But what are they really saying? A topical conversation.
Data is Everywhere
From transactions to conversations, manually-record information to machine-logged data points, data is everywhere.
As technology grows, so does the amount of data recorded. With the advent of smart devices, (think smart-watch, smart refrigerators, robot lawn mowers, etc.) everything is tracked every second: number of steps, temperature variants of food, and terrain of your yard.
Not only have devices started to capture more data for us, we also have gotten better at consuming more things as data, for our advantage.
One of those things is: text.
Text can do a lot for us
See my other articles about how text can work for you:
But what are they really saying? A Conversation about Sentiment.
What are Topics?
Topics are the building blocks of conversation and discourse. We discuss specific things in an easy to understand order.
“Stay on topic” is a common refrain to help us focus on a specific line of thinking.
Topics help us organize our thoughts and help us quickly assimilate information.
If we were to bounce around from topic to topic we would lose our audience and probably get confused ourselves.
While topics may be easy to understand in a normal conversation, what about when there is a lot for a single person or small team to take in?
For example: Reviews.
Your business could get a lot of them. Either from an aggregator (like Google, Yelp or Tripadvisor), from a survey you’re running, or from some other process.
Depending on the volume, it can be hard to keep up.
Another place you get data in the form of text is from social media platforms, like Twitter. That 280 character limit has the potential to tell you a lot about business dealings.
Not even @Wendys though, with their team of customer service reps and stand-up comedians, can keep up with that kind of volume just by looking at each tweet.
But how do you sort it all out?
How can you condense it into buckets to understand themes before diving in deep?
The answer: Topics.
How topics can help you
Think about text you have, it could come from anywhere:
- Social Media
- Product Reviews
- Survey Feedback
- Text
- Internal Memos
- Maintenance Records
- Etc.
Have you read every-single-word in each of these sources?
What if you could get 10,000ft. view of each of these to truly understand what each was talking about?
How would it help find new opportunities?
How would it help you develop new products?
How would it help you put out fires?
Just like in a conversation, topics help you contextualize and remember the discussion.
Understanding topics from data-in-text-form can help you understand the situation better and literally have a conversation.
How it works
Here’s how:
- Text is recorded somewhere over time
- A computer algorithm can then analyze all the text over time
- By picking out keywords which show up often together, topics begin to form
- These high-level topics help you better grasp what people are telling your business
- You can then use these topics to solve problems faster. Creating more time & money for you.
See a project I did with a Travel Agency: I analyzed what the agency was saying via Facebook so they could understand how they were perceived. Saving them $$ and their customers time.
Google reviews does this now for the consumer.
At the very top of the review they show the message “People often mention” along with keywords.
This is a simplified version of topic analysis.
What Next?
Have questions about what text you have?
Curious about what topics are out there for you?
Let’s chat.
