Measuring Sentiment in Influencer Marketing

Brands use advertising to communicate with their target audience, and influences are the messengers that carry brand ideas forward. Within this flow, brands naturally need some kind of feedback to know if the message has hit the target. Of course, we have metrics, engagement rates, and sales numbers — the solid figures. But what about emotions? While the numbers are very useful, they do not paint the full picture of an ad campaign.

That is why brands need sentiment analysis. It’s a marketing tool that helps brands look into the hearts of their followers. Using sentiment analysis can give you information about the reception of your brand’s partnerships with influencers on a more emotional level.

Understanding Sentiment Analysis in Influencer Marketing

Sentiment analysis (sometimes referred to as opinion mining or social listening) is not a groundbreaking idea as of 2024; it has been around since at least 2003, while the studies that linked marketing strategies and public opinion are even older. The underlying idea is simple: emotional responses to advertising are faster and stronger than rational ones, so measuring this sentiment is crucial to assessing the campaign’s success. With influencer marketing, in particular, emotions run the show.

This analysis covers reviews, social media posts, and surveys to gauge the audience’s sentiment on a spectrum: positive, negative, or neutral. The newer tools driven by machine learning make it possible to understand more shades of meaning in the audience's feedback and make more informed decisions.

Sentiment analysis is important for brands because basic metrics such as audience reach, sales, views, and likes are not enough to understand the true impact of their content and products. 

So, how exactly can brands benefit from sentiment analysis?

• Optimize on the fly: You can adjust your approach faster when you know how the audience feels.
• Get your message across: Sentiment analysis also gives you a guidebook for future ad campaigns. Knowing your audience better, you can choose a different influencer or tone of voice to communicate your ideas more effectively.
• Assess opinion leaders: You can also analyze the sentiment towards a potential influencer and see if they fit your goals and values well.
• Keep tabs on your competitors: Check your audience's sentiment toward similar products to explore possible risks or growth points.

Of course, this is not an exhaustive list, but the main application areas of sentiment analysis already show it to be a powerful tool for brands.

Calculating Scores in Sentiment Analysis

Understanding how to interpret sentiment data is crucial for making informed marketing decisions. Depending on the type of data you collect, there are different methods of calculating sentiment scores. This is a short version of two approaches from SproutSocial, one of the tools we mentioned earlier.

Method #1: A total of positive words versus negative words in a given text. This method is often used for long-format content, such as big product reviews.

Formula: # negative words – # positive words divided by the number of words = sentiment score

In this example, marketers used a code to calculate the total number of words in each user review, and then assigned positive and negative labels to the words based on an existing list known as the Opinion Lexicon. Knowing these three values (positive words, negative words, and total number of words), marketers calculated the sentiment score for every user review following Formula #1.

Method #2: Ratio of positive and negative word counts

Formula: # positive words / # negative words + 1 = sentiment score

This method is preferable for scoring big data because it includes both positive and negative words. This way, the longer reviews do not affect the score too much, and the average result is more manageable. In this system, a score of 0 is exactly in the middle, or neutral. A higher score is related to positive, and a lower score is related to negative.

Case Studies in Sentiment Analysis

Airbnb's “We Accept” Campaign

In 2016, rental provider Airbnb used sentiment analysis to gauge public opinion and stem the public backlash after being accused of discrimination. 

The brand launched its “We Accept” campaign, which not only helped repair Airbnb's reputation, but also contributed to real anti-discrimination efforts across the globe.

Peloton and the “Bike Guy” ad

A case of not applying enough sentiment analysis while choosing the influencer and the tone of voice is the controversial Peloton Christmas ad that has been labeled sexist and caused a lot of resentment among the company’s audience. 

Sentiment analysis could have helped the brand identify the potential for negative perceptions and adjust the ad or select a different influencer better aligned with their brand values.

Nike's “Dream Crazier” Campaign

In 2019, Nike monitored real-time reactions across social media to identify which messages and athletes generated the most positive sentiment toward the company. The “Dream Crazier” campaign featured female athletes and was narrated by Serena Williams, the main idea being challenging gender stereotypes in sports. 

Sentiment analysis enabled agile campaign management and helped Nike navigate potential controversy.

Tools for Sentiment Analysis in Marketing

There are a slew of tools for sentiment analysis on the market: Brandwatch, Talkwalker, Meltwater, Hootsuite, and many others. The key features of such tools usually include sentiment tracking across different platforms in real time, textual and visual content recognition, and analyzing performance metrics.

Nonetheless, every service is unique: for example, Talkwalker can scrape social media, blogs, and news outlets to find mentions of your brand and then use AI to analyze the text and images to gauge the sentiment score and identify the key themes. At the same time, Brandwatch is especially praised for its data visualization, and Meltwater can focus on traditional media sources (e.g., print and broadcasting) for companies with strong offline coverage.

Below is a comparative list of the major tools used for sentiment analysis within influence marketing strategies:

• Talkwalker
• Brandwatch
• Meltwater
• Sprout Social

Talkwalker

Talkwalker delivers AI-powered sentiment analysis, multi-channel analytics, image recognition, and customizable dashboards.

Packages:

• Listen: Essential starter kit.
• Analyze: Deeper insights, custom dashboards, and social benchmarking.
• Business: Strategic insights, enterprise features, and scaling.
• Premium: Organization-wide intelligence.

Best used for: Deep insights into brand sentiment and competitive analysis, influencer marketing with visual content analysis.

Pricing: Сustom pricing based on requirements.

Brandwatch

Brandwatch provides AI-driven sentiment analysis, advanced data visualization, historical data access, and flexible APIs.

Packages:

• Consumer Intelligence: Market insights, customizable dashboards, and automated reporting.
• Social Media Management: SMM and content collaborations.
• Influencer Marketing: Discover influencers, manage relationships, and report campaigns.

Best used for: Сomprehensive market research, competitor analysis, and influencer campaign tracking.

Pricing: Custom pricing based on requirements.

Meltwater

Meltwater delivers real-time media monitoring, sentiment analysis across multiple languages, and influencer identification.

Packages:

• Essentials: Basic monitoring and analysis, scalable.
• Advanced: Enhanced tools and analytics, and unlimited search.
• Suite: Integrated tools, advanced cross-channel analytics, and unlimited search.
• Enterprise: Unified datasets, smart AI, and premium services.

Best used for: Extensive media monitoring and influencer identification for marketing campaigns.

Pricing: Custom pricing based on requirements.

Sprout Social

Sprout Social provides sentiment analysis, CRM integration, advanced analytics, social listening, and influencer tracking.

Packages and Pricing:

• Standard: $199/month per seat, 5 social profiles, all-in-one social inbox, content calendar, review management, basic reporting, and mobile apps.
• Professional: $299/month per seat, unlimited social profiles, competitive reports, custom workflows, digital asset library, trend analysis, and AI suggestions.
• Advanced: $399/month per seat, message spike alerts, chatbots, sentiment analysis, automated actions, CSAT and NPS surveys, and helpdesk integrations.
• Enterprise: Custom pricing, tailored implementation, consulting services, prioritized support, advanced social listening, premium analytics, employee advocacy, and influencer marketing.

Best used for: Comprehensive social media management with sentiment analysis and CRM integration for influencer marketing.

How to Choose the Right Tool

Choosing the right platform for your brand depends on your goals, budget, and marketing experience. As with any other business tool, multiple variables will influence your choice; however, answering the following questions would be a good starting point in the selection process:

1. Who is your target audience? Understanding the demographics and online behavior can help determine which platforms to focus on.
2. What do we want to achieve with sentiment analysis? It can be reputation management, campaign monitoring, competitive intelligence, or something entirely different.
3. What types of data sources are most relevant to the brand? For example, do you primarily need social media monitoring, or do you also need traditional media coverage?

Integrating Sentiment Analysis in Influencer Marketing

As we have covered above, sentiment analysis is a powerful tool, but it’s especially efficient in influencer marketing. When working with influencers, emotional impact is crucial, maybe even more than in traditional marketing strategies. Let us paint a roadmap of an ad campaign and see how sentiment analysis fits into the picture. We will divide our campaign into three main steps: 

1. Pre-launch
2. Campaign in progress
3. Post-campaign analysis

Pre-Campaign Planning

• Find the right opinion leaders: Sentiment analysis allows brands to vet potential collaborators and see how well the target audience reacts to a particular influencer. Understanding whether the person in question shares your brand’s values is also important.
• Adjust the message: Analyze your past campaigns or those from the competition to see if your message will be received well.

Campaign in Progress

• Track results in real time: Monitor sentiment around your campaign as it rolls out and adjust it on the go if necessary. Flexibility is crucial when it comes to influencer collaborations.
• Track mentions of your brand: This is also an important parameter to monitor if you want to see the whole picture of your interactions with the audience. It’s wise to use sentiment analysis tools to automate these reports.

Post-Campaign Analysis

• Measure campaign efficiency: Check the trends your campaign has generated or supported to see how big a splash you have made in the market. This is tightly linked to the first stage of your future campaigns: analyzing your successes and failures is how you grow your marketing expertise. Make sure that you analyze all sentiments, not just the positive ones. Negative feedback is crucial to identifying areas for improvement.

Best Practices and Common Pitfalls of Sentiment Analysis

Successful sentiment analysis in influencer marketing requires a balanced approach and awareness of potential issues. We have summarized some best practices and common pitfalls to consider.

Best Practices

• Set specific goals and use clear metrics like “increase the positive score from 0.1 to 0.5 in a month”.
• Add traditional metrics to your sentiment analysis results to see the full picture. Sentiment score is an additional marketing tool, it would not be wise to act on this information alone.
• Consider the context and nuanced meaning; people often speak sarcastically online.
• The same goes for culture-specific language and new generic terms often emerging online. Your sentiment analysis tool should be very agile to adapt to language changes.
• Schedule regular sentiment reports to make your marketing strategy more flexible.

Common Pitfalls

• Do not rely on automated calculations in the long run. As we mentioned, your tools should be easily adjustable. Besides, people are the best judges of what other people say, so it would be wise to use human reviews for scores.
• Do not ignore neutral scores. Positives and negatives act as bright indicators, like traffic lights. However, neutrals can be your source of insights and ideas for future campaigns.
• Pay attention not only to the sentiment itself but also to its intensity.

Balancing Metrics and Emotions

With sentiment analysis, you uncover the true emotional response of your target audience and can be more flexible in your actions. For best results, implement sentiment analysis at all stages of your advertising campaigns, from planning to post-campaign assessment. 

Complementing sentiment scores with metrics such as brand mentions, reposts, comments, etc is important. Combined with your existing expertise, sentiment analysis can elevate your marketing strategy to a whole new level and lead to more successful partnerships.

Author Bio

Kira Chesalina, the Creative Director at AAA Agency, an international influence and special projects agency. AAA Agency creates authentic brand stories through collaborations with the best influencers and build audience trust with our clients.

Gaming stands as the cornerstone of AAA Agency's expertise. We specialize in crafting and implementing profitable Influencer Marketing initiatives tailored for game publishers. Our experience is proven by 100+ successful cases from satisfied clients: Wargaming, NCSoft, Lilith Games, Ubisoft, etc. And for 2023, the total reach of our campaigns in the Gaming vertical was about 11,000,000.
 

About the Author

Kira Chesalina Creative Director at AAA Agency

Kira Chesalina, the Creative Director at AAA Agency, an international influence and special projects agency. AAA Agency creates authentic brand stories through collaborations with the best influencers and build audience trust with our clients.

Gaming stands as the cornerstone of AAA Agency's expertise. We specialize in crafting and implementing profitable Influencer Marketing initiatives tailored for game publishers. Our experience is proven by 100+ successful cases from satisfied clients: Wargaming, NCSoft, Lilith Games, Ubisoft, etc. And for 2023, the total reach of our campaigns in the Gaming vertical was about 11,000,000.

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