Whether you’re a blogger regularly posting product reviews or an average consumer who just wants quality products and good service, you’ve probably posted online about the brands you interact with. Maybe you Tweeted a photo of your food at a restaurant that time you found a hair in it, written a glowing endorsement of a book you just read for your friends to see on Facebook or left a short Yelp review for the last hotel you stayed at. Any similar activity presents businesses with a gold mine of information on their customers.

In its most simplified form, sentiment analysis is the practice of employing an algorithm to scan user-created content across the web and determine whether public opinion on a given subject is positive or negative and why. It’s proven to be more honest and efficient than polling and surveys and there are four main areas of benefit that make sentiment analysis increasingly important for any business venture.

Product

You may be selling a physical product or you may be selling a service — sentiment analysis is applicable and even critical to both. That’s because sentiment analysis gives you a direct window into users’ perception of whatever it is your business is putting on the market. You get to see what’s working, what’s not and why. Rather than guessing or taking ques from a small number of reviewers who may or may not be echoing the opinions of others, you get direct access to the source.

When a doctor needs to diagnose an illness, he’s likely to analyze a blood sample rather than listen carefully to a patient’s cough. Sentiment analysis is a business’ blood sample and can inform many critical decisions regarding the future development of a product or service.

Marketing

But before your product even reaches customers, you need to know how to reach out to them — and sentiment analysis can be a crucial element in this arena as well. Let’s assume you’re releasing a new pair of headphones. Sentiment analysis gives you insight into what elements consumers value most in their headphones. Perhaps your headphones will sell best if they look way cooler than the competition or maybe you should be highlighting more what great audio they produce. Sentiment analysis helps you identify your target audience and how best to reach out to them.

This technology can also be helpful in getting you out ahead of major PR issues before they get out of hand and make national or international headlines. That’s because sentiment analysis algorithms help you find unsatisfied customers right away in order to handle their specific situation directly and efficiently. Seeing a larger negative trend develop around your brand, you can react quicker and neutralize the crisis before it really takes off.

Service

That last benefit goes hand-in-hand with being able to offer consumers far better service. With an algorithm highlighting which online comments require your attention, you can contact disgruntled customers directly and offer a solution to their issues. You can also set sentiment analysis to occasionally show you particularly funny or engaging posts about your brand that you can respond to with humor or any other appropriate reaction. The point being — your company becomes more human, more personable, a joy to interact with.

The last piece of the service puzzle is that it helps create a sense of community with and among your customers. It’s a great feeling as a user to know that the company — especially a big one — is listening to you and is prepared to engage with you.

Senno

Last and not least, using sentiment analysis means that you can use Senno. Senno is a blockchain-based sentiment analysis solution that’s better, cheaper, lighter and easier to use than all the competition. In fact, Senno wants to make sentiment analysis so accessible that small businesses and even private individuals could afford it and run it with an average computer setup. With an option like Senno on the market, there isn’t really any excuse not to the take the leap anymore.