# How Software Automatically Ranks and Manages Online Customer Feedback

> A system that automatically finds, scores, and prioritizes online mentions of a company so they can respond to the most important conversations first.

- **Patent:** US 8983975
- **Original title:** Systems and methods for measuring and managing distributed online conversations
- **Owner:** Individual
- **Granted:** 2015
- **Status:** Active
- **Times cited:** 27
- **Field:** software, ai_ml, ecommerce, telecommunications

## What it does

This system acts as a digital filter for a company's online reputation. It uses automated search queries to scan the internet for mentions of a specific entity, such as a brand or person. Once it finds a relevant post, it saves it as a 'discrete incident' and assigns it a score based on metrics like keyword density or emotional sentiment. Finally, it ranks these incidents based on the importance of the source and the content's score, presenting a prioritized list to the company so they know which customer complaints or mentions need immediate attention.

## What it does NOT cover

- Does not cover manual social media monitoring where a human manually searches for posts.
- Does not cover systems that simply aggregate data without performing automated scoring and prioritization.
- Does not cover general search engine technology that does not link content to a specific entity for incident management.

## The clever bit

The system doesn't just find mentions; it prioritizes them by combining the relevance of the content with the authority of the source, effectively automating the triage process for brand management.

## Real-world examples

1. Brandwatch
2. Sprout Social
3. Hootsuite
4. Salesforce Marketing Cloud

## Why it matters

Before tools like this, companies were overwhelmed by the sheer volume of social media noise. This patent describes the infrastructure for modern social listening platforms, allowing businesses to turn chaotic internet chatter into a structured 'to-do' list for customer support and public relations teams.

## Frequently asked questions

### What does How Software Automatically Ranks and Manages Online Customer Feedback cover?

A system that automatically finds, scores, and prioritizes online mentions of a company so they can respond to the most important conversations first.

### Who owns patent US 8983975?

Individual owns this patent, granted in 2015.

### When does this patent expire?

This patent is expected to expire on March 17, 2035, when the invention enters the public domain.

### What is patent US 8983975 cited by?

This patent has been cited by 27 later patents that build on its ideas.

### What problem does this patent solve?

Before tools like this, companies were overwhelmed by the sheer volume of social media noise. This patent describes the infrastructure for modern social listening platforms, allowing businesses to turn chaotic internet chatter into a structured 'to-do' list for customer support and public relations teams.

### What does this patent NOT cover?

Does not cover manual social media monitoring where a human manually searches for posts.

**Full plain-English explainer:** https://patentbrief.org/patent/us/8983975/facebook-news-feed-ranking

**Original patent:** https://patents.google.com/patent/US8983975

---

_Source: PatentBrief — https://patentbrief.org. Patent facts are from public records; the plain-English explanation is PatentBrief's._