Friend (pictured), who founded media content firm Joyrider, said his new venture will offer bespoke services to help clients discover what their customers and other consumers are saying about their brands.

He told Research that the new venture addresses some of the issues he came across during his time as a media buyer for companies including Barclays. “I always remember,” he said, “that very large decisions on expenditure for media buying were based on quite nebulous and unreliable research. Most of the research that you based all these decisions on were sample groups, very small sample groups as well.”

Friend said it was “very important” for clients and brands to be monitoring what is being said about them on a wider scale through channels such as social media.

Amplified State offers sentiment analysis using proprietary software, as well as sentiment planning, buzz tracking and online brand communities. The firm’s technology took two years to develop, and uses a mixture of algorithms and human interaction to analyse social media content.

Friend said: “The power has shifted to the consumer, and we’re respecting and utilising that reality to the betterment of a brand… Unlike focus groups, we’re basing our evaluations on actual conversations. We are offering clients a clean and direct line to their audience.”

He said that by working in a partnership with clients, Amplified State hopes to differentiate itself from some of the other social media tracking products already available. “We like to think we are doing it from a very client friendly point-of-view rather than saying ‘These are the products, here is how they work, you pay a subscription and you do this’,” said Friend.

The company’s management team also includes head of business development and COO Michael Goldman, chief engineer Oliver Coey and senior analyst Michael Brewer.