Monitoring

Sentiment analysis’ popularity has grown exponentially in recent years and it is now being

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A Kansas high school student, Emma Sullivan, posted a tweet last week during a field trip to the state capitol — “Just made mean comments at gov brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot.” What followed is an example of how little some people know about how this whole social media thing works.

Seeing the tweet, Governor Sam Brownback’s comms director, Sherriene Jones-Sontag, reported Sullivan to her principal, who then issued a decree saying that Sullivan should send an apology to the Governor.

“My principal told me he needed to do damage control and was really upset,” Sullivan told CNN.

Actually, the tweet probably would’ve gone unnoticed by everyone except for Brownback’s staff had they accepted that not everyone in the state would be supportive of the Governor. According to the AP, Sullivan only had 65 followers before the tweet. Now she has more than 9,200.

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This week Dell launched the Corporate Social Media Interactive Assessment, a tool that analyzes how well a company is listening and engaging with audiences, how integrated the listening process is, and how much the company is benefiting from its spending on things like staff. Filling out the survey will generate an infographic with personalized details.

The Assessment grew out of research Dell conducted with Forrester Consulting — Listening and Engaging in the Digital Marketing Age. The study of 200 U.S. marketers at medium and large companies found that many companies are actively using social media (sometimes more than traditional listening methods) for a variety of purposes, including as a feedback generator from consumers. And that information is being used across the business.

Interesting (though fitting) that Dell would launch this tool. More than anything, it reminds other companies of the need to monitor and respond to what’s happening on social media and other channels. Earlier this week, Business Wire and MyMediaInfo released a couple of new monitoring tools that might be of some help in this area.