Sentiment Analysis and Its Application in Social Media

In the last decade, social media has grown immensely. Social media has seen a phenomenal growth and billions of people across the globe use it for sharing ideas and feedback and exchanging information with each other. Various social media channels like blogs, social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter etc. have made it easier for people to stay connected and updated. Various business houses have resorted to promote their brand and products and obtain customers’ feedback over social media.

Businesses make use of recommendations, reviews and other online expressions to market their products, capture upcoming opportunities and manage their goodwill. It is quite obvious that online opinion polls can either make or break an enterprise’s reputation. It is here, sentiment analysis comes into the picture. Sentiment analysis helps in determining the emotional temperament of reviewers and writers and helps to identify, extract or portray intuitive information, such as opinions, which may be expressed in a certain given piece of text or topic. Therefore, businesses should do an in-depth research and analysis to monitor and track their competitors over social media. They should work on the areas which need special attention and devise their plans and strategies accordingly.

Most marketers believe that there are no absolute means to measure sentiments. According to online strategist, Thomas Walker, you can understand the effectiveness of a business campaign by designing and running a campaign in such a way that it is able to connect to the sentiments of more and more people. Just in case, it fails to deliver, you should incorporate certain changes in the elements of your brand and focus on using the information available to make your brand reflect the changes that the supporters wish to see. Furthermore, if the feedback is still unfavorable, you can drill deeper down by using the sentiment analysis tools and investigate what didn’t work and in due course bring out the best in your brand by understanding what your customers expect of you. This would pave a new future for your business and establish the brand image in the customers’ minds.

Sentiment analysis is said to be a very instinctive process. If one person responds positively to a certain product of one brand, he may be either neutral or negative to another product of the same brand. It is imperative for businesses to have specific goals to examine online opinion which can be further analyzed spontaneously with the help of computer software using Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing (NLP).

Nevertheless, market monitoring experts, social media bloggers are always uncertain about considering automated sentiment analysis processes as accurate and superior. This is an ongoing debate as there can be no guarantee of accuracy and the degree of information extracted from the software is the positive, negative or neutral tone from the words alone. Therefore, businesses should try to analyze core beliefs and concentrate more on obtaining human viewpoints and should not completely depend on machines. Machines are not mature enough to measure the qualitative aspects of sentiment analysis. It is highly recommended to include human interactivity within the community and transmit the message. Noticeably, humans are more sensitive to emotions and can read between lines which automated services are not capable of.

Let’s explore one such fine example of sentiment analysis tool in social media marketing: Twitter Advanced Search

Twitter Advanced Search is a free online tool which aids in finding Tweets depending upon sentiment. To use this tool, you need to enter the desired keyword and tick the positive or negative checkbox. Keywords may either include brand names or product names etc. This would give you a valuable insight into the detailed structure of sentiments and update you about the experiences of a variety of reviewers-either good or bad. Good reviews or sentiments are always a motivating factor for any business. However, if the feedback is negative, you can capture the grievances of your customers and address them accordingly. Try to investigate what didn’t work and maneuver your product as per their requirement.

Conclusion

Sentiment analysis is an intuitive process. It becomes more meaningful and interesting as we dig deeper. Businesses can discover valuable information about their products and services from either human or automated analysis. Social media has empowered businesses across the globe to obtain the customers’ feedback and design the solutions for their problems in due course of time.