Think impartial statements about your brand are better than pessimistic comments? Think again!

The LSU Men’s Baseball team holds the title of 2023 NCAA National Champions. (Geaux Tigers!) Whether you are an avid Tiger fan or couldn’t care less about sports, the 2023 Men’s College World Series had some epic moments with the highest of highs and lowest of lows. In game 2 of the series, LSU suffered a historic loss (24-4) to Florida then returned to defeat Florida (18-4) in game 3, ultimately leading to the team’s champion status.

To have a little fun, I decided to scrape Twitter immediately after LSU’s monumental loss then extraordinary win. I was interested in gathering the polarity of responses from the public after both critical games. Below is a chart I created in Tableau to help visualize the public sentiment surrounding LSU Baseball following those crucial events.

Looking at the chart, it is easy to see that positive sentiment increased after the game 3 win, which is to be expected. Similarly, negative sentiment increased after the game 3 win (looking at you, Florida fans). Interestingly, the neutral and none categories both saw decreased sentiment after the game 3 win. For sentiment to be categorized as "neutral," the tweet typically includes a positive statement followed by a negative statement. A categorization of "none" is given to a statement that does not show positive or negative emotion, much like simply stating a fact.

Fans are an interesting breed. We have all witnessed a passionate sports enthusiast act in a manner we wouldn’t have pictured in our wildest dreams. Emotions are typically magnified during events that are important to consumers. Marketers take note! LSU’s game 3 win provided the public with certainty regarding the team’s performance. This reassurance led to stronger opinions on the outcome of the game. Momentum, clarity, and emotions most likely contributed to increases in both positive and negative statements about LSU Baseball and also decreases in the neutral and none sentiment after the game 3 win.

A few key takeaways:

• One would think that it is better for a brand to have more neutral sentiment than negative sentiment. I would argue that oftentimes if a business experiences more negative sentiment, there may also be consumers experiencing positive feelings due to intensified emotional ties. Neutral consumer sentiment about a brand may mean they are less memorable. Brands should have a clear definition of who they are and what they stand for, even if this means more polarizing responses from consumers.

• Consumers are emotional beings. Heightened positive emotions during experiences will most likely create positive emotional responses when later engaging with the same brand. Be sure to strengthen customer relationships by drawing on past positive experiences and maximizing nostalgia marketing efforts.

• Businesses should be careful when analyzing social media data. One could state that negative sentiment increased after the game 3 win. However, there was an even larger increase in extremely positive sentiment after the win. Even if a firm experiences an influx of consumer negativity, be sure to always look at the bigger picture.

I would love to hear your thoughts and interpretations!

If you are interested in learning how I scraped data on Twitter, check out my Youtube video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXBMSzeNTiU

~ Amanda Ledet