KPIMarketing

Brand Sentiment Score

Net positive vs. negative mentions of the brand across media and social channels

What is Brand Sentiment Score?

Brand sentiment score summarises whether the conversation about a brand is mainly positive or negative. It compares the number of positive and negative mentions across social media, reviews and the press.

It gives an early read on reputation. A change in sentiment can signal a problem, such as a product fault or a poor campaign, well before it shows up in sales.

How this KPI is measured

Function: Marketing
Sub-function: Brand & Awareness
Industry: All Industries
Type: Lagging
Impact: Quality
Unit: %
Measurement frequency: Monthly / Quarterly
Formula: (Positive mentions − Negative mentions) / Total mentions × 100

How to calculate it

Subtract negative mentions from positive mentions, divide by total mentions, and multiply by 100.

For example, if there were 1,000 mentions in a month, of which 500 were positive and 200 were negative, the score is (500 - 200) / 1,000 x 100 = 30%. The result ranges from -100% if every mention is negative to +100% if every mention is positive.

Most teams use a listening tool to classify mentions automatically. Automated classification is imperfect, particularly with sarcasm, so sample and check the results by hand.

Where it is used

Reputation monitoring
Spot a shift in how people talk about the brand as it happens.
Evaluating campaigns and launches
See how the public reacted to a campaign, announcement or product release.
Comparing with competitors
Measure how your sentiment stands against others in the same market.

How to improve it

Set up monitoringTrack mentions of the brand, products and key people across the channels that matter.
Check the classificationReview a sample of mentions each month to make sure positive and negative are being read correctly.
Look at the reasonsRead the themes behind negative mentions, since the score alone does not say what is wrong.
Respond and fixAnswer complaints quickly, and pass recurring issues to the teams who can resolve them.
Track over timeChart the score monthly and mark events so changes can be explained.

Tips and common mistakes

Volume matters. A score based on a handful of mentions is unreliable.
Automated tools misread sarcasm and context, so verify by sampling.
Read sentiment with the total number of mentions. A brand can be quiet and well regarded, or loud and controversial.

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