Sentiment Analysis

Analytics

Also: Opinion mining · Brand sentiment · Social sentiment

What it isClassifying brand mentions as positive, negative or neutral

Data sourcesSocial media, reviews, news, forums

Best useEarly warning for reputation issues and product feedback

Quick definition

Sentiment analysis is the use of natural language processing to classify text about your brand, product or category as positive, negative or neutral. It is used to monitor brand health at scale across social media, reviews and news mentions without manual reading.

Where it shows up in the data

Positive, negative and neutral classification

The baseline output of sentiment analysis: how many mentions are positive, negative or neutral, expressed as a ratio or percentage. Tracking this over time shows whether brand perception is improving or declining.

Aspect-based sentiment

More granular analysis that identifies sentiment for specific aspects of a product or brand: 'the price is too high but the service is excellent.' Useful for understanding which elements of your offering drive positive and negative sentiment.

Brand listening vs social monitoring

Social monitoring tracks mentions of your brand handle. Brand listening captures any mention of your brand name, products or associated topics, including conversations that do not tag you directly.

Accuracy limitations

Automated sentiment analysis misclassifies sarcasm, industry jargon and context-dependent language. Australian slang is particularly challenging. Treat automated sentiment scores as directional signals requiring human review for high-stakes decisions.

What it actually means

Without sentiment analysis, you might not notice a wave of negative reviews until your rating drops visibly. With it, you get an early signal when negative mentions spike, letting you investigate the cause and respond before the problem compounds. The same applies to positive sentiment: understanding what specific aspects of your product generate enthusiastic reviews tells you what to amplify in your marketing messaging.

Sentiment analysis does not tell you what to do. It tells you something is happening fast enough that you can actually respond.

How it shows up

Sentiment analysis shows up as a brand health score, positive-to-negative ratio trend and topic clustering (which themes generate positive vs negative sentiment). Tie sentiment shifts to business events: product launches, price changes, service issues, campaigns.

The Australian context

Google Reviews is the dominant review platform in Australia for most industries. Productreview.com.au is significant for consumer products and services. Trustpilot has less penetration in Australia than in Europe. For social listening, Mention, Brandwatch and Sprout Social are the primary tools used by Australian marketing teams.

Where people get this wrong

Trusting automated sentiment scores without reading the actual commentsTools frequently misclassify ironic praise as positive, understate frustration in polite complaints and miss Australian slang cues. Always read a sample of high-volume sentiment shifts before making decisions.

Measuring only brand mentions without tracking category conversationsConversations about your category that do not mention you directly are as important as direct brand mentions. They reveal purchase intent, competitive vulnerabilities and emerging consumer priorities you need to respond to.

Common questions

What is the difference between sentiment analysis and social monitoring?

Social monitoring tracks the volume of brand mentions across platforms. Sentiment analysis classifies those mentions as positive, negative or neutral. They are complementary: monitoring tells you how much is being said, sentiment tells you whether it is good or bad.

Are there free sentiment analysis tools?

Google Alerts provides free brand mention monitoring but no automated sentiment scoring. Free tiers of Mention and Brand24 offer basic sentiment analysis. For comprehensive monitoring, paid tools (Brandwatch, Sprout Social, Hootsuite Insights) are typically required.

Keep exploring

About New Rebellion

New Rebellion is a marketing intelligence consultancy. We build tools, score Australian businesses on how their marketing actually performs, and publish Debrief every day. This dictionary is part of how we work in the open.

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