Sentiment analysis is a common stumbling block when it comes to trying to understand exactly what people are saying about a topic, especially so when searching for such a common term like ‘Alex Jones’.

We try to use separate classifiers for different industries, so for example we could use the ‘polling’ or ‘entertainment’ categories for Strictly. However, as you say, even with this advanced approach to sentiment analysis we still only manage to automate to around 60-70% accuracy.

Do you have a tip for the winner of I’m a Celebrity?

I spent some time talking to PR companies a couple of years ago and the reputation management issue came up in the face of the growing social environment. I called it ‘social’ reputation management in a blog post at the time but I was surprised at how many PR folk thought it was their role to do this.

Nothing beats bad publicity like good publicity and as you say on your post on Cream, it can do a lot to balance things out, especially in this realtime world. As you also point out, well timed tweets and blog posts can outpace even the most sophisticated SEO strategy yet i am still meeting many agency side folk who dont understand this.

Engagement is the key. And an understanding by PR companies, marketing agencies and internal marketing functions that for brands, the real time and personal nature of the social environment provides a fantastic environment to build a genuine – and robust – reputation.

The Good Wife is a CBS TV show in the US, this short blog post talks about the episode where the bad guy was ashamed of his day job… which was SEO! No shame here at least….