Facebook taps into social conversations: Everyman's sentiment analysis

Facebook has rolled out tools to allow news organizations to integrate conversations about big events like the Super Bowl into broadcasts and on the surface the social network is making sure Twitter doesn't dominate gauging public sentiment. But the real takeaway is that Facebook and others are bringing big data sentiment analysis to the masses and marketers.

The social networking giant has added hashtags, embedded posts and trending topics recently and now conversations will be surfaced. Facebook partners will be able to see demographics about the people talking about a specific subject.

Buzzfeed, CNN, NBC’s Today Show, Sky TV, and Slate are using Facebook's tools today as the social network aims to capture more ad revenue. Many more companies will follow as Facebook partners.

Here's the win for Facebook:

1. Facebook has more data on you than just about any company out there along with Google.
2. The company has barely tapped into surfacing this data to monetize it.
3. Facebook can capture ads as well as data analysis revenue.
4. The company can become an analytics dashboard for marketers.
5. And Facebook can fend of Twitter, which is the go-to sentiment analysis tool for trending topics and is largely integrated into news shows now.

The big picture here is that Facebook's social monitoring tools and demographic slicing is part of a theme. Big data and social analysis will be part of everyone's life---even if we won't call it something wonky like I just did. Combine Facebook with Twitter and what's trending on Google and Yahoo and you get a composite view of what the globe is thinking. Think of these tools as analytics for everyone.

Companies are also going to tap into Facebook's new tools at some point. Marketing will be the first department as companies will want to see how brands, ads and strategic moves are playing.

For now, Facebook said the tools are limited.

These two tools are only available for a small group of trusted media partners. We are beginning discussions with other media partners and preferred marketing developers (PMD’s) and will make it available to additional partners in the coming weeks.

Rest assured other marketing companies are going to be looped in.

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