What is Sentiment Analysis?

Sentiment analysis is the capture and tracking of opinions, emotions or feelings expressed by consumers engaged in various types of interactions, such as social media posts, customer service calls and surveys. Sentiment analysis involves analyzing and processing text, natural language, computational linguistics, or biometrics with the goal of determining the sentiments or attitudes expressed toward a company, product, service, person, or event.

What is an Example of Sentiment Analysis?

When someone posts a supportive comment on your business' social media page, it's categorized as a positive sentiment. When focus groups dial down their enthusiasm while listening to a politician's speech, it's categorized as a negative sentiment.

Sentiment analysis is particularly important in tracking emerging trends or changes in perceptions on social media. Within big data environments, sentiment analysis – combined with behavioral analytics and machine learning – is likely to yield valuable insights.