Understanding Sentiment

Learn how Kommon Poll scores sentiment, subjectivity, and trends across platforms and over time.

Numbers tell you how much people are talking.

Sentiment, emotion, and intent tell you how they feel and why they’re talking.

Kommon Poll automatically analyses the text of each mention to estimate:

• Whether it is positive, negative, or neutral.
• How strongly opinionated it is (subjective) vs factual (objective).
• How sentiment changes over time and across sources.

6.1.1 Sentiment Polarity

Sentiment polarity is the basic positive–negative–neutral classification of each mention.

• Positive – praise, satisfaction, recommendations, excitement.
• Negative – complaints, criticism, dissatisfaction, concern.
• Neutral – factual statements, news reports, or content with no clear opinion.

You can view sentiment at multiple levels:

• Overall distribution (for example, 65% positive, 20% neutral, 15% negative).
• Broken down by platform or source type.
• Broken down by project, country, language, or product (using filters).

Use polarity to answer questions like:

• “Is this campaign being received positively?”
• “Has sentiment improved since we responded to the crisis?”
• “Which channels are most critical or supportive?”

Tip: Always look at the absolute counts as well as percentages. A change from 2 to 4 negative mentions is a 100% increase, but may not be serious in context.

6.1.2 Sentiment Subjectivity

Subjectivity measures how opinion-based a mention is.

• High subjectivity – personal feelings, opinions, or emotional reactions.
• Low subjectivity – facts, announcements, neutral descriptions.

Subjectivity is useful to:

• Distinguish opinion-heavy feedback from neutral information.
• Prioritise highly subjective negative mentions (these often drive public perception).

Examples:

• “Kommon Poll is the best social listening tool we’ve used.” → High subjectivity, positive.
• “Kommon Poll launched a new AI feature today.” → Low subjectivity, neutral.

6.1.3 Sentiment Trends by Source

Sentiment can vary significantly by platform:

• Reviews often skew more negative (people post when something goes wrong).
• Instagram might have more positive, aspirational content.
• News sites may be neutral but trigger emotional social reactions.

Kommon Poll allows you to:

• Compare sentiment by platform (for example, Facebook vs Instagram vs Reviews).
• Compare sentiment by source type (social vs non-social vs reviews).
• Compare sentiment by region or language.

Use this to:

• Identify where negative sentiment is strongest (and focus your effort there).
• Understand which platforms are best for testimonials vs issue resolution.
• Align channel strategies with audience sentiment patterns.

6.1.4 Sentiment Count & Volume Context

Beyond percentages and charts, it’s important to know how many mentions fall into each sentiment category.

• Sentiment Count shows the raw number of positive, negative, and neutral mentions.
• You can view trends over time to see whether volumes are climbing or declining.

Combine this with mention count and reach to answer:

• “Did sentiment get more negative because there were more negative mentions, or just fewer positive ones?”
• “Are negative mentions coming from high-reach posts, or from smaller accounts?”

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