Media Sentiment

For many communications professionals, media sentiment has become a divisive metric. On one side, some teams have abandoned it altogether, believing it’s too flawed, too time-consuming to clean up, and ultimately not worth the effort. Others continue to use sentiment analysis but acknowledge its imperfections, taking a “good enough” approach and focusing on the broad strokes rather than the details.

But what if sentiment analysis wasn’t just good enough? What if you could trust it? What if it was accurate and precise? What would that change for your strategy and for your ability to drive real business impact?

Sentiment Analysis: More Than Just Positive or Negative

One of the biggest challenges with sentiment analysis is its oversimplification. Most articles, social posts, and media mentions are rarely just “positive” or “negative.” They are layered, nuanced, and often depend on context—a factor that traditional sentiment analysis tools struggle to grasp.

Take the healthcare industry as an example. If an article contains the word “cancer,” many automated tools will automatically tag it as negative. But what if that article is discussing groundbreaking advancements in cancer treatment? The same applies across industries: what is perceived as negative in one context might be positive in another, depending on the publication, audience, and overall framing of the story.

Even within a single topic, sentiment can shift based on the type of publication. A trade publication covering financial regulation may take a different tone than a consumer-facing news outlet reporting on the same policy. Without an accurate way to account for these nuances, sentiment data can be misleading at best, and actively harmful to strategic decision-making at worst.

The Power of Sentiment When You Get It Right

When done correctly, sentiment analysis goes beyond categorization and becomes an actionable intelligence tool. It allows communicators to:

• Understand Stakeholder Perceptions: Different stakeholders (investors, customers, policymakers) perceive media narratives differently. Accurate sentiment analysis ensures that companies understand these differences and can tailor messaging accordingly.
• Capitalize on Trends in Real Time: Instead of reacting blindly to news cycles, communicators can identify opportunities to engage when sentiment is trending favorably, or mitigate risks before they escalate.
• Inform Business Strategy with Data-Backed Insights: Communications should be treated with the same rigor as other business functions. Precise sentiment data allows PR teams to demonstrate value to executives and make strategic decisions based on hard data.

Real-World Success Stories: How Trusted Sentiment Drives Results

1. A Publicly Traded Utility Company: Building Stronger Media Relationships

For a publicly traded electric utility company, positive brand perception is crucial—not just for customers but for investors and regulators as well. With coverage appearing in national, trade, and local outlets, the company needed a way to ensure their brand messaging was resonating across all audiences.

PublicRelay helped the team segment sentiment across publications and unveiled a key insight: most local coverage was favorable, but that wasn’t the case for certain national publications. This insight allowed the company to:

• Leverage historical sentiment data to identify which journalists and publications consistently covered them favorably.
• Build relationships with those reporters to ensure key messaging reached the right audiences.
• Use real-time sentiment tracking to course-correct messaging strategies and seize opportunities in the media landscape.

By integrating sentiment into their daily strategy meetings, the company transformed their approach to media engagement, strengthening their brand while ensuring alignment between local and national messaging.

2. A Leading Financial Services Firm: Optimizing Event Strategy

For one financial services company, sentiment analysis played a crucial role in event planning. Each year, the firm attended a major industry conference where they announced new products and initiatives. PublicRelay’s sentiment data revealed another key insight: the most positive media coverage from past conferences was directly tied to product launches.

Armed with this knowledge, the comms team:

• Recommended that leadership align major product announcements with the event to maximize positive sentiment.
• Used past sentiment data to set measurable goals and secure executive buy-in for their media strategy.
• Identified key journalists and outlets that had previously covered them positively, ensuring their announcements reached the right ears.

By trusting accurate, human-verified sentiment analysis, the firm was able to refine its strategy, secure stronger media coverage, and demonstrate ROI to leadership.

Key Takeaway: Sentiment Is a Powerful Tool (If You Can Trust It)

It’s understandable why some communicators have given up on sentiment analysis. Done poorly, it’s noisy, misleading, and more trouble than it’s worth. But when done right—with context-aware analysis and human expertise—it becomes an indispensable asset.

For companies navigating a complex media landscape, sentiment isn’t just about knowing whether coverage is positive or negative. It’s about knowing how to act on that information. It’s about identifying opportunities, mitigating risks, and proving the value of communications at the highest levels of the business.

So instead of asking, “Does sentiment still matter?” the better question is: What could you do if you had sentiment data you could trust?