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Understanding Social Media Discussion. Why are we getting inundated with Garbage?

With the explosion of social media and the formation of new virtual communities that are becoming bigger than countries, corporations are recognizing that consumer insights and influence will be the future determinants of success.  As a result, there is a frenzy to understand online discussion. For those seeking customer insights, "discussion-monitoring" is the rage, and "sentiment-analysis" has become the "Holy Grail".

The magnitude of this opportunity has created more than 50 technology providers of discussion monitoring and analysis software, and probably twice that many service providers that claim to be able to provide insight from the data. Even with all this activity and focus, customers continue to be completely dissatisfied by the results.  And while the data is plentiful and wonderfully presented with multicolour 3D graphs, the output is generally perceived as overwhelming and useless, and the insights are few and far between.

We at BrandProtect, as one of the earliest pioneers in this space, have been striving to understand the issues around discussion-monitoring for more than 5 years. We clearly understand that customers want insights and intelligence, but without volumes of data.

Unlike traditional mass marketing approaches where the key is to understand the "average" (What does the average person want to buy? On average do more people want blue or green?), the internet is so vast that there is no value in trying to understand the "average". The key to internet marketing is to understand the "un-average". To get insights from online discussions you need to filter out all of the "average stuff" to get to the unique, powerful emotions (un-average) which capture all of the insights.

Let me give you a couple of examples of what I mean. When "Drug Company" introduces "a new drug", there are millions of posts that talk about:  the launch and where you can buy it and why the company's stock is going to do well; and why the CEO is overpaid; and what other drugs the FDA is looking to approve; and how Obama is changing health care...... but, there may be only 3 people that mention that they were very upset because the new drug made them feel faint or dizzy. In a month, it maybe 30 people, and in another month, it may be 300 people.

The fact is that averaging how people like "the new drug" is the path to disaster. The key is finding "the-needle-in-a-haystack".

I mentioned earlier that sentiment analysis is the Holy Grail. While customers intrinsically know this to be the case, they really don't know why. The reason why everyone is frustrated with the outcome from today's search tools and the lack of insights can all be traced back to this: Sentiment.

Sentiment is important.  Why?

Sentiment is the key to uncovering the needle in a haystack. Sentiment is like a beacon of light flashing in a vast ocean of data. Insights come from people that feel strongly about something.  Its more than just uncovering that someone feels strongly about something and they are willing to write about it, and that there are thousands more that feel the same way, who couldn't be bothered (or don't know how). While that may be the case, what's more significant, is that these people are changing the way society communicates. The computer era has reduced the requirement for individuals to communicate face-to- face, and has created both the fortitude and the ability to say and to do things that would not have been socially acceptable in the past. This fortitude comes from the anonymity of not having to communicate in person, plus having the tools that the new world technology and the internet have created to allow individuals access to unprecedented resources enabling them to express themselves. A $50 camera can now create a video that can be viewed by millions.

Back to sentiment. I would like to give you our theory as to why sentiment is so important. We believe that the only sentiment that really matters is sentiment around a specific topic of interest.  When we look at blogs for example; we can assess the sentiment around a blog, or a post, or a thread, or even the person whom the discussion is attributed to, but what really matters is sentiment specifically connected to the issue that you are focusing your search on.

I am sure you can appreciate how difficult a task it is to properly extract and identify emotional attributes from written text; ignoring colloquialisms (this singer is wicked!) and sarcasm (I love this company like I love a hole in the head) to assign appropriate sentiment.  Additionally, we are challenged to identify high and/or extreme levels of sentiment because we believe that this is where key insights reside.

If all that isn't difficult enough, true success requires that the identified sentiment is attributed to a set of specific search criteria, and not a discussion in its entirety.

Given these requirements, it's not difficult to see why you are so dissatisfied with what technology is providing.....

"Stay tuned for part 2 - "How do we deal with Discussion Monitoring at BrandProtect" you won't want to miss this!