Buzz Monitoring: Google vs. Microsoft Sentiment Analysis

One of the most important discipline areas at iStrategyLabs is buzz monitoring. While we’re technology solution agnostic, we’ve been using ScoutLabs a lot recently because they’ve created a product that is much less expensive than their competitors (something our clients certainly appreciate right now) and it works quiet well. There are a number of ways to conduct conversation monitoring, competitor monitoring, influencer identification and outreach etc., but this post will focus on just one facet: the comparison of two brands from a sentiment perspective.

Brands include in this buzz monitoring exercise:


Google and Microsoft

20080919_google_vs_microsoft
Image by noworks? via Flickr
Buzz monitoring report range: February 6th - March 7, 2009
First, lets take a look at all blog posts mentioning “Microsoft” and see what the positive and negative sentiment of trend looks like.
msftonly Buzz Monitoring: Google vs. Microsoft Sentiment Analysis
On average there is more positive buzz generated about Microsoft than negative. Digging deeper into the numbers, we find that on average there are 5.4 more positive posts than negative posts about Microsoft. This could begin to serve as a benchmark for the brand, and since this is the first time we’ve done this analysis, there’s no way to know if these that a typical ratio for them.
Now lets take a look at all blog posts mentioning “Google”.
googonly Buzz Monitoring: Google vs. Microsoft Sentiment Analysis
On average there is more positive than negative buzz for Google as well. Digging deeper, we find that on average there are 4.3 times more positive posts than negative posts about Google.
Next, we should see how their positive and negative sentiment stacks up against one another:
Volume comparison of positive posts for Microsoft and Google
positivegoogmsftcomparision Buzz Monitoring: Google vs. Microsoft Sentiment Analysis
Volume comparison of negative posts for Microsoft and Google
negativegoogmsftcomparision Buzz Monitoring: Google vs. Microsoft Sentiment Analysis
Lastly, let’s take a look at the share of voice between the two brands. This is a measure of who has a greater percentage of buzz about them on the web compared to the other. Keep in mind that if you look at the two graphics above, they’ll look pretty even. What you’re not seeing are all the “neutral’ sentiment posts that account for the bulk of content out there:
googmsftshareofvoice Buzz Monitoring: Google vs. Microsoft Sentiment Analysis
With positive, negative and neutral posts accounted for, you can see that Google is talked about nearly twice as much as Microsoft. This is perhaps irrelevant at the top brand level, as Microsoft and Google do not compete head to head selling “Google” and “Microsoft” but they do compete in selling things like “Google Apps” and “Microsoft Office”, as well as “Azure”, “Google App Engine” and another product “Amazon S3″ rounds out the cloud computing space.
Share of voice for “Microsoft Office” vs. “Google Apps”
googofficecomp Buzz Monitoring: Google vs. Microsoft Sentiment Analysis
Clear Microsoft Office dominates the conversation, but Google Apps has a 13% share of voice when they’re market share is probably 10% of that (I don’t have those figures).
Share of voice for “Microsoft Office” vs. “Google Apps” vs. “Amazon S3″
googofficecloud Buzz Monitoring: Google vs. Microsoft Sentiment Analysis
Azure seems to be the most talked about cloud computing application. I wonder if my data is correct, as I believe Amazon S3 has been around for a lot longer…
What do you think? What comparisons would you like to see? I may include your requests in my next buzz monitoring report!