Speak to any corporate comms honcho and they’ll tell you de-fuzing a Twitter #fail storm can be not just a PR headache, but can really sink the brand’s reputation. On the flip side, there’s no better publicity than genuine customer praise cascading across Twitter. Still, we want to know: who outnumbers whom, the haters or the lovers?

The good news is that good news beats bad most days on Twitter. Just look at all the congratulatory Tweets (sprinkled in between far fewer groans) for Oscar winners trending this morning. Or, represented graphically here thanks to TwitterSpectrum:

Drill down to the brand level though and it’s not nearly that warm and fuzzy. Ad Age points out this morning on its latest Top 10 Most Tweeted Brands chart that two well known names – the BBC in the UK and BET in the US – made the list for all the wrong reasons last week: respectively, unpopular programming cuts and an unfavorable hashtag trend. And, a quick glimpse of what’s trending on #fail this morning shows some big names: Apple, Telstra and American Express are all taking their knocks for perceived customer service failings.

What does this all say? Twitter, on aggregate, is more positive than negative. That’s not too surprising when you consider Twitter reflects the sum total of our opinions, observations, jokes and yes, gripes and kudos, and that most days that all adds up to be more positive than negative.

I’m even going to suggest that when brands are trending for all the wrong reasons this too can represent a positive development. It’s a free report card on how you are doing in all areas of your business. And this can be more valuable than a sudden eruption of praise. So, embrace the bad news. And learn from it.