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About Social Media Core 
Posted by Cosmin Ghiu in 
Many people I talk to ask me a few common questions when it comes to Social Media. The most common one is “how do I measure my investment in Social Media?”.
As Social Media is about communication and discussion in its raw definition, how can this information be tracked on a daily basis as the ‘buzz’ of a brand or event is measured not by days but by hours in some cases.
That is why software (and typically SaaS) company to measure social media are establishing themselves. These following companies are ones that have been highly recommended by my peers and I would recommend as well. Of course there are many others that are beginning to make waves these 3 are ones to review.
1. Radian6
Below are excerpts from the product page of the Radian6 product.
Radian6 software is quick and easy. The user simply sets up topics using keywords. Keywords could include names of brands, companies, products, competitors, issues, campaigns, spokespeople, executives or anything else that requires monitoring.
Once setup is complete, the solution automatically collects and tracks content for the topic. It monitors all forms of social media including blogs, top video sharing and social networking sites, forums, opinion and review sites, image sharing sites, microblogging sites, online mainstream media and other sites as they become available.
Analyze your topic with a number of user-friendly widgets – mini-applications accessible through a dashboard that provide quick access to specific information. As content is discovered, the solution automatically and continually tracks comments, viewership, user engagement and other metrics, 24/7, so that you can clearly see the reach and affect each post has on the community. Know immediately which content is making an impact and what needs to be managed. Uncover the influencers online by topic, based on user-determined formula weightings. Listen and learn more about these influencers and decide on a path of engagement tracking the steps along the way.
Easily export data and analysis for use in your reports, presentations and spreadsheets. Radian6’s social media monitoring solution can export reports using any variety of formats.
The company allows for demo signups to review and test drive their software.
2. Cymfony Orchestra (TNS Media Intelligence)
Below are excerpts from the product page of the Cymfony Orchestra product.
TNS Media Intelligence/Cymfony’s Orchestra breaks new ground by enabling organizations to view traditional and consumer-generated media in one application, providing more comprehensive and complete real-time consumer and market insights. The convergence of multiple media sources enables a broader range of groups across the organization to benefit from the media analysis and discovery functions, including real-time “side-by-side” analysis of mainstream and consumer-generated media.
TNS MI/Cymfony’s Orchestra platform consists of two applications:
1. Our proprietary Natural Language Processing engine automatically aggregates, classifies, quantifies, and benchmarks both traditional and consumer-generated media.
2. The second application is a Web-based interface that provides a dashboard to analyze these multiple media sources. The Orchestra online dashboard provides access to real-time data at any time from any web browser. Orchestra requires no IT development and it easily integrates with your current workflow
TNS also has a call to action on their website to schedule a demo of their product or to contact one of their sales representatives to get more information on the product.
3. Sm2 (Techrigy)
Below are excerpts from the product page of the Sm2 product. What I like personally about Sm2 is the instant account creation that allows you to have a limited ability to test drive their application for your social media initiative.
SM2 is a social media monitoring and analysis solution designed for PR and marketing professionals. With SM2 you can track conversations, reviews and positive/negative sentiment for your brands, clients, competitors and partners across the eco-system called social media: blogs, wikis, microblogs like Twitter, social networks, embedded video and more – in real time.
SM2 doesn’t just return keyword search results. You get complete analysis tools including charting with comparisons, demographics, geo-location, sentiment and drill-down reports. It’s easy to use and, because it’s hosted, cost-effective to implement. With our Freemium Account you can run tests on your brands to manage risk, track trends, understand market reach and manage reputation. With our paid plans you can track one client or hundreds- SM2 scales with your needs.
Information is power and there’s a lot of information in Social Media. Adding SM2 capabilities to your practice gives you the ability to offer enhanced services and expertise to your clients including brand sentiment and conversation tracking, risk management and trend development in social media.
As I mentioned, the great thing about the Sm2 product is the fact that you can get your feet wet with their product instantly after creating an account with Techrigy.
Hi Cosmin,
I really appreciate your recommendation and thanks for covering this topic. You have some good content here at social media core.
Regards,
Marcel
CEO, Radian6
RT @cosguru Blog Entry: Top 3 Social Media Measurement tools: http://tinyurl.com/5wsbc3 Thanks Cosmin
Marcel:
thank you! i appreciate the feedback and please feel free to add to anything i may have left out on radian6.
Hi Cosmin,
I hope you don’t mind if I mention our service Sentiment Metrics. 3 great services you have mentioned above, often agencies and companies have mention they have evaluated the above services along with ours when looking at social media measurement.
We cover a broad range of reporting from sentiment, demographics to influencers.
I would be happy to show you through version 2 of our system launching in a few days
Thanks
Leon Chaddock
SentimentMetrics.com
Leon:
Thanks for mentioning Sentiment Metrics. Though I wanted to focus on the Top 3 in my opinion, it is more than welcomed to mentioned Sentiment Metrics as well. I will sign up for a demo and perhaps do a review blog post on the demo.
Hi Cosmin,
You could be on to something buzz worthy yourself. Maybe you could do that same for all/most of the social media monitoring tools out there–a list of 15-20 could even be Digg worthy.
If you do, please consider adding Trackur.com to your list.
Happy to answer any questions you may have.
Andy
Andy:
thank you for the recommendation of Trackur.com. I like your pricing model. I wish the trial version had the 1 hour frequency update as the Enterprise version to really get to ‘experience’ the investment.
your suggestion of a list of 15-20 sites is a good one that I have begun already
thanks for your contribution. i hope others continue to add their recommended tools as well.
Thanks for the nice comparison among services. As you mention we are the only complete monitoring and analysis solution that offers a fully functional freemium version. Check it out at http://sm2.techrigy.com
We are building a community of social media pros with both our freemium and professional accounts- sites like this are doing the same!
@cosguru lists @TechrigySM2 as one of top 3 social media monitoring tools http://tinyurl.com/5wsbc3
@cosguru lists @TechrigySM2 as one of top 3 social media monitoring tools http://tinyurl.com/5wsbc3
Hi Cosmin,
Thanks for listing Techrigy SM2! In addition to what Martin said, other differentiators are historical results back one year & amazing analytic capabilities & reporting.
Those functionalities make the tool applicable for a wide range of uses ranging from marketing, PR, brand building, SEO, etc.
Thanks for the information on those social media monitors. We started a buzz marketing company that is very similar to the ones you’ve mentioned but we focus on small and medium-sized businesses. We think it’s really important to get the little guys involved in the conversation.
Cari
Buzz.io
[...] blog entry: Top 3 Social Media Measurement Tools http://socialmediacore.com/?p=203 [...]
@cosguru Love your post on the top 3 SM tools. Wondering if you have a favorite out of the 3? http://is.gd/aCgC
@klout i would love to get a private beta invite to your service. want to possibly add it to a part 2 blog post – http://tinyurl.com/5wsbc3
[...] how you can use analytics to measure your brand in the social media space with these services at Social Media Core. Sphere: Related ContentRelated Posts2008 Online Holiday Retail Shopping Trends RecapSES Chicago [...]
Dialogix is another great social media monitoring tool – the company is based in Australia and tracks sentiment about specific brands or entire industries. The program measures sentiment across ALL social media platforms, and allows brands to track both influencers and hecklers.
Hi very interested in all the comments as I am looking for for a social media tracking and reporting product. Price point is very important and my main problem is that I have to be able to report on reach. I am finding it difficult to determine which products actually report on reach.
Cosmin,
I love posts that compare the best in SM monitoring. There are so many solutions coming on the market daily – if I was looking for one, I’d surely be overwhelmed. I would love to throw my hat in the ring with Biz360 for when you do a more expanded list. Please ping me for a demo and a trial account – on Twitter @themaria and email mogneva (At) biz360 (dot) com
Thanks for sharing, just came around via search. What do you think about meltwater buzz? Had a presentation today and was quite impressed about international approach and their future plans & roadmap. Melting their media monitoring tool with social buzz.
Any experiences? Pls feel free to contact me directly on twitter.com/csteiauf.
Hello everybody,
I need a monitor platform to follow and messure comments in blogs, forums and social media sites….do you know one who we can use for all this things?. I have seen a lot but I need some with all this sites together.
thank you from Spain
Hello All,
Like all of you, I too am fascinated by the power of Social Media. I have personally done a large Social Media analysis industry study and would like to share some of the highlights with you.
Companies considered for study – Radian6, Biz360, Umbria, Motive Quest, Nielson Buzz Metrics, Brand Intel, Cymfony, Visible Technologies and Custom Scoop.
Executive summary of the study – Majority of the companies except a few such as Custom Scoop provide Social Media analysis through automated tools.
Consumers today have realized that automated tools cannot accurately identify sentiments/tonality, influencers, geography, gender, themes/messages etc. And hence, for deeper and accurate results the need for Human Intelligence is a must.
The solution a few smart companies have decided to take is – do analysis through Human Intelligence by sampling. They outsource the blog coding to specialists such as Manthan Services who code blogs and update them on client’s tools for deeper analysis.
The catch to Human Intelligence is that you really do not have to go through 1000s of blogs to understand your brand perception. Instead it is best done through smart sampling. Smart sampling at 2 levels – First level is identifying top 20 or 30 blogsites only. BY top I mean the once which have the maximum number of visitors as well as blogsites those are focused on a particular category. So you see, the impact/image created on such blog sites is what matters the most as you have many eye balls to such blog sites and hence the impact is that much larger.
The Second level is identifying Key Influential Bloggers – I would define them as those bloggers who’s profile would influence people more than others. Example – doctor writing about a brand or a teacher writing about a product would make more people believe in what they say. Also if a blogger has many followers and people write back on his views about a topic then his influence is that much more higher.
Lastly automated tools cannot enter networking sites such as Facebook as you need to manually punch in your username and password.
It’s amazing to see how Social Media is becoming a precursor to Primary Research. You can narrow down your scope of primary research by doing some social media intelligence.
If you need to know more about how Social Media Monitoring and Evaluation companies can meet there clients growing expectation then do write to me.
Cheers!
Sandeep Sankhla
http://in.linkedin.com/in/sandeepsankhla
sandeep.sankhla@manthanservices.com