analyzing-twitter-sentiment-for-topic

Analyzing Twitter Sentiment for a Topic

Collects a sample of tweets about any topic or keyword and performs sentiment analysis across the dataset. Identifies dominant emotional tone, key themes driving positive/negative sentiment, and volume patterns over time.

Prerequisites

• APIFY_TOKEN environment variable set
• Optional: Apify MCP server installed

Inputs

Workflow

Progress:
- [ ] Step 1: Define topic and sentiment scope
- [ ] Step 2: Collect tweets via search
- [ ] Step 3: Classify sentiment per tweet
- [ ] Step 4: Identify themes per sentiment bucket
- [ ] Step 5: Deliver sentiment report

Step 1: Clarify Parameters

Ask the user for:

• Topic, keyword, or brand to analyze
• Date range (default: last 7 days — Twitter sentiment data decays fast)
• Language (default: English)
• Sample size (default: 500 tweets — sufficient for reliable distribution)
• Exclude retweets? (default: yes — reduces duplicated opinion signals)
• Comparison topic (optional — for side-by-side sentiment comparison)

Step 2: Collect Tweets

Recommended — run_actor.js (handles waiting, output, and file saving automatically):

# Quick answer (prints table to chat)
node scripts/run_actor.js \
  --actor "apidojo~tweet-scraper" \
  --input '{"param": "value"}'

# Save as CSV
node scripts/run_actor.js \
  --actor "apidojo~tweet-scraper" \
  --input '{"param": "value"}' \
  --output YYYY-MM-DD_results.csv --format csv

# Save as JSON
node scripts/run_actor.js \
  --actor "apidojo~tweet-scraper" \
  --input '{"param": "value"}' \
  --output YYYY-MM-DD_results.json --format json

APIFY_TOKEN must be set in environment or .env file.

If Apify MCP is available:

Tool: apify:run-actor
Actor: "apidojo~tweet-scraper"
Input:
{
  "searchTerms": ["[TOPIC_KEYWORD]"],
  "maxItems": 500,
  "tweetLanguage": "en",
  "since": "[YYYY-MM-DD]",
  "until": "[YYYY-MM-DD]"
}

REST API fallback:

curl -X POST \
  "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/apidojo~tweet-scraper/runs?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "searchTerms": ["[TOPIC_KEYWORD]"],
    "maxItems": 500,
    "tweetLanguage": "en",
    "since": "[YYYY-MM-DD]"
  }'

Step 3: Classify Sentiment

For each tweet's text, classify as Positive, Negative, or Neutral using lexical signals:

Positive indicators: love, great, amazing, perfect, best, win, excited, congrats, excellent, recommend, beautiful, proud, happy, thank, awesome, incredible Negative indicators: hate, awful, worst, terrible, broken, scam, disappointed, angry, frustrated, disgusted, avoid, never again, shame, sad, fail, wrong, bad Strong negative amplifiers: "can't believe", "what a joke", "are you serious", "wtf", "this is ridiculous" Neutral default: Everything else

For ambiguous cases, use emoji signals:

• 😍🥰❤️🙌👏✨🔥 → lean Positive
• 😡🤬😤💀🗑️🤢👎 → lean Negative
• 🤔😐🤷 → lean Neutral

Weight tweets by engagement: a tweet with 1,000 likes carries more signal than one with 0.

Step 4: Theme Extraction

For Negative tweets: identify the top 3-5 recurring nouns/themes. What are people upset about specifically? For Positive tweets: identify the top 3-5 recurring praise themes.

Look for proper nouns (people, places, products), specific events, or feature names that appear repeatedly.

Step 5: Format Report

Output Format

# Twitter Sentiment Analysis: "[TOPIC]"
Period: [DATE_RANGE] | Tweets analyzed: [N] | Date: [DATE]

## Overall Sentiment

████████████░░░░░░░░ Positive: [X%] ([N] tweets) ████░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░ Negative: [X%] ([N] tweets) ██████████░░░░░░░░░░ Neutral: [X%] ([N] tweets)

Weighted by engagement:
- Positive sentiment accounts for [X%] of total likes/RTs
- Negative sentiment accounts for [X%] of total likes/RTs

**Overall verdict:** [Mostly Positive / Mixed / Mostly Negative / Polarized]

## Top Negative Themes
1. "[Theme]" — [N] tweets, [N] total likes
   Example: "@[handle]: [tweet excerpt]"
2. "[Theme]" — [N] tweets
3. "[Theme]" — [N] tweets

## Top Positive Themes
1. "[Theme]" — [N] tweets, [N] total likes
   Example: "@[handle]: [tweet excerpt]"
2. "[Theme]" — [N] tweets

## Most Engaged Tweets
🔴 Most-liked negative: @[handle] ([N] likes): "[excerpt]"
🟢 Most-liked positive: @[handle] ([N] likes): "[excerpt]"

## Volume Over Time
[Day 1]: [N] tweets | [Day 2]: [N] tweets | [Day 3]: [N] tweets

## Notable Spikes
[Date with highest volume] — [N] tweets | Likely cause: [describe if detectable from tweet context]

Troubleshooting

Sentiment feels inaccurate: Lexical analysis misses sarcasm. For high-stakes decisions, manually review the top 20 tweets per bucket. Topic too broad: Narrow the search term. "Apple" returns tech and food — use "Apple iPhone" instead. Very low tweet volume: Topic may not be actively discussed on Twitter right now. Expand date range.