I often have people ask me how to select a Social Media measurement tool for their company. I think its one of those things people cant quite get their arms around how to approach. The requirements are fuzzy, the technology is new, and generally market is fractured. Fact- it’s much like the early age of web analytics. Except, maybe worse. You have a market saturated with limited use case tools, and not one tool on the market does it all. How do you find the right mix for needs with out going over budget, pissing your IT department off, and overwhelming your staff with excessive amounts of complex and time consuming new technology?
I wrapped my brain around this question and after noodling it for some time I’ve come to believe you can take most paid tools out there and throw them into 3 essential categories:
1. Basic adhoc tools: These tools are quick and simple. The output is predictable almost to a default; what you put in controls ( and in someways limits) what you get out. These tools rely on very specific searches and the best types of these tools are Boolean based.
Pros: Cheap, quick and nimble, any one can use it, web-based (no installation)
Cons: Difficult to drill down, no data warehouse capabilities, limited data display options ( charts, graphs, etc), poor sentiment, limited historical data, user must know what to search for, lots of spam results
2. Database/ CRM Tools: These tools are for your number crunchers; they integrate easily with an external database ( sometimes yours/ sometimes the tool’s). Usually they also allow you to append additional data to you searches, like web traffic. These tools are fundamental for a long-term social data storage and provide a central data source to query using internal systems.
Pros: Strong analysis capabilities, integration with internal databases, more robust data
Con: Expensive, high learning curve to adoption, must be embraced by non-social teams, poor sentiment, user must know what to search for, lots of spam results
3. Text Analytics/ Ontological tools: These tools answer the magical questions “What are people saying about my brand that I don’t know about.” Instead of being key word based ( like 1 & 2) these tools are either algorithmically [stats] or ontologically [natural language] based. Rather than filtering content in or out, like a keyword tool does, they group content into hot topic sections. Essentially they find your everyday topics as well as topics you didn’t even know to look for. They are also great for answering ” what topics are people talking about most?”, ” what are unforeseen potential issues”, “how do people group our products together in discussion?”
Pros: Strong analysis capabilities, unearths hidden hot topics, auto generates categories, superb sentiment results, less spam content
Con: Expensive, high learning curve to adoption, must be embraced by non-social teams, not a solely social media tool & is best deployed in conjunction with other customer facing channels ( service, emails, etc), long set up process, does not provided base level brand metrics, analysis in not immediate, not a long term data storage solution
In a perfect measurement world a company would have tool from each category type. But, for most companies that isn’t an option. The bigger questions becomes, which of these three type of tools does your company really need? [Read: Which of these tools can I persuade finance to give me budget for]. I wish there was an easy way to preemptively know which you need and which you don’t. There’s not. Excellence in Social Media measurement like many things in the Social Media space is, well, difficult.
