Running a successful business means creating a product or service that speaks to your target audience. The better you are at modeling your products and services to this audience, the more successful your company will be in the long run.
💡 Read Sentiment Analysis 101: Everything You Need to Know
One of the ways you can learn how to appeal your product or service offering to potential customers is through social media sentiment analysis. This strategy is geared toward using your brand’s notoriety to adapt your marketing strategy in real time.
In this guide, we’ll explain everything you need about sentiment analysis and help you choose the best social media sentiment analysis tools for 2024.
Let’s dive in.
What Are Social Media Sentiment Analysis Tools?
A social media analysis tool helps companies find out what people are saying about them on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok.
These tools use machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to collect brand mentions and give you a clear picture of your company’s social media virality, negative sentiments, and sentiment score.
Many companies, from small businesses to large corporations, rely on social media sentiment analysis tools to:
- See how your brand’s social media posts are performing on your social media platforms
- Review positive and negative sentiments
- Compare brand mentions to competitors
- Partner with influencers who enjoy their products or services
If you want to find out how much of a difference your company is making in the lives of your target audience, you should invest in a social media sentiment analysis tool.
Why Should You Use A Social Media Sentiment Analysis Tool?
There are many different reasons social media sentiment analysis is important. These reasons include:
Sentiment Analysis Provides Essential Campaign Insights
Social media analysis isn’t just about likes, shares, and comments. These tools provide more qualitative data, meaning you can find out why certain posts perform better than others.
With a social media analysis tool, you can see posts that your target audience is sharing the most (and what they are saying about it).
The frequency of posts affects the volume and diversity of data available for sentiment analysis. More posts generate a larger dataset, providing a comprehensive view of audience sentiment over time.
This wealth of data lets your brand spot subtle sentiment shifts and identify evolving trends. By staying attuned to these trends, you can adapt their content strategy to remain relevant and engaging in a dynamic social media landscape.
For companies aiming to enhance their social media sentiment analysis efforts, scheduling posts on Instagram and other platforms is indispensable. It allows them to strategically time content releases, guaranteeing that sentiment analysis captures the full spectrum of audience responses.
You Can See How People Really Feel About Your Brand
Learning how your customers really feel about your brand is the most valuable information you can get. It can help you create more refined products, brand messaging, and marketing strategies.
On top of that, you can get a feel of what your company’s customer journey really looks like. In this way, sentiment analysis doesn’t just provide insight into the numbers you’re generating on social media and the reasons that are driving them.
Sentiment Analysis Improves Customer Service
Social media platforms are being increasingly used for customer service. It’s not uncommon for people to take their frustrations to a brand on social media and hear back through a response or direct message.
As a result, social media sentiment analysis makes it possible to gauge your customer service performance. For example, you can scan through brand mentions to review:
- Response times
- First contact resolution times
- Average handle time
- Customer satisfaction
For example, you can set up trigger notifications to catch any negative coverage or comments as soon as they’re published online. That way, you can put out fires before they spread.
You Can Easily Spot Trends and Patterns
By analyzing what others say about your brand, you can spot trends and patterns through similar brand mentions and user behavior.
This benefit can help you achieve higher ROI from your brand strategy and make more strategic business decisions. It’s also important to point out that only 43% of companies have a central location for cross-platform analytics.
That means not many companies can compile all their social media data in one platform, especially using different social media channels. Social media monitoring tools make it possible.
Key Features To Look For In A Social Media Sentiment Analysis Tool
Not all social media tools are created equal. If you’re on the hunt for quality sentiment analysis software, here are some considerations to make:
Data Management
Before settling on any option, you should research extensively where the tool derives its data. Why? Quality data means everything.
Generally, social media analysis tools collect the following types of data:
- Geographic coverage
- Media coverage
- Language coverage
- Industry-specific coverage
You should also be mindful of how the tool delivers data alerts about positive sentiment. For example, do you want to receive alerts based on specific keywords or if your social mentions reach a certain number?
Oh, and does the tool have plenty of APIs and integrations you can use to centralize and export your data? The goal is to reduce the number of tools in your tech stack to reduce bottlenecks (read: the right integrations are crucial).
Data Analysis
You shouldn’t only be concerned about where you’re getting your data from. You should also consider how a tool gives you the power to curate your data.
For example, what kinds of data and valuable insights will the tool allow you to collect? Will you be able to view metrics specific to each social media profile? Can you review category metrics, such as social listening and total exposure metrics?
Also, are there any filtering or sorting capabilities? The best social media sentiment analysis tools allow users to create their own filters to search for keywords across different social channels.
Filtering and segmenting this data is extremely important if you want to gain a clearer picture of how popular your brand is on social media. What are people really saying about your brand online?
Read What Is Media Analysis And Why Does It Matter
A high-quality sentiment analysis tool gives a great deal of customization to agencies, companies, and brands to gain complete coverage over their online reputations. That way, you can track the most important keywords, hashtags, and phrases to your brand.
How Does A Social Media Sentiment Analysis Tool Work?
Social media sentiment analysis tools rely on AI, natural language processing, and machine learning to process huge amounts of data and find patterns and trends.
For example, let’s say Domino’s Pizza wants to find specific brand mentions and customer sentiment after releasing a new pizza topped with peaches (instead of pineapple).
When you create a keyword (or filter), the sentiment analysis tool will use AI to find any mention of the keyword on multiple social media platforms.
Through machine learning, the tool can create algorithms to create reports based on this data. Machine learning also enables these tools to categorize specific sentiments and actionable insights.
In this case, 61% of mentions were negative about peaches on pizza, and only 39% were positive. It’s safe to say that consumers don’t love this new pizza. So, it’s back to the drawing board for Domino’s Pizza.
Top 10 Best Social Media Sentiment Analysis Tools
Now that you know what a social media sentiment analysis tool is and how it works, it’s time to narrow down your options. Here are the best social media analysis tools available today:
1. Determ
Dive deep into the world of real-time insights with Determ, formerly known as Mediatoolkit. This cutting-edge AI solution doesn’t just track online media — in fact, it empowers your business decisions with actionable data from consumers, competitors, and market trends.
Think of any keyword or phrase, and Determ scouts over 100 million sources worldwide — regardless of language or locale — to pinpoint every mention without fail.
Consolidate, sift through, and digest every single mention in one comprehensive feed. Want a quick summary? Just ask Synthia, Determ’s sharp AI assistant, and she’ll not only break it down but guide you to the next best move.
Always stay one step ahead. Receive alerts the second your brand, campaign, or even a competitor makes a splash online.
The secret to a standout brand reputation? Aligning media coverage, learning public sentiment, understanding demographics, and keeping a close watch on competitor tactics. With Determ, crafting insightful and reader-friendly reports is a breeze.
2. Brand24
Step into the power of Brand24 — the sleek, dependable powerhouse of social media monitoring. Notably, trusted by global companies, it’s one of the go-to tools for diving deep into online chatter about brands, products, and even the competition.
With Brand24, you’re always in the loop. You can:
- Discover real-time conversations about your business
- Harness invaluable customer insights
- Spark community interactions
- Pinpoint sales opportunities
- Elevate your social customer service
- Connect with game-changers
When it comes to media monitoring that’s both robust and won’t break the bank, Brand24 has your back.
3. Mention
Established in 2012, Mention boasts a thriving community of over 750,000 users, spanning 125 countries and serving 4,000+ powerhouse enterprise clients.
Tailored for brands and agencies alike, Mention transcends boundaries, giving you a holistic view of perception across both social media and the broader web.
Dive in with Mention and witness the online buzz around any brand or product. But it doesn’t stop there. Get the upper hand with in-depth industry analytics and gauge the real-world impact of your marketing and PR maneuvers.
4. Hootsuite
Hootsuite is the trusted choice for countless brands. It doesn’t just manage social campaigns. Furthermore, it harnesses real emotions and sentiments from customer conversations, delivering insights that drive business strategy.
Using Hootsuite, you can schedule posts seamlessly across social platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and more. But what truly sets it apart is its prowess in sentiment tracking.
Track organic and paid content, tap into customer sentiments, and translate real-time insights from social media into impactful business actions — all through one user-friendly dashboard.
5. Brandwatch Consumer Intelligence
Brandwatch has the pulse of customer sentiment for over 5,000 globally renowned companies. They trust Brandwatch to not just listen, but truly comprehend customer emotions in the ever-evolving world of social.
With AI-enhanced data from a staggering 100 million+ online sources, Brandwatch empowers data-savvy businesses to tap into real sentiments.
Decode how consumers truly perceive your brand, products, and industry shifts. Translating these insights means smart, swift decisions that resonate deeply with your audience.
6. Sprout Social
Sprout Social is a game-changer in deciphering the emotions coursing through the social realm. Moreover, built with an impeccable user experience, it enables teams to harness impactful results at lightning speed.
Imagine billions of social conversations from top-tier networks. Sprout Social offers precisely that, making sure your team can deflect challenges, seize golden moments, and bolster your brand’s resonance.
From expertly managing social media to delivering pristine customer care, Sprout Social wears many hats. It’s the choice of big players like Shopify, Subaru, and Zendesk, among others.
7. Talkwalker
Talkwalker is in a league of its own, standing tall as the pinnacle of consumer intelligence. Moreover, imagine harnessing insights from a whopping 30+ social platforms, 150 million websites, and 100 trusted data partners.
With Talkwalker, this unified vision of consumer landscapes isn’t just a dream — it’s your daily dashboard.
The power of Talkwalker unfolds through five seamlessly integrated offerings:
- Dive in with social listening
- Measure with social benchmarking
- Stay updated with media monitoring
- Unlock voices with customer feedback analytics
- Decode with audience insights
But the true heart of Talkwalker lies in its revolutionary Blue Silk AI. Driven by cutting-edge NLP and Generative AI, it enriches, organizes, and unveils the nuggets of insights you need most.
8. Digimind
Designed for forward-thinking brands and agencies, it’s the go-to for those hungering to power-charge their digital transformation with rich, insightful data.
Furthermore, garnering accolades from industry giants like Forrester and Gartner, Digimind doesn’t just gather data — it crafts it into actionable insights, setting marketers on a clear path to strategize, implement, and assess with finesse.
Turn customer reviews into actionable insights that drive results.
9. Awario
Awario offers unparalleled real-time monitoring. In addition, it ensures brands are always in tune with key conversations concerning their keywords across the web. Its robust analytics suite allows users to:
- Gauge mention growth
- Apply sentiment analysis
- Identify top influencers across various languages and locations
With the unique “Awario Leads” feature, businesses can spot vital sales opportunities by highlighting product discussions and competitor feedback.
And equally important the platform also prioritizes user experience, offering precision through tools like Boolean search and emphasizing impactful discussions with Awario’s Reach.
10. Idiomatic
Idiomatic streamlines the customer feedback journey from A to Z. In addition, by centralizing your customer insights and categorizing them, it shows you what deserves immediate attention.
In other words, Idiomatic pinpoints the most pressing customer experience issues, highlighting those that are most costly, time-consuming, cause significant product grievances, or need automation.
Final Words
Ultimately, social media sentiment analysis tools give brands insider knowledge about their products and services. In particular, companies can use these tools to shape their product, brand, and marketing campaigns to elevate the customer experience in real time.
Read Top 5 Benefits of Sentiment Analysis for Businesses
If you’re considering using this technology to improve your brand reputation (and bottom line), choosing one of the tools in this guide is a wonderful start.
If you’d like to have more success and understand your audience better, book a demo with our experts and see how Determ can help you.
Here’s to your online success!
Brandon Lee is a content marketing expert who helps businesses master the art of storytelling and creating amazing digital content. When he’s not writing or reading, you can find him spending time with his beautiful wife and kids.
