Subject areaData and infrastructure
Also known assentiment analysis
Sentiment is the emotional tone in which people talk online about a brand, a product or a topic.
Sentiment analysis is the software that reads it in comments and reviews, usually classifying them as positive, negative or neutral, using machine learning algorithms. The result complements social listening (the organised monitoring of online conversations) and gives a measure of brand reputation.
It matters because volume alone misleads: many mentions can signal success or crisis, and only the tone tells them apart. The limit is language: irony, slang and sector nuances often confuse the software, so on an important case the automatic classification is checked by reading a sample of comments.
An example
After the launch of a new power tool, online mentions rise and it looks like good news. Sentiment analysis shows that many comments complain about the battery, and the company acts before the problem reaches its resellers.
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Enrico Giubertoni. Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0: you may quote, translate and adapt this entry with the author’s name and a link, stating any changes. For commercial use, write to info@enricogiubertoni.com
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