Last Tuesday, it was my pleasure to moderate a panel discussion, sponsored by Tracx, about sentiment analysis. Our panel included Frank Cotignola, CIM, Global Analytics and Digital Insights at Mondelez; Cheryl Contee, CEO at Fission Strategy and co-Founder of Attentive.ly; and Eric Forst, Vice President, Client Services at Tracx.
We had an extraordinarily engaged audience, who asked a number of questions (too many to answer in the hour) around the application of sentiment analysis, its implementation for brands trying to understand the ways they are currently viewed, the variables of Natural Language Processing, and the opportunities that are present in joining conversations that are potentially important to the brand.
Cotignola presented a strong use case with an analysis of GlutenFree, and Cheryl showed us some of the work Attentive.ly had done for a political campaign in Colorado, so our discussion was grounded in real-world examples. Other key takeaways:
· Sentiment analysis is going beyond brand listening and is not a replacement for traditional research, but rather, a starting point;
· There is a need to start broad with sentiment tools and then narrow in, and how many teams don't know how to overcome this challenge;
· Sentiment analysis can result in a complete re-orientation on how to go about research;
· Brands should see how they fit into conversations that are happening (ex. "Gluten free"), rather than the other way around.
· Sentiment analysis can be very valuable in identifying influencers and in recruiting them based on an intelligent understanding of their interests.
For the full recording and slides, check out the replay here. To follow the play-by-play Twitter action, just read the following Storify:
image: sentiment analysis / shutterstock