Text Analytics

"Text Analytics--a general term for the mining and interpretation of written words--has been used for more than two decades, most notably by the defense industry as far back as the Cold War to read into the word choices and text of, say, a speech written by Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev." -- according to a recent article in Ad Age.The article goes on to say that marketers are increasingly using text analytics to mine information from customer service surveys, e-mails, online forums, and blogs.  "...while the blogosphere and social networks have so far not proved great advertising media, text analytics offers the potential to make them stronger marketing vehicles."Dove used the tool to not only understand reactions to their campaign, but to gain an understanding of what motivates people, which issues are most important to women in their target group, and how to create better products and messaging for them.  All by using text analytics from content on its own message boards.What a fantastic way to leverage social media tools with a quantitative analysis!