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.

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…

With so many social media tools out there, how do you find the right one for you?

The answer–and I’m sorry to say–is I don’t know… Or let’s go with the famous ‘marketing’ answer: It depends. However, I’ll document a few I use and why I chose to use them:

Micro-blogging
I’m a Twitteraholic. No doubt about that. However, I will admit I have yet to try out the competitors (Namely, Pownce and Jaiku, as well as Utterz I believe). Usually I like to try out a few before I commit, but I’m so in love with Twitter (aka addicted), I just don’t have time for the others! I’ll admit–I also love how the name lends itself to cute wordplays like twitterverse and twitterati etc., but that’s just one of the many reasons.

*Update*

• Pretty much everyone agrees, Twitter rocks!

Blogging Platform
First I started out my blogging life using Blogger, because it seemed the easiest for beginners. I wasn’t completely thrilled and contemplated switching, right until Google bought it out and re-vamped it. I fell in love, but when the company I worked for was acquired, Blogger wasn’t flexible enough. So I learned Wordpress and I have never looked back. Recently, however, I began blogging over at Ottawa.Cityguide.ca, which uses Moveable Type. I’m no expert yet, but so far I’m liking it a lot. However I’m only a contributor on Moveable Type, so I can’t say for sure how they templates, set up, etc. work.

Therefore my favourite would have to be Wordpress. It’s easy-to-use and I was able to set it up on my own domain quickly and easily. Though I have yet to use Typepad, which I know many swear by.

*Update*

• Johann Burkard recommends a service called blojsom, I’ve never heard of it, but apparently Apple uses it for one of its web servers.

RSS Readers
I started out using Newsgator, not even sure why, but I noticed that a large majority of my subscribers were using Google Reader–I was intrigued–so I checked it out and sure enough, fell in love. I’ve also tried managing some feeds through my iGoogle page, but I think I consume too much for that to be a viable option. What I would love is a reader built into an app that could sit on my desktop and scroll through new headlines for all my feeds. I’m not even sure if it exists-but I would love it.

*Update*

• Dave Barger recommends Outlook 2007’s built in reader. I’ve never used it, but I’ve heard lots of good things from others. So if you have ‘07, it’s worth checking out!
• @heatherforce says she loves Attensa, which I’ve never heard of before. According to the web site it looks like an enterprise RSS reader. Heather particularly likes the plug in for Outlook. (Come on now, who’s really surprised we want to read our feeds with our email?!)
• Johann Burkard uses Bloglines, which is another popular choice, but has also used Rojo & found it to be great, but unreliable.

Social News/Sharing Sites
Ok, this is probably a vague area, as it could cover a lot, but I’m thinking of Digg, Mixx, Reddit, and even del.icio.us and StumbleUpon might fall into this category. However there’s tons of niche sites that could be included like Sphinn and PlugIM, for example.

Out of all of them, I’d say Stumble is my favourite. Actually, by far. It is a killer tool for driving traffic to your blog, AND it’s hours of fun hitting the “Stumble” button. My Stumble is also integrated with my Facebook, so all my friends can see the sites I like. It’s a fantastic tool

(Fun fact: I actually heard about Stumble over two years ago from my hair stylist, she was complaining that her husband stayed up all night ’stumbling’ and I was intrigued to learn more)

I know I could probably go on for days, but I’d love your input: What tools do you use? Why do you use them? What else have you tried?

I’ll update this post with your comments.

*Update*

• Colin brings to my attention that I missed a very obvious category: social networking. (duh!)

Social Networking
I’m still hooked on Facebook, because it’s my primary means of communication with some of my good friends. However, like Colin says in the comments, LinkedIn is a rocking place to be. I’ve pretty much abandoned MySpace. I’ve also joined and played around in a few niche sites like Chapter’s Book Lover’s Community as well as Group Recipes, but they just don’t have the ’stickiness’ of the big guys.

*Update*

• Linda Bustos points out some great niche sites for marketers: Gooruze, Sphinn, and SEOmoz. I’ve been involved a little in all three, so I’ll second the great choices.

Ok there’s hundreds of fantastic blogs out there that I would love to link to. However, so far I’m doing a bad job of getting around to it. So I’m going to spin this into a social activity and ask for your help on building my blog roll.

In the comments,  let me know which blogs you think belong on my blog roll. Please feel free to drop your own blog URLs, so long as it’s relevant to what I’m talking about here, I’d be happy to link to you! (Also, if you enjoy my content and want to return the favour and link back to web2dotwhat.com, I don’t mind)

Whether you’re interested in social media for professional or personal reasons (or both!) it can get overwhelming. There’s so much information out there, and now even more tools to consume information. If you’re into what’s new and hot in the social media world, you likely know how daunting it can be to stay up to date with everything. At times I feel like if I don’t spend a couple hours each day browsing blogs in my reader, doing some Stumbling or checking out Twitter, I feel like I’m back at square one in the social media game.

However, I have figured out a few shortcuts which can help you stay up to date without giving up sleep time.

1. Bestofyoutube.com - As fun as it is to browse You Tube every day for the funniest or most interesting videos, it can take a lot of time. But how embarassing is it when everyone starts talking about that crazy popular video and you haven’t seen it yet? Well Bestofyoutube.com takes the most popular videos from youtube each day and aggregates it in a podcast. I love downloading these babies to my new Nano and watching ‘em at the gym. (I admit, I’ve burst out laughing once or twice!)
2. Twitter - Get the right people on your Twitter feed and you’ll be amazed how much great info you can digest in a small amount of time (and 140 characters at a time!). Honestly since I got hooked on Twitter, I’ve been opening Google Reader less and less.
3. Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang - Jeremiah is easily one of the most influential and knowledgeable web strategists out there. In fact, Twitter is taking off big time and I think a particular post by Jeremiah on what is now dubbed ‘Twitter Tuesday’ has a lot to do with it.
4. Google Alerts - These handy little suckers help you monitor issues you are interested in. I use it for several keywords that are important to what I do, as well as for monitoring mentions of the company I work for on the web. You could also set up an alert for your own name, to monitor your personal brand reputation. Whatever you use it for GA are super useful, quick and convenient.
5. Alltop - Are you still wondering what an RSS reader is? Or how you subscribe to blogs? Or maybe you get all that but just don’t have the time to seek out all the best resources. Well Alltop is probably the place for you.  It is a collection of blogs on a wide variety of topics. Each topic includes “All the top” blogs on that subject. Check out socialmedia.alltop.com for all the top stories on social media. (Though web2dotwhat.com is not there…yet!)

So there you go, consider it your ‘Coles notes’ to being a social media geek. There’s probably tons more, so drop a comment if you know of something good.

I think we all agree, for the average consumer, Web 2.0 is a wonderful place. If you experience an inappropriate or unacceptable customer service experience with a brand, you can easily go online and complain about it. Most responsible companies will monitor and try to reach out and rectify the situation. Consumer control. It’s fabulous and the way things should be!

Yet, have you noticed… Some companies still get away with bloody murder? I hate to name names, but at this point I think it’s deserved. I mean a quick visit to Google and it’s easy to find hundreds–if not thousands– of dissatisfied Rogers customers–whether you’re looking at its wireless, television, internet or home phone services.

(Background: I have been a Rogers customer several times, and have had NOTHING but bad customer service experiences. Specifically when dealing with third-party partners: First I had a dispute with Visa and Rogers and spent the day calling each back and forth only to get “It’s Visa’s fault … Call them back!” then Visa saying “It’s Rogers! Call them back!”. Now for some crazy reason I bought and returned a Rogers cell phone from Best Buy… Guess what’s happening??)

Sorry about that. Had to vent a little, but I don’t want to turn this into a bitch-fest. The point is if were to do some online research about Rogers, you’d find TONS of bad reviews, complaints, and dissatisfied customers.

Now it’s a good thing there’s other options out there for your cell/telephone/internet/cable needs….Right?

Wait…Let’s do a couple searches first… Bell Canada? Telus? Yikes, let’s check Rogers out again. It’s a sad, sad picture for Canadians. There’s no monopoly anymore, but as long as all the big providers keep the same bad level of customer service up, everything will be just fine (for them). As consumers, we just jump from one to the other in a miserable state of dissatisfaction.

Honestly, I don’t know what the solution is. But I’m running out of options. And patience.
On a side note: Virgin Mobile entered the Canadian wireless market not too long ago, yet hasn’t made much of an impact. I was surprised given the lack of contracts, and its no bologne policies. Why don’t you have a Virgin Mobile phone? Why don’t I?? Let’s explore that later…