Literature review - Twitter as A Tool of Market Intelligence for Businesses: Sentiment analysis approach

Abstract

Purpose As an emerging technology, sentiment analysis of Twitter has aroused interest in the field of business research. The thesis has three primary objectives. The first objective is to identify how businesses could utilize sentiment analysis of Twitter in their market intelligence functions. The second is to determine how sentiment analysis of Twitter compares to more traditional methods of market intelligence. Thirdly, this thesis aspires to bring technology-oriented discipline easier to approach for business researchers.

Methodology The research method of this thesis is a literature review. The thesis revises prior published and peer-reviewed articles with a focus on sentiment analysis of Twitter and its applications to market intelligence.

Findings There are three significant findings in this thesis. 1. Companies have utilized sentiment analysis for various purposes of market intelligence with encouraging results. 2. Sentiment analysis of Twitter has a variety of similarities with traditional market intelligence methods. In the future, it will be an auspicious technique for market intelligence as its accuracy is improved, and companies utilize it more frequently for practical purposes. 3. Even though Twitter sentiment analysis has raised plenty of interest, there is no clear research field within the business, and more specifically, market intelligence related literature.

Future research For future research, this thesis provides a review of the possibilities and uses of Twitter sentiment analysis in the context of market intelligence. Its focus is to support especially business research. Reviewed literature illustrates that there are a large number of research avenues to be addressed in the future. The first objective for future research is to implement a more precise research field of business research. The second objective is to conduct more comparative studies between Twitter sentiment analysis and qualitative business research methods. Another intriguing research topic is Twitter sentiment analysis in the context of Finnish companies.