Social Media Monitoring Tools – 2010 Review (intro)
30th March 2010, 04:09 pm by Jo Stratmann
Over the last few weeks we’ve been carrying out detailed tests and analysis on 7 of the leading social media monitoring tools – Alterian, Brandwatch, Biz360, Neilsen Buzzmetrics, Radian6, Scoutlabs and Sysomos. Our aim is to provide an in-depth comparison of buzz tracking tools that accurately depicts their individual pros and cons.
We’ve put the tools to the test by tracking well-known international coffee company Starbucks. We compared over 19,000 online conversations, giving us some really unexpected results and highlighting some staggering differences in the way each tool performs.
Over the next few weeks we’ll be blogging about our findings, and at the end of the series you’ll be able to download the full report for free. We’ll cover:
- The basics of social media monitoring
- An overview of our results
- The location of online conversations
- Social media monitoring and duplication
- Data latency
- Sentiment analysis
- International/multilingual social media monitoring
We’re also holding a free social media monitoring breakfast seminar on 15th April in London, where we’ll be presenting our findings, as well as giving practical tips and advice about social media monitoring and the best way to analyse results. You can register for the event by clicking on the button below:
So what are social media monitoring tools?
In a nutshell, social media monitoring tools pretty much do what they say on the tin – they monitor online conversations taking place through social media. They track anything that’s being said about your business or your brand on blogs, forums, Twitter and other social spaces. Each tool is different, varying in complexity and in the way they gather and process the information, as we will show you over the next few weeks.
Our sister company, FreshMinds Research, has been using social media tools to generate customer insights for years. As we’re a social media agency, we usually work with FreshMinds Research to conduct social media audits or monitoring when establishing a social media strategy for clients. So over the next few weeks you’ll benefit from the unique findings of a research company working in collaboration with a social media agency.
We’ll start with the basics and work through our research step-by-step. If at any time you want us to explore a certain aspect in more detail, please let us know. Our next post will explore the basics of social media monitoring.
Read the other posts from our social media monitoring review 2010.
For social media agency support get in touch or follow us on Twitter.
Lauren Vargas:
Looking forward to the series! Feedback like this helps us evolve our platform into a stronger tool. Please let me know if you have any questions about our tool or need further assistance.
Lauren Vargas
30 March 2010, 7:04 pmCommunity Manager at Radian6
@VargasL
Connie Bensen:
Yes, social media monitoring is definitely coming of age. It’s being applied across the board at companies. We too look forward to your findings. Your team does a great job here.
I will pass on info about your London event to my team. We’d be happy to do a presentation/case study.
Connie Bensen
30 March 2010, 10:32 pmDirector of Comm Strategy, Alterian
@cbensen
Margaret Francis:
Good idea. We look forward to your observations/ comparisons.
31 March 2010, 3:06 amRyan Stephens:
Count me in as someone who’s definitely interested in the results of this study. Just curious Jo, but how did you go about choosing the 7 tools used in the study? I would be very interested in your team’s methodology whether it’s buzz surrounding those platforms, brand awareness, etc.
Thanks for any insight you can provide, and also for this detailed analysis. Looking forward to the conclusions.
31 March 2010, 6:05 pmMark Evans:
Glad you’ve had a chance to review Sysomos. Looking forward to your review.
Mark
Mark Evans
31 March 2010, 10:07 pmDirector of Communications
Sysomos Inc.
@sysomos
Giles Palmer:
hi Jo
i’m excited & anxious to see the results !
best
1 April 2010, 10:52 amGiles
CEO, Brandwatch
Jo Stratmann:
Thanks for all your positive comments everyone – I hope you enjoy the posts and the final report.
Ryan, as for your question, the 7 tools we chose to test are ones that we found were being talked about frequently by clients and competitors. They’ve also been mentioned at the various conferences and events we attend. I guess we wanted to put these “popular” tools to the test to see if they live up to their reputation.
I hope you enjoy the report and our findings!
1 April 2010, 4:37 pmMaria Ogneva:
Excellent! Looking forward to the report. I think this is a great idea to compare several platforms side by side, comparing apples to apples.
- Maria Ogneva, Biz360
2 April 2010, 6:17 pm@themaria @biz360
Erwin:
Hello Jo,
Great initiative and I am very anxious for all results. I recently built a social media monitoring tool myself. With this tool you can track and monitor with 1 click of a button, your website social media exposure on more than 20 top social media sites. Among the crawled social websites are; social news, bookmarking, networks, file / video sharing, review sites, etc.
It would be great it you could testdrive it and let me know your thoughts and opinion so I can take you will take me into consideration for any future research
Please testdrive it yourself at:
http://www.socialwebsiteanalyzer.com
Good luck and keep up the good work. Erwin
4 April 2010, 10:14 pmMBA:
Good tool you mention here and i gone threw some of the mention links.
12 April 2010, 7:54 amThe social media monitoring tool with the most up-to-date results? Brandwatch. | FreshNetworks social media agency blog:
[...] results? Brandwatch. 22nd April 2010, 01:40 pm by James Turner Our sixth post from the social media monitoring review 2010 series will look at the issue of data [...]
22 April 2010, 1:40 pmMonitoring Your Online Reputation: 5 Lucky Links:
[...] Social Media Monitoring Tools – 2010 Review – Series on the basics of social media [...]
30 April 2010, 3:43 pmFreshNetworks Blog: Top five posts in April | FreshNetworks social media blog:
[...] 2. Social Media Monitoring Tools – 2010 Review (intro) [...]
10 May 2010, 4:17 pmBrandwatch really is the most real-time!:
[...] road test with your product and the 6 other best ones on the market. But that’s exactly what Fresh Networks are doing. Today they published the analysis on which tool (radian6, alterian sm2, buzzmetrics, [...]
17 May 2010, 11:27 amFreshNetworks Blog: Top five posts in May | FreshNetworks social media blog:
[...] 1. Social Media Monitoring Tools – 2010 Review (intro) [...]
1 June 2010, 10:47 amJuly’s topic – Social Media Monitoring & much more | Social Media Club Phoenix:
[...] Social Media Monitoring Tools – 2010 Review (intro) (freshnetworks.com) [...]
8 July 2010, 3:53 amIl processo di monitoring strategico:
[...] è dettata da una serie molto elevata di variabili (su questo punto consiglio la lettura di un recente report di Fresh Networks che mette a confronto i principali e più blasonati servizi di monitoring). Tuttavia, ci sono [...]
11 August 2010, 9:59 amBrandwatch Really Is The Most Real-time! | Brandwatch:
[...] road test with your product and the 6 other best ones on the market. But that’s exactly what Fresh Networks are doing. Today they published the analysis on which tool (radian6, alterian sm2, buzzmetrics, [...]
22 November 2010, 8:08 amWordWrite Storytelling Blog » Social Media Tool of the Month: A Look Back on the Top 2010 Social Tools:
[...] Image source. [...]
31 December 2010, 3:53 pmQuora:
What is the best tool to listen to online conversations (Twitter, blogs, LinkedIn…)?…
(http://www.freshnetworks.com/blog/2010/03/social-media-monitoring-tools-2010-review-intro/). This is an old breakdown that Fresh Networks did comparing Social Media Monitoring Tools — 2010. It has some really good information on some of the leading t…
19 January 2011, 5:53 pmedvarcl:
is the final report ready yet? can’t wait ;p
8 February 2011, 5:10 pm