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GEO Strategy 7 min read April 23, 2026 Lena Okafor
Sentiment is the new SERP feature.
Mention rate is a vanity metric on its own. A brand that gets named in 80% of responses but is described as "polarising" or "overpriced" is losing pipeline to a competitor mentioned 50% of the time and described as "trusted".
Measuring sentiment correctly
Don't run sentiment on the whole response — run it on the sentence containing your brand. A positive overall answer often hides a negative side-comment about you specifically.
Three sentiment levers that move quickly
- Respond publicly to negative Reddit threads with verified accounts — models read replies.
- Refresh your G2 review base; recency weighs heavier than volume in AI summaries.
- Publish one customer story per quarter with concrete numbers and named people.
What we tell CMOs
Track sentiment as a paired metric with mention share. Either one alone misleads. Together they predict pipeline movement with surprising accuracy.
