Chapter 15
Ten Social Media Analytics Tools
Measuring influence on social media is a big business. Smart companies are using social networking sites to identify influencers, generate sales, and measure sentiment. If you’re looking for ways to search for names, brands, or keywords being mentioned on social sites, the ten services in this chapter will not only help you identify where those names are shared but also help make the results more relevant. Many of these services produce sophisticated analytics and reports, and the best ones charge big fees to do so. Which ones you use should depend on your budget, your needs, and your preferences for how they search and generate information.
Getting a Global View with Trendsmap
Visit Trendsmap anytime day or night, and you’ll see the most important keywords being shared on Twitter around the globe. This highly visual site displays a map, overlaid with the current most popular keywords on Twitter. As you scroll around the map onscreen, as shown in Figure 15-1, you see the keywords over the United States at the time this screenshot was captured. You can change the screen view on Trendsmap and see the trending keywords change while you move around the globe.
Figure 15-1
This real-time view of the Twitter-verse is quite a wonder to behold when you consider that it offers a glimpse of what’s on the minds of millions of people all over the world.
Pricing for Trendsmap varies based on the specific services engaged. Free trials are available.
Use Trendsmap to get an idea of local passions and region-specific issues, as well as follow big news stories, natural disasters, and events.
Measuring Your Klout Score
The Klout web service, shown in Figure 15-2, assigns every social media user a score between 1 and 100 that purports to show how influential you are.
Figure 15-2
Klout scores are based on how many connections you have, how many sites you use, how often you post on social media sites, and perhaps most importantly, how often your comments are Liked and shared by others.
At the time this book was written, Klout connected to the following social media platforms:
- Facebook Page
- Cinch
- Google+
- Foursquare
- YouTube
- tumblr
- Blogger
- WordPress.com
- Last.fm
- Flickr
- Yammer
Most social media users have a Klout score below 20, and only a very few celebrities with huge social media following score close to 100. The higher the scores of the people who Like, comment on, or share your posts, the more your score increases, so connecting with others with high Klout scores is a good way to keep your own score elevated.
You can search Klout for your own name to see what your score is or search for other people to identify their ranks. Klout also identifies specialties among users, which makes it a good place to find thought leaders and anyone with influence on specific topics in social media.
Many big companies are using Klout to identify opinion leaders who they believe may be especially valuable when it comes to promoting their products or brands because they represent a large following. As a result, Klout users with high scores are awarded prizes from sponsors hoping to win their favor.
Earning Deals with PeerIndex
PeerIndex is similar to Klout in that it purports to measure influence. However, PeerIndex offers a different way of ranking users and uses a system of rewards based on offering product discounts than prizes.
You can log in to PeerIndex by connecting through Facebook or Twitter and immediately see what your current ranking is on a scale of 1 to 100. Based on your score and areas of interest or influence, PeerIndex then produces a list of products and services you can buy at a discount.
Especially popular among the fashion conscious, PeerIndex is based in Europe, and product prices are listed in euros.
Trading Favors at Empire Avenue
Although Empire Avenue is yet another site designed to help rank social media users, it’s quite different from PeerIndex or Klout. Empire Avenue, shown in Figure 15-3, functions like a social stock market, where participants use virtual currency to buy and sell shares in each other’s profiles.
Using the site is like playing a big online game, and active players can dramatically affect each other’s valuations while building connections. It is free to create an Empire Avenue profile.
Figure 15-3
Exploring Social Media with Topsy
Topsy is a search engine, similar to Google or Bing, except that it searches social media sites, including YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. Enter a name, keyword, or phrase, and Topsy crawls through the social sites you’ve selected, looking for matches.
You can use Topsy to compare trending search times, as shown in Figure 15-4. Search for competing terms to find out whether people are talking about you, your brand, your business, or any person or topic you find interesting.
Topsy offers a free search and a professional level of service that is more advanced (for a fee). This site can be especially useful if you’re trying to build your network around a specialty and you want to identify other people who are sharing information on that topic.
Figure 15-4
Studying Metrics with Radian6
www.salesforcemarketingcloud.com/products/social-media-listening
At the top of the heap of social media metrics tools, you’ll find Radian6, now owned by Salesforce. Radian6 is one of the most advanced — and expensive — ways to track keywords, identify opinion leaders, and explore social media in depth.
Big companies spend thousands of dollars per month to use Radian6 to track what people are saying about brands online and even to help target followers with specific demographics. This is a powerful tool — with high price tags to match.
Radian6 is a powerful addition to Salesforce. If you just want to study social media activity, you can purchase Radian6 separately.
Enjoying the View with uberVU
You can use uberVU to follow keywords over time, study audience engagement, and schedule and market posts through a sophisticated online dashboard.
Although uberVU isn’t as expensive as Radian6, it is a professional tool that starts at $499 per month. If you’re working for a large or medium-sized business, the quality of leads this program can generate — as well as its ability to measure your impact on social media — may be well worth the price.
Checking Facebook Engagement
The EdgeRank Checker online tool is specifically designed to monitor and assess social media interactions on Facebook. Use EdgeRank Checker to compare the popularity of posts and help you determine what kinds of posts are most likely to gain attention and rank high on Facebook.
Measuring Social Sentiment
Enter any name into PeopleBrowsr, shown in Figure 15-5, and you’ll get an in-depth look at online activity related to that name over a period of up to 1,000 days.
Figure 15-5
You can search for a person’s name, brand name, or other keywords. PeopleBrowsr not only lists matches, but it also displays who mentioned the name and how often it was shared, Liked, or retweeted. The service also identifies the locations where the name is most frequently mentioned, what communities may be sharing the name, and whether the sentiment expressed is primarily negative or positive.
Full use of the service requires a subscription, but the first nine searches are free.
Reporting Results with Viralheat
Viralheat offers a suite of tools for social media marketing, monitoring, and analytics. The price is lower than uberVU or Radian6, but this is still a professional set of tools you can use to manage small to large business accounts online.
Like other tools of its kind, you can use Viralheat to identify sales leads, measure sentiment, and produce a variety of reports.