Tracking Buzz, Banter and Influence in Social Media
June 4, 2009 1:51 am BI Solutions, on Demand BIWhether it is buzz, rants and raves, voice volume, sentiments or trends. When one delves into social media, there is the danger you may get lost and never find your way back out.
There are those who claim that influence cannot be measured, however much of ‘influence’ measurement depends upon the outcome the originator desires. If it is to create awareness or get market feedback, then a great toolset for providing that data is web based service application ScoutLabs.
Whilst I could find little evidence that SocialLabs provide real ‘analytics’ as claimed, they have come up with a great way for businesses to cut through the maze and locate the trails of impact that influence initiates.
Possibly a little pricey for small businesses – the lowest plan at $US99 a month to follow 5 search streams will possibly not be sufficient for most – yet the next plan, the Pro plan at $249 a month with 26 concurrent searches is a bit more than many SME’s can support. I would have liked to see something a bit more in between – say 12 searches for $125 a month. This would give more scope than 5 searches and remain more affordable.
But for corporates who pay more than this each month on getting market feedback via surveys and focus groups, SocialLabs offers a great service. Two plan features I do like is the unlimited user per workspace and the customisable template allowing agencies to offer clients access to their portal. Not sure how this works around restricting client views to certain search streams – but worth checking out.
And my condolensces on the passing of loved ScoutLabs team member Matt Ericson at such a young age.
More about ScoutLabs features on The Business Intelligence Guide
