Top 10 services you can use so you don’t have to stick to your monitor like ‘a mouse on cheese’ (Jesus, is he gone yet?)
Risking abuse by the (anonymous) blessed
few who may deem it necessary to charge , shall we say, slightly more than
nothing for monitoring what’s predominantly freely available to anyone with
eyes and ears, AND since you
have Twitter search pretty much licked, I have put together a (not
particularly earth-shattering, in no particular order, but quite nice to have
it all in one place) top 10 list of top social media monitoring tools that cost
you…time and effort which, as we all know, are things us PR folk like to refer
to as and turn into money.
Let me know what you think and which ones I
have missed in the comments!
Paul
@munkyfonkey
/ @themediaisdying
Sh!ccount : An email account you just use
for signing up to new products, newsletters and services. I recommend any of them (Yahoo, Hotmail
etc) although Gmail can be a bit daunting
if you are used to folders.
Google
Alerts : Include spelling errors of your terms – rushed people make
mistakes or perhaps your brand can be split. Set them up hourly or daily if you’re (sniff) feeling
overwhelmed. Oh and then read
them. [Alternative : Social Mention]
Nutshell
: This is genius – it smashes in Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, email, LinkedIn
and a whole host of other products into… wait for it… one email which can be
sent hourly to your account.
Bingo. Firehose managed.
Backtype
: This puppy allows you to go deep into the world of forums and discussion
boards. Put down the Muller light
for lunch this is serious stuff.
Watch. Listen. Repeat. Watch out for trolls.
Lexicon
: Think Twitter search but for the 222 million Facebook users out there.
Spy :
This sucker is pretty new on the scene (i.e. less than six months old!) are has
caused quite a stir because it measures more than most (including Flickr,
Friendfeed etc). Not a huge fan of
the UI but hey it’s free and it does what it says on the tin. Sold.
Yahoo!
Pipes : This thing looks like it should be left well to the nerds but trust
me it’s a diamond service. Once
you get past the daunting terminology and realize you are just pushing
information around and filtering it – you realize it’s actually the key to you
keeping your hair and tabs on all those celebrity blogs you don’t read at work.
Addictomatic
: Basically this badboy gives you a snapshot of what’s going on with a certain
search term on Bing, Yahoo, Google, DIGG and about 10 others… ON ONE PAGE. Amazing – snapshot and no metrics but
great for crisis work and quick assessments.
Google
: Including blogs, news etc it’s still one of your first stops in listening.
Compete
: Great for monitoring traffic trends.
Quantcast is another great
resource for monitoring shift in audience and demographics.
LINKBAIT:
WATCH: Nurse Jackie (because it’s just
awesome writing) [TV Shack]
LEARN: How the Guardian worked their social
mojo on the scandal ‘experiment’ [Guardian]
SEE: The future of British plugs… bub-bye
laptop bloat. AMEN. [Engadget]
