Social Listening & Sentiment Analysis

The Play

"Social listening" involves monitoring public activity on social media—posts, comments, and shares—to comprehend what people are discussing. "Sentiment analysis" uses algorithms to categorize this content by tone, identifying whether the sentiment behind a comment is positive, negative, or neutral

Together, these tools can enhance your digital strategy, as you can quickly grasp what different social segments are talking about and have clues for the best approach to take, keeping track of what's hot and what's not.

With these insights, you'll understand people's concerns and beliefs, allowing you to put yourself in their shoes and speak to them, taking their fears, hopes, expectations, and values into your messages.

This information will show you the exact points where your ideas and values intersect with what people care about, helping you tailor more empathetic political content and resonate more effectively with a broader range of audiences.

Why it works

• Messages land harder when they reflect what people are already feeling. Tuning into public sentiment helps craft content that feels timely and relevant.
• Real-time insights make your strategy faster and sharper. Spotting trends early means you can adjust before the conversation moves on.
• New audiences become more reachable. Instead of speaking into an echo chamber, you can tailor messages for people who don't yet follow you—but might be ready to listen.
• Negative trends lose power when seen in advance. Early warnings give you time to respond with calm, credible messages—before a backlash spirals out of control.

How it works

1. Set your scope and analyze online conversations

Use social listening tools (see the "Learn More" section) to track conversations across social media and messaging apps. Since you can't monitor everything online, you'll need to set a clear scope: Who are you focusing on? Are you tracking specific politicians? Which issues matter most to your strategy?

Defining these parameters helps cut through the noise and surface useful insights.

2. Understand the underlying sentiments

You can Integrate social listening with sentiment analysis to quickly gauge how a specific audience feels about a topic, event, or public figure. Sentiment analysis examines your selected universe of conversations to answer questions like, "How are young voters reacting to this piece of news?" or "Which moment of that live debate generated the most positive comments?" These insights will help you engage more effectively with different audience segments in dynamic online conversations.

3. Deploy a problem-centric and solution-oriented approach

Adjust your social media messaging using insights from social listening and sentiment analysis as key references to create content. Pay close attention to how these insights align with each audience's current context, needs, and concerns. By leveraging the information from your research, you can fine-tune your approach and craft highly tailored messages, making them more impactful and fostering deeper connections with different audiences.

4. Analyze. Adapt. Repeat.

The online conversation never stops—and neither should your analysis. Keep monitoring reactions to spot shifts in trends and public opinion. Pay attention to your own interactions, too. If certain messages fall flat, adjust quickly. This cycle of analysis and adaptation keeps your strategy agile, responsive, and more impactful.

Tips

A. Designate a Specialist on Your Team

Social listening and sentiment analysis are not side tasks that a community manager can handle while juggling other responsibilities. Since research is the cornerstone of your communication strategy, it's best to have a dedicated person for this role. You can train someone within your team to take on this responsibility, using the many tools available for social listening and sentiment analysis. Having someone focused solely on understanding audiences ensures that your efforts remain consistent and effective in responding to different segments.

B. Target Flexible Audiences

Rather than attempting to engage with all relevant demographics in every conversation, use social listening and sentiment analysis to help you target different audiences that you can potentially affect and convince on various platforms. This targeted approach increases the likelihood of meaningful engagement and conversion, especially in response to events that deeply influence public opinion or during significant political campaign milestones. By focusing your efforts on specific, adaptable audiences, you can maximize the impact of your messaging and improve effectiveness.

Who's done it well?

Indonesia: Anies Baswedan's 2024 Campaign

Riding Public Discourse with Social Listening

At the start of the Anies Baswedan campaign, social listening wasn't part of the strategy. That changed quickly. Once campaign managers recognized its value, they brought in a new team to integrate social listening and sentiment analysis into their communications operation—with just two months left before election day.

The team moved fast. First, they used scraping technology to gather and analyze social media posts, videos, comments, and images related to the candidates and key political topics. They filtered the data by engagement, then compared audience reactions across different candidates. A language model was used to interpret sentiment—labeling mentions as positive, neutral, or negative with 70–80% accuracy.

The result was a network map of engaged users, showing whether conversations were local or national, how many people were involved, and which influencers were participating.

This shift transformed the campaign's approach. Instead of relying solely on traditional messaging, the team began adapting content based on real-time sentiment. If a narrative was gaining traction, they reinforced it. If controversy arose, they adjusted messaging to align with public concerns.

The new approach was especially impactful during the first presidential debate. Real-time social listening revealed which topics sparked the most discussion, allowing the team to quickly produce memes and videos that amplified positive narratives and pushed back against criticism.

By integrating these tools, the campaign moved from a traditional approach to dynamic, data-informed communication. With more resources, the strategy could have scaled further—by activating influencer networks or using automation to boost strategic content at key moments.

"By using social listening and sentiment analysis, we pinpointed groups that could be influenced in specific moments, such as during the presidential debate. This allowed us to engage meaningfully with the right people at the right time, amplifying our message without spreading ourselves too thin."

Learn more

D-Hub resources

• D-Hub. 2024. "Influencer-in-Chief". The Fight for Democracy Chronicles, Volume 4.

Other resources

• Cevallos, Alberto. 2025. "How Autocrats Weaponize AI — And How to Fight Back."
• Golovashkina, Anastasia. 2020. "How To Take Advantage Of Social Listening Down The Stretch."
• Jackson, Dean & Zelly Martin. 2024. "Forget Deepfakes: Social Listening Might be the Most Consequential Use of Generative AI in Politics."
• The Political Marketer. "Why is Sentiment Analysis Important for Political Leaders?"
• Sandhane, Raghav. 2022. "Use of sentiment analysis in social media campaign design and analysis."
• Sing, Despina & Aishwarya Suresh. 2025. "Social Media Sentiment Analysis: How To Perform."
• Toolbox

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