Why Negativity Is Great for Insight

A very frequent objection to social intelligence goes: "Social is not representative, consumers just like to complain." Now, we could talk about the inherently flawed idea of representativity, but I want to show how negative sentiment is great for deep human insight. Think inversion.

When a consumer shares a harsh review about any product or service, it obviously indicates dissatisfaction. But with a qualitative hat on, you can glean so much more. What was the expectation? Why did the inconvenience trigger such an emotional response? What is the ideal product or service? Beneath every negative review lies a story. All you need to do is invert the comment.

An example

In a study Bakamo did for a mobile network operator, almost every comment we captured was negative or hateful. By flipping them around, we were able to get to an unsaid, unfiltered reality that shed light on customers' expectations and desires. This allowed us to recommend a strategic approach to transitioning customers from brick-and-mortar to online sales, saving the client millions.

Three words of caution

1. Add salt to sentiment scores. Quantitative metrics such as counting "positive" and "negative" comments are unscientific and likely misleading. In social media you never capture the full picture. Some parts of social are visible, others are not, and you do not know how large the true universe is.
2. The comment itself is the signal. The effort the consumer took to post, and the emotional engagement, however negative, is proof of how much your product or service matters to them.
3. Behaviour varies by category. How people reflect on experiences differs remarkably from category to category, and between good and bad experiences. Read them qualitatively and they yield insight that would be very difficult to glean any other way.