By Hagen Weiss
Sentiment analysis has been a hot topic for marketers in recent years. As companies look for ways to better reach their intended audiences, they are asking questions, such as:
- How can we better improve the customer journey?
- How do customers feel about our products/services?
- How do customers feel about our brand in general?
Sentiment analysis is a key way to get some answers to these questions. Read on as we discuss what sentiment analysis is and why it’s important for your brand reputation.
What is Sentiment Analysis?
Sentiment analysis (also known as opinion mining or emotion AI) refers to the analysis of text to determine the customer’s attitude towards your company, service, or product. In short, sentiment analysis takes text from online sources (i.e. social media, forums, etc.) and tries to determine the customers’ opinions on your brand.
By extracting a text, this analysis will decipher whether the customer sentiment is:
- Positive
- Negative
- Neutral
As you can tell, having this information can be useful for a variety of marketing-related purposes.
Why is Sentiment Analysis so Important for Brand Reputation?
Sentiment analysis has many uses for companies as it allows you to peer into your customer’s minds. Here are some valuable uses for sentiment analysis:
- Brand Reputation Management: Whether it’s through social media or a review site, customer feedback can make or break a company. With sentiment analysis, you can get ahead of negative reviews quickly to prevent a PR crisis.
- Product and Service Improvement: Mining through your customers’ thoughts can offer you a goldmine of ideas to better improve your products or services. Understanding customer pain points or, conversely, things that they love can give you actionable steps in your business.
- Customer Support: Customer support is a crucial aspect, especially in the gaming industry. Customers expect close to real-time support when things are going awry. Sentiment analysis allows you to be pro-active in supporting customers when they mention issues online.
How Does Sentiment Analysis Work on Brand Reputation?
Sentiment analysis typically works by scanning social media or other online platforms for customer feedback relating to your company. It then attempts to decipher whether the feedback was positive, negative, or neutral.
There are two main ways sentiment analysis works.
Machine-Learning
Machine-learning utilizes sophisticated algorithms to recognize customer sentiment. It does this through training sets, which then generates models to characterize whether a text is positive, negative, or neutral.
Rule-Based Lexicon
This method consists of a dictionary of words that correspond to a sentiment score. Affirming words like “good,” “excellent,” “great” get assigned a positive score, whereas negative words like “terrible,” “hated,” or neutral words like “alright” or “okay” get lower scores.
Rule-based sentiment analysis software will have rules to help distinguish between sarcasm, tone, and other more ambiguous use of language.
To Wrap Up
Sentiment analysis is a key strategy in gaining that competitive advantage for your company. By understanding the mind of your customer, you can position your company for growth and success.
At iGlobe we provide translation, customer service, and marketing services to gaming companies. Contact us today to see how we can help you!
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