive sentiment from the market for the Ganas family," Khoury said.

Close to 80% of those angry at Momentum were parents. Most of them were men.

The most popular tweet came from EFF leader Julius Malema. It was retweeted 1,600 times and with an overall engagement of 5,400 within 24 hours.

"It started with a newspaper article and then a radio interview was the final straw.  The social media justice mob took hold and would not let go.

"Within hours Julius Malema sent a tweet to say 'they have been warned'.  It became the top social media conversation within seconds and social media was baying for blood. People started to talk about cancelling policies and how we can’t let the bullies win," Khoury said.

Statistics show that the #momentummustfall hashtag also crossed international borders.

Seventeen percent of the hashtag was used by Americans, and 4.1% came out of Germany.

However, by Wednesday morning the hashtag itself started to fall after Momentum buckled to social media pressure and announced it would pay Ganas.

"The reputational damage is already done and it will take Momentum a long time to recover from this situation, but it has also highlighted a brand-new trend #SocialMediaJustice," Khoury said.

The insurance company initially refused to pay out the R2.4m life-cover claim.

Nathan Ganas was shot dead in a hijacking outside his Durban home in March last year. However, the company said that Ganas had not disclosed his high blood-sugar levels at the time of signing the contract in 2014 and his contract was therefore void.

After his widow contested the company's decision, Momentum said it would refund all of the premiums Ganas had paid and would retract its demand for the return of the R50,000 it had paid Denise to cover funeral expenses. It then capitulated and said it would pay out the entire R2.4m.