Tools for listening, visualizing
For honing in on conversations
Tool: Social Mention
As mentioned earlier, one of the critical components of a successful social media campaign is listening to your audience. One of my favorite free tools to monitor conversation and buzz across social media is Social Mention, which gives a great snapshot of blog, forum, and microblog buzz, sentiment, and keywords. It also tracks video, image, comment, and social bookmarking tags and mentions. While somewhat rudimentary in its search capabilities, my work colleagues and I are big fans of Social Mention and use it on a daily basis to not only find the places where people are engaged in dialogue, but also in reporting buzz to our clients.
For taking a social snapshot
Tool: Addict-O-Matic
As an alternative to Social Mention, when we want a quick, visual picture of brand, personality, or meme buzz across the most popular social spaces, we use Addict-O-Matic's social search engine. This free tool shows real-time placements in social networks, communities, and blogs.
