Web 2.What?

A couple posts ago, I brought up the topic of social media monitoring tools (SMMs). They are popping up everywhere, but which one do you choose?

In this on-going series (though I warn you it might be slow) I’m going to look at the various tools available and give my opinion on what I like about them and why I think they are useful.

First up is a company called Infegy, who has a tool called Social Radar. When I first mentioned I was interested in exploring SMMs, Infegy President Adam Coomes contacted me right away via Twitter, so these guys are definitely on the ball. Since this is the first tool I’ve looked at, I don’t really have any benchmark, but I was definitely able to see a lot of value in it (vs monitoring via Google Alerts and good old-fashioned legwork, which I have done in the past). For those of you in a hurry, here’s my quick review

Product: Social Radar by Infegy
What it does: Tracks mentions on blogs and any site with feed capabilities; allows you to analyze that data and better understand value of mentions.
Who’s it best for: Hmm, probably small to mid-size companies with a moderate to strong online presence (Though it could definitely be scalable for larger companies).
Who should use it: Someone who knows a little about social media, loves to look at and manipulate numbers and data.
Why you’ll love it: Super fast, intuitive, easy to use.
But what is the product really like? I’ve used quite a few online tools for varying purposes, but never have I seen anything run as smoothly or quickly as Social Radar, even when doing complex searches in its very well developed database. Right off the bat I was impressed.

Also, one of my favorite features is the home page. Think iGoogle, but for the purpose of media monitoring; you are able to pick and choose which widgets you’d like to display, so you build your own dynamic dashboard:

Also if you’re an analytics junkie, you’ll love this tool. You are able to slice and dice data in any way you like and run beautiful charts to satisfy upper management.

Finally in my informal list of what made me go “oooh” and “aaaah”: the tool lets you build ‘eco-systems’ like this picture below. Basically each orb represents a blog or site talking about your product/brand/search term, and the lines around it represent inbound and outbound links, giving a great visual representation of influence. While I definitely think if you’re really on the ball, you should be reading all the influential blogs in your space, (so it would be no surprise). However this tool would allow you to easily explain influence and the importance to others, say managers, who pay your salary. Obviously this is important!

Infegy’s Social Radar is based on an enormous database of feeds which is constantly growing and updating. From the demo I had it was definitely apparent it covers enough sites out there to get good bang for your buck. The only downside I noticed was that it’s unable to track mentions in audio or video files (i.e. podcasts) Though I’m not sure that’s possible for anyone, so I wouldn’t hold it against them. Also, presumably most podcasts would have a feed, and probably a text description so you’d still be covered.

Anyone out there ever use Social Radar? Any thoughts?

**UPDATE!**

So I actually did this demo about three weeks ago and just received a tip from CEO Justin Graves about a brand new feature. I was going to wait a few days to update, but it’s just sooo cool I had to get it up here. Now Social Radar can read the sentiment and give you an indication about whether your coverage is positive, negative or neutral. I’ve never heard of this being possible before, so it sounds fantastic! Now I haven’t seen it in action, but I wouldn’t expect it to be a *perfect* science, but invaluable none-the-less. Here’s a few shots of it in action. Justin also tells me you are able to build these charts based on a specific time frame and are able to compare month-by-month or year-by-year… Whatever makes most sense.

Depending how well you know me, you probably know one or the other of the following statements (or possibly both) about me:

1. I LOVE shoes. Both my shoe racks are full, along with a closet and a half. When I see a great pair of shoes, I can’t resist. I may have a problem.
2. I LOVE Twitter. I’m on it more and more every day, tweeting more, following more. I’m a huge advocate of brands using Twitter to connect with customers. In fact it’s likely you came here through Twitter. I may have a problem…

In my opinion, the one thing Twitter has been missing is a really great example of how a brand can use it to its advantage. Well finally I found it!

Zappos, an amazing online shoe store (actually, a “service company that happens to sell” shoes & other accessories), whose been featured on Seth Godin’s blog for a pretty amazing customer service experience, has officially impressed the heck out of me with its use of Twitter.

Twitter CEO, Tony Hsieh created an account on Twitter and announced he would give away a free pair of shoes to one of his followers (at random) that evening, as well as free shoes for up to 10 of that’s person’s Twitter friends, provided they were all following @zappos as well. Not sure how many followers they started out with but currently (a day later) they have 1,152, the account has only been around for three days, so I’d say that’s crazy-impressive! But it gets even better, Zappos also set up a page to monitor everyone’s tweets. (You may even notice some people exclaiming that they are heading to Zappos.com to make purchases, how’s that for proof?)

A pretty amazing Twitter story, even if I didn’t win the free shoes. Oh, and for those of you who came here expecting it to be about shoes, here’s some eye candy:

To the left, Betsy Johnson ‘Foster’ and to the right, very hot new pumps from Alexander McQueen.

Ok, obviously we need to track our brand’s activity in social media, but do we need a brand new tool to do so efficiently?

I’m not sure. The majority of my experience has been with small companies who wouldn’t pay (or even have the need for) media monitoring services. Instead I would set up Google Alerts, read industry publications and blogs, and just really do all the monitoring myself. And then if I had time I would do my own analysis.

However, in a larger organization, obviously this is more than one person can manage. Media monitoring services are thorough, experts in the field and can provide a third-party perspective on your media coverage. Tools available online often take a self-serve approach but look like they provide a lot of great easy-to-understand info.

I’ve decided I’m going to take a closer look at a few of the players in both the traditional media monitoring services which are adapting to social media needs, as well as new tools strictly for managing social media monitoring. In the meantime, however, I’d love to hear your thoughts, opinions, and ideas on the topic…

Wal-Mart has been in the news a few times with PR firm Edelman for its social media disasters. First it was Wal-marting across America, next it attempted to create its own MySpace-ish social network, which was embarrassingly shut down only 10 weeks later. Next, it smarted up and tried using Facebook to reach its younger audiences, though that failed too.

Now, I for one would like to see Wal-Mart do well. Yes, they’ve got a bad rap in the past for mistreating associates and participating in child/slave labor, but honestly I think they’ve learned their lesson for the most part, now as the world’s largest retailer they are doing good stuff for charities, promoting local and ethical products, etc. I also worked at Wal-Mart at 18, and as a job to have while in high school/college, it was great. I was promoted to customer service manager in a few months, and I was making more than most of my friends working min. wage jobs. A far cry from perfect, for the biggest retailer in the world, they are at least doing some things right.

That’s why I was happy to hear they’ve finally got the right idea with social media. Which in this case, it is starting small and building long-term strategy into its approach. User-generated reviews are a fantastic and natural fit for retailers, and Wal-Mart was even smart enough to cross promote online reviews on in-store receipts. It goes a step further and even encourages shoppers to go online and read reviews on shelf fact tags before making a purchase decision.

Essentially what Wal-Mart is doing–which is key to social media and which many retailers miss– is that it is giving up control to consumers and providing avenues to make informed purchasing decision. Yes, telling people to go online and read reviews BEFORE buying while in-store seems like a backwards strategy–that is, the customer will leave the store without buying–it’s actually genius, because that person will probably be more loyal, and buy even more, long term.

I hope Wal-Mart tracks its success well, and that the results are publicly available. For smaller retail outlets this move might seem like a risk, but Wal-Mart continues to be the leading retailer, despite its epic social media failures, so they can afford to try virtually anything. I’ll be staying tuned…

PS-Thanks to @giggey on Twitter for tipping me off to this story…