Social Media Measurement and Analytic Tools
So when you are listening to somebody, completely,
attentively, then you are listening not only to the words, but also to the
feeling of what is being conveyed, to the whole of it, not part of it.
Social media has
provided consumers, publics, and constituents with a unique platform to voice
their opinions and attitudes in an unprecedented manner – a word-wide
‘soap-box’ to preach from! As public relations practitioners, a critical part
of our job is listening to these advocates and enemies, admirers and haters,
and reporting back to our organizations. As social media has expanded
exponentially, measurement and analytic tools have followed shortly behind.
These tools come in as many different shapes and sizes as social media
platforms. Here are a few of the (potential) Twitter, Facebook, and LinkLinkedIns
of the measurement and analytical sets.
Free is good... let’s start there!
HootSuite
HootSuite is one of
the most popular (according to a ‘steveology blog’ survey) tools which provide
comprehensive social media monitoring and some analytic tools. Subscribers can
manage and measure their social networks including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn
and a multitude of other social networks, schedule messages and tweets, track
brand mentions, and analyse social media traffic. Basic services are provided
free, additional services can be added for only $9.99 per month, or for
companies requiring more substantial monitoring and customized analytics, an
‘enterprise’ option is offered (cost to be tailored to suit the organization’s
needs).
Laura’s top three
reasons why I think Hootsuit adds value to social web programs --
1. It appears to be
fairly user friendly – you won’t need an advanced degree to get set up. Overly
complicated user interface would be a deal-breaker for me.
2. It’s robust – you can
schedule your activities AND can track multiple social networks in one place.
3. You can collaborate
with team members.
Kred
This unique social
media monitoring tool mines social data to measure the relative influence of an
organization or individual based on their Twitter use/following and assigns
them a ‘Kred’ (as in credibility) score. The score is determined based on their
influence and outreach activity. This tool allows you to measure how
effectively you are communicating with your audience.
Some great reasons to
choose Kred include --
1. Complete transparency
- the measurement criteria that Kred uses is readily available.
2. Users can measure success
by following increases in their ‘Kred’ score. An Activity Statement is
available that illustrates what activities increased or decreased your score.
3. Competitor
information is available – you can see how you’re social media strategy is
working versus another brand/organization.
Social Mention
Social Mention bills
itself as `real time search platform` and provides free daily email alerts on any
chosen subject i.e. your brand, organization, competitor, or current issue. It
is a social media search and analysis platform that gathers user generated
content from Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Google and many more, from around the
world. It gathers information and provides analytics regarding the `tone` of
the message – is it generally positive or negative, and `passion` -- the social
media value of the people talking about your brand or organization.
Social Mention adds
value to social media PR because --
1. Social Mention
provides an excellent reputation monitoring tool, providing extensive
intelligence, across multiple platforms.
2. The platform not only
reports on numbers of mentions, but provides analysis regarding the ‘sentiment’-
good, bad, or neutral.
3. Social Mention
identifies the social media users who are talking about your organization the
most – therefore you can focus on either neutralizing their message or, if they
are positively inclined towards your organization, share relevant messages that
they can ‘amplify’ on your behalf.
Crimson Hexagon
While I am a big fan
of ‘free’, sometimes paying upfront is a better bet and ultimately has a higher
payoff. Crimson Hexagon is an 'Enterprise
Social Media Monitoring and Analysis Software’ that no-doubt comes with a
massive price-tag, and it could be argued that many of the features that it
provides are available via other services. But Crimson Hexigon does it all
bigger and better – using patented technology invented at Harvard, it listens
globally (its ‘language agnostic’, so whether the tweet is in English or Japanese
its gathered and analyzed) and provides detailed, sensitive analytics that
provide remarkable insight.
The value of Crimson
Hexagon
1. Crimson Hexagon
provides best-in-class social media monitoring and analysis – which means
better understanding of an organization or brand’s public and their issues.
2. Advanced technology
developed by Crimson Hexagon allows for analysis of the entire social internet –
including blog past, forum messages, Facebook posts, and tweets.
3. The monitoring
platform provides in-depth analysis of data, mapping out consumer sentiment on
various parameters
4. Such detailed intelligence
can be used to identify new product opportunities, head-off crisis, identify
competitive advantages.
Social media is
changing so rapidly, monitoring platforms are being launched, bought, merged,
and abandoned in record time. As the social media landscape expands, stabilizes,
and matures, some social media platforms will adapt and some will become extinct.
