Be ‘Fluent’, capture the sentiment
Jinfo Blog

5th March 2010

By Joanna Ptolomey

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Late last year we saw the arrival of the ‘Google Sidewiki’ and I pondered the effects on brand reputation for the LiveWire [http://www.vivavip.com/go/e25260]. The reality is that Sidewiki is just one of many tools for measuring sentiments about brands or social influence marketing. If you are unfamiliar with sentiment analysis or social influence marketing you could no worse that reading the Fluent report by the Razorfish group [http://digbig.com/5bbefy]. This report captures the essence of the social media live steaming content world in which we live in today. It is not just about advertising but feelings and actions. Think Tiger Woods, Kraft takeover of Cadbury and comments surrounding the recent Apple i-Pad launch…..what are people thinking, feeling and saying? This information is priceless. With the ramping up of election talk in the UK you can hardly miss the sentiments as seen on a daily basis in the news and other media streams. Capturing the sentiment about politicians and parties (and our reactions and feelings) such as via live steaming tweets is important, but I have been recently reminded of the work of pollsters too. BBC news programme ‘Hardtalk’ on the 2nd March 2010 delves into the pollster world with an interview with Ben Page of IPSOS Mori. So can we trust pollsters and how are they measuring sentiment? View via the BBC i-player at http://digbig.com/5bbegd. Social media tools, such as LexisNexis Analytics and general web 2.0 applications are just what they are…..tools. But there needs to be a greater understanding of what this means – we are no longer looking for facts about people, industries, brands. We want the feelings. And although a New York Times article [http://digbig.com/5bbege] thinks we can translate the vagaries of human emotion into hard data, it is far from being an accurate science yet. Sentiment analysis may have been ramped up a notch in 2009 and into 2010 but there is more to it than tools. Powerful messages being pushed out using a social media tool is not enough. Brands will require more direct and meaningful conversation with their stakeholders. There is also big questions around trust, credibility and content appropriateness too. There is no doubt that this is a growth area and there is a plethora of tools available including Scout Labs, Jodange, Newssift, Sysomos, Backtype, Mood analysis, Evri and Tweetfeel, twendz, twitrratr (taking the pulse of twitter users). In Fumsi we have had some great contributions on measuring sentiment and engaging directly with stakeholders. In the USE practice area - Construction PR and marketing: leveraging web 2.0 tools http://web.fumsi.com/go/article/use/4470 and Pharmaceutical industry: a discovery led approach to social media http://web.fumsi.com/go/article/use/4436. Are you fluent yet…..get in touch with your sentiments.

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