Harnessing X (Twitter) sentiment analysis for strategic business insights
Written by Jena Hodgson
Published on April 4, 2024
Reading time 9 minutes
Table of Contents
Understanding and interpreting the emotions of your audience is a crucial component of any successful business intelligence strategy. In an era where social media platforms like X (formerly known as Twitter) have become global forums for public opinion, sentiment analysis has emerged as a vital tool for businesses.
Sentiment analysis is a technique used to determine the emotional tone behind words, and it’s particularly valuable for business intelligence. It empowers businesses to gain a deeper understanding of their customers and competitors while offering a birds-eye-view of prevailing market trends on social and beyond.
Throughout the article, we’ll reference Twitter (instead of X) for familiarity purposes. The article will explore ways to use Twitter sentiment analysis and the methodology behind it. We’ll also take a look at how brands can use the wealth of data available on Twitter to effectively harness social data to inform broader business conversations.
What is Twitter sentiment analysis?
Twitter sentiment analysis uses tools–whether AI or code-based–to determine the sentiments expressed in posts–whether they are positive, negative or neutral.
It’s a process that uses natural language processing and machine learning models to efficiently analyze and classify posts according to the perceived emotions behind them.
By performing Twitter sentiment analysis, a business can gain valuable insights into public opinion about their brand, product or service.
How to use Twitter sentiment analysis in business decisions
Twitter sentiment analysis can help many businesses gain a competitive edge when it’s used for strategic planning and market intelligence.
Since Twitter has 245 million daily active users worldwide, knowing the sentiments expressed on the platform is key for businesses that want to identify issues, trends and opportunities to influence their strategic planning.
Sentiment analysis also enhances market intelligence by providing insights into consumer perceptions and market trends about competitors. This information can help you position your business ahead of the competition and help you identify and capitalize on emerging opportunities. Sprout Social’s 2023 State of Social Media Report found that social media data like this has the greatest impact on brand reputation and loyalty, improving competitive positioning and gaining a better understanding of customers.
Furthermore, sentiment analysis proactively reveals the public sentiment impact of various events you choose to track—like new product launches or campaigns. Looking at sentiment in the midst of campaigns allows you to make timely strategy adjustments rather than correcting course after an entire campaign-gone-wrong.
It’s no surprise that effectively leveraging sentiment analysis on Twitter can substantially enhance your business intelligence strategy altogether.
1. Inform your competitive analysis
In the digital age, understanding your competitors is almost as important as understanding your customers. Analyzing the sentiment of your rivals on Twitter can uncover how both your current and target consumers perceive your competitors and their offerings.
Performing a Twitter sentiment analysis within your broader competitor analysis involves examining the types of content competing brands post on the platform, the responses they receive and the overall sentiment of the responses they get. This can help you identify consumer trends, emerging opportunities and potential threats.
For instance, if sentiment analysis reveals your competitor’s audience is unhappy with a particular feature they offer, this could be an opportunity for your business to differentiate itself by creating and delivering a superior alternative, or by pointing audiences to an existing product or service that solves the same problem. By incorporating sentiment from social listening into your competitive analysis, you gain a data-driven understanding of your market rivals that you can harness to benefit your business.
2. Improve customer experience
Customer experience is the cornerstone of any successful business strategy, and Twitter sentiment analysis can enhance customer satisfaction with real-time insights.
By monitoring the sentiments expressed in posts about your brand, you can identify and address customer concerns fast. This not only improves the customer experience but also boosts your brand perception.
For example, if a customer posts a complaint about your brand’s product or service, you can immediately address the issue and take steps to resolve it. Providing fast responses demonstrates that your brand prioritizes customer feedback and is committed to providing excellent service. In fact, more than half of consumers surveyed in The 2024 Sprout Social Index said the most memorable brands on social are those who respond to customers.
Using Twitter sentiment analysis as a part of your customer experience strategy is a way to significantly improve your relationship with your customers, which naturally improves your brand reputation.
3. Help with product development and innovation
Product development and innovation are key drivers of business growth. Twitter sentiment analysis delivers unfiltered feedback about your products, which can guide your product development efforts with data-driven marketing.
For example, if a tech company received negative sentiment around a new software update, you can surface that information to your product team so they can make a specific change or improve the product in various ways.
Take Sprout’s release of dark mode as an example. Our social team used Listening and sentiment and noticed conversation around Sprout not having this coveted feature. Our social team brought the data back to our product team who then expedited our dark mode release that was already in the works.
Analyzing sentiment expressed in posts about your products makes it easier to determine existing unmet consumer needs and where there is room for your product to improve.
4. Enhance brand reputation management
In our current digital age, negative sentiment can spread rapidly on social media platforms like Twitter. Sentiment analysis allows you to monitor how audiences feel about your brand and address potential reputation risks immediately.
For instance, if sentiment analysis reveals a surge in negative sentiment about your brand, you can quickly take corrective action. This could involve reaching out to dissatisfied customers, issuing a public statement or changing your messaging to address the issue.
By incorporating Twitter sentiment analysis into your reputation management and social media crisis plan, you can protect your brand image and build stronger relationships with your audience.
How Twitter sentiment analysis typically works
Social media platforms such as Twitter offer official (APIs) for sentiment analysis, but they require coding skills and technical knowledge. Without an easy-to-use tool that does the leg work for you, marketers find themselves either outsourcing developers to do this specialized task or using resources from internal teams who have coding expertise.
When using a sentiment analysis tool powered by AI (like Sprout), marketers have the opportunity to fit sentiment analysis into their existing workflows, without jockeying for technical resources.
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