7 Deadly Sins of Sentiment Analysis

When it comes to monitoring and measuring social media there are plenty of tools to choose from ranging from the entirely free to the incredibly pricey. Generally, you will get what you pay for on the lower end of the spectrum, but the value really tends to vary once you cross over the $500 per month threshold.

As firehose data access becomes increasingly commoditized, it is the depth of analysis that truly differentiates these solutions. Terms like natural language processing (NLP), text analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI) have become all the rage. However, it is sentiment analysis that has received the most hype and it is frightening how often it is abused.

The following will examine some critical mistakes to avoid when analyzing sentiment…

+0.02 on Google +1

When it comes to social, Google has failed to successfully execute. As captivating as Wave initially sounded, it turned out to be nothing more than a learning experience. Many feel the premature timing may have prevented it from living up to its hype. Getting there too early can be equally as devastating as being late to the party like the recent Buzz-kill that will never catch up to Twitter’s traction. Despite previous attempts at social, Google +1 certainly has the search expertise to back any efforts they decide to launch. What can we expect as Google strategically ventures deeper into “social search”? Is this the unofficial beginning of “Google Circles”?

REPUTATIONology

The emergence of the internet may have given anyone in the world a unique voice, but it is the recent proliferation of social graphs that have given these voices both credibility and real-time reach. The once fragmented shouting match of the Web has now been refined to personalized networks, organized communities, and unique identities. People are now able to instantly reach out to anyone with a shared interest, passion, friend, location, etc. Uncensored peer reviews offer more trustworthy opinions than the neatly packaged 30-second Madison Ave propaganda of the past.

Making the Most of Your Data

Dear Corporate Baby Boomers: crank-up your hearing aids and accept social technologies or get out of the way. Actionable insights are just waiting to be mined in these increasingly vocal conversations. There’s no more hiding and running away will only make things worse. People will find you and people will talk about you. How could you not want to hear what they have to say and make the most out of all the available data?

Social Media Monitoring: 6 Critical Questions to Address

As social media continues to evolve exponentially, keeping track of it even at a personal level becomes a difficult task. You can imagine how much more involved this can be for an entire company or brand to make sense of all this data. The following post examines 6 critical questions that arise when attempting to monitor social media.

Can Net Promoter Score Transform Your Business?

The questions is Can Net Promoter Score (NPS) Transform Your Business? According to Charles Schwab, Yes! In their recent video interview with management consultancy Bain & Company, they discussed the impact of NPS on their business. For those who are not familiar with NPS, it’s a company loyalty metric calculated by subtracting the % of Detractors (customers who are not likely to refer the company to others) from the % of Promoters (who are likely to recommend the company to others). For more information about NPS, go to http://www.netpromoter.com.

Attached are the key takeaways from the Charles Schwab case study:

Can Someone Quantify the Value of Online Customer Service?

The answer is YES and it’s a pretty big number according to “The Value of Great Customer Service” survey conducted by STELLAService. Based on the average amount spent by online consumers each year, the survey found that $17.3 billion of value can be created in 2010 by Internet retailers that offer excellent customer service. The survey found that online consumers are willing to pay a 10.7% higher premium for the great customer service. This makes sense considering that the customer service is even more critical in the online retail environment due to the seemingly distant and remote nature of online shopping. The higher premium provides the comfort and peace of mind to the consumers that they will be taken care of independent of any serious problem or issue.