Value of Twitter (and other social media sites) for capturing human sentiment
If you happened to see the results of a study conducted in early August regarding the value of activity on Twitter, it probably would come as no surprise to find that 40% of the content was classified as “pointless babble”. Pear Analytics, the research firm who conducted the study, gathered a sampling of 2,000 tweets over two weeks and put them into 6 buckets….News, spam, self-promotion, pointless babble, conversational and pass-along value.
However, the good thing about this study was it also revealed that 37% of content fell into conversational and 8% pass-along value. That seems to imply that personal opinions are being cast: movie reviews, restaurant ratings, recommendations and other forms of personal expression. And it probably involves conversation about what they wear, drink, eat, listen to and drive. From a market research standpoint this emerging field of “sentiment analysis” can offer opportunities for MSI clients to listen in on how people talk about their brands and translating human emotion into hard data.
The number of these social media information tracking companies is growing.  A recent strategic partner of MSI’s in this specialized area is a company named Brickfish. They are all about connecting brands with consumer conversations online.  Find out more by going to www.brickfish.com/
Tags: Brian Arnold, brickfish, social media, twitter
