The World Wide Soap Box!

 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.

Jiddu Krishnamurti

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.

1.       http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/j/jiddukrish132525.html. Access March 24, 2013.