Perception is Everything

It can be difficult for business executives to fully understand the attitudes customers have towards their brand. This can lead to poor business choices, like when SeaWorld started their forum, “Ask SeaWorld”, after the Blackfish documentary was released in attempts to be transparent with the public. The public had been demanding answers from SeaWorld, and the way the company responded made way for the company to be criticized in a big way. A way that SeaWorld could have avoided the disaster of “Ask SeaWorld” is to have conducted a sentiment analysis (Reed, 2015).

A sentiment analysis, or opinion mining, is a way to use online mentions to determine the attitudes and emotions tied to your brand or business from customers. It is useful in sensing the subtle changes in opinions towards a brand in order to improve product lines and services. Sentiment analysis are conducted by an algorithm taking into account inflections in voice, rate of speech, and responses to customer service advice. After a company performs a sentiment analysis, how can they use the information?

In 2012, the Obama administration used sentiment analysis to understand the public’s opinion towards his proposed policies (North of 41, 2017). This allowed his campaign to be changed and tailored towards his constituents, and improved his likelihood of success.
In the SeaWorld situation, they could have used a sentiment analysis earlier to show the extent of the public's dislike towards them. It would have revealed a need for accountability and honesty. It would have urged them to reacted differently, more quickly, and ultimately would have not hurt their business so much.

Sentiment analysis allows businesses to get past basic assumptions made about their business, so, they can clearly see the public's opinions and beliefs towards them. This allows the business to target their actions to improve their brand and products.


North of 41. (2017). What really is sentiment analysis and how does it work ? Retrieved January 28, 2018, from https://medium.com/@northof41/what-really-is-sentiment-analysis-and-how-does-it-works-48673b3c9ef3

Reed, J. (2015). The five biggest social media fails of 2015 - an enterprisey take. Retrieved January 28, 2018, from https://diginomica.com/2015/12/16/the-five-biggest-social-media-fails-of-2015-an-enterprisey-take/

Comments

  1. UnknownJanuary 28, 2018 at 9:52 PM

    What an interesting example for the topic of perception! This is very interesting Reagan and useful information i did not know about before i read this blog post. Conducting a sentiment analysis is a great idea for any company! Love this mini case-study type of post.

    -Gabby Shbeir

    ReplyDelete
  2. Megan MendiolaJanuary 30, 2018 at 7:32 PM

    Great post Reagan! I had no idea that such detailed information about customer reviews and opinions on a company could be found through sentiment analysis. I also thought it was interesting how the Obama administration used it in their campaign because I never considered anything like that being transferred into politics. There is no doubt how using sentiment analysis can be great for companies, especially large ones where new trends or situations can arise at any moment from anywhere in the world.

    -Megan Mendiola

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownFebruary 4, 2018 at 6:03 PM

    This post was very informative. You used great examples to explain sentiment analysis. I like how you started with the SeaWorld issue, explained it further with the Obama example and then ended again with the SeaWorld situation.

    ReplyDelete

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