Ever have something come out of your mouth one way and become surprised to learn that the person you’re talking to heard something completely different? You can’t change what the person believes they heard, even if it’s not what you said or meant. And though the intention of your own words seemed clear, the other person’s perception is their truth.

Now imagine writing a thought down and sending it to someone. Without the benefit of body language, it’s hard to know the tone of that message, whether it’s meant to be serious or sarcastic, positive or negative. And if you don’t know the person well, the task is even harder. Just think of all the emails you write that fall into this category.

Writing is tricky, full of nuance and unspoken communication. And in the sentiment analysis game – the practice of determining whether an online conversation is either positive, negative or neutral (or mixed) in tone – that’s a sticky issue. For social media monitoring service providers, it’s a hurdle they’re trying really hard to overcome.

Here’s where things stand right now with sentiment analysis:

• Human filtering: Companies like RepuTrack use people on their team to help determine sentiment.

• Automated: Companies like Alterian’s SM2 use a complex algorithm that looks for “trigger words” to help classify conversations.

• Analyst driven: Individuals, either on the client side or a consultant being paid by the client, positioned between the monitoring platform and the end-user to verify and/or reclassify the information.

However, according to Maria Ogneva of Biz360, you can only get so close to a perfect result. “If two humans were rating an article for sentiment, they would agree 79% of the time (source of this statistic escapes me now), so automated sentiment simply can not be higher than that.”

So if that’s the case, how do you make the analysis as close to perfect as possible?

Over lunch recently with Alexandre Gravel of Toast Studio and Martin Perron of Bloom Search Marketing, we reasoned that crowdsourcing could hold the key. Over on Biz360’s blog, MarketIQ, they describe an experiment they conducted using Mechanical Turk to crowdsource sentiment analysis to verify if their own classifications were accurate. (It’s a fascinating read, take some time to digest it.)

But the question remains, how do you overcome the flaws of sentiment analysis if you’re responsible for tracking conversation related to a brand?

Become intimate with the conversation.

You read that right.

Before you even set up a single keyword search, make sure you have a thorough understanding of the brand and its environment. By getting to know the brand beforehand, you’ll understand the tone associated to it, the issues it faces and you’ll be able to outline the things you expect to hear.

Then, once you start collecting results, you’ll see and understand the trends, key influencers, lingo – and the discussions taking place will just make sense to you. Like any relationship, you’ll know what the hidden body language is within these conversations. Monitor on a daily basis and you’ll find the flow and be able to judge for yourself how a conversation should be classified.

Of course, this isn’t the perfect solution for all projects and search profiles, but no matter how you approach your social media monitoring program, if you’re not reading the results, you’re wasting your time anyway. So become intimate with the conversation and you’ll be in a better position to classify sentiment for yourself.

One of the best ways to get what you want out of a service provider has always been to get on the phone, escalate to the “customer retention” department and make your case. We all know that the front line at the call centre is merely trying to triage your complaint, bandage up the wound and get you on your merry way.

Recently, though, I’ve seen and heard examples of people being able to circumvent the front line and move up the ladder after threatening to take the “story” online. What happens then? Have we reached the point where just threatening to put something on the Internet is enough to gain traction with the folks at the call centre?

From what I’ve been seeing and hearing, the tactic is becoming a powerful one-two punch.

With the internet firmly entrenched as the go-to destination for those looking to out brands for shoddy products and service, people are turning to blogs, Twitter, rating sites, forums, and so on, with a new found power, to air their grievances and make them stick. Now, with more and more companies engaged in social media monitoring programs, companies are beginning to understand the urgency and lasting effect these negative bread crumbs can have.

Not happy with your newspaper price or service? See what happens when you threaten to cancel your subscription and read the paper online.

Not happy when a part goes on a appliance that’s past its warranty? See what happens on the phone when you casually mention that you’ll tweet, blog or rate the product online.

The tone changes. The call center folk become a little more accommodating. And you get moved to the next tier faster. Consumer-friendly solutions follow.

Now, I’m not advocating being difficult or making things harder for Judy the operator every time you need to solve a problem, but this does represent a huge shift in corporate’s understanding of the online environment.

Some thoughts on this:

• Are companies now starting to fully understand the far reaching efforts that a negative review posted online can have?

• Are they also starting to understand the benefit of solving the problem amicably, hoping that it will lead to a positive online mention?

For consumers, perhaps this is a more effective means to an end as well. Sure you can tweet your experience, but then you’re not only saying something about the brand you’re targeting, but you’re also saying something about yourself as well. (Just a little, right?)

So dial the number. Make the threat. See what happens.

Then take it online if you have to. And see if they’re listening.