Lisa Joy Rosner at NetBase has posted a newly minted social media sentiment analysis on Gartner, Forrester Research, IDC and Alitmeter Group. For me, there’s one surprise in the results.

No surprise, Gartner and Forrester command the largest online presence and their mentions are less emotional, more informational. Social conversations tend to reference them more as institutions. This points to a phenomenon that I’ve been noticing: regardless of the social media strategies of these two firms, social channels are increasing their overall visibility. Think about the implications for offline conversations.

Also not a surprise: Altimeter Group contrasts with Gartner and Forrester in the strong emotional context of its social media mentions. This points to a different aspect of analysts on social media: those building their brands from the ground up on social media keep the conversations personal. In other words, their social media strategy is about building personal connections and loyalty first — leading corporate brand with personal brand. I expect NetBase would find similar results for RedMonk, Freeform Dynamics and newer firms like Sepharim Group.

The big surprise on the chart? IDC. IDC is very close to Altimeter on positive emotional sentiment. Clearly, something is driving this differentiation between IDC on the one extreme and Gartner and Forrester. What is it? The relationships that IDC analysts form with their clients and research targets? The topical emphasis of IDC?

Thanks to Lisa Joy for sharing!