Since 2007, the social media listening market has undergone a dramatic transformation. As social media has grown, more established traditional media monitoring companies such as Cision, Factiva, and PR Newswire have developed solutions for clients to track social media conversations. At the same time, a number of startups have been founded to track social media conversations. Startups like Radian6, Techrigy’s SM2 platform, Crimson Hexagon, Visible Technologies, and Sysomos were formed in order to take advantage of this newly growing industry. As a result of the growth of this market, it has become very difficult to select a tool. It has become difficult to do the proper due diligence because it isn’t always clear which tools should be evaluated. In addition, a number of tools that have been developed are better for midsized businesses than for enterprise customers. Unfortunately, unless communicators spend a considerable amount of time using the tools themselves, they may not necessarily be able to make that distinction. If you are currently evaluating social media listening tools or considering a change in tools, what should you be looking for in a solution? There are a number of features that you should be mindful of when making your decision:
• Data capture— Before going any further, let us dispense with the notion that there is a tool that offers 100% data capture. There is not one, and even if there were, you would not want it. A tool capturing 100% of the content would gather a lot of online spam, which would make the process of developing insights more difficult.
• Spam prevention— This goes hand-in-hand with data capture, but how good is the tool in reducing spam?
• Integration with other data sources— Social media listening tools have begun to integrate other digital data sources. Can your tool do this?
• Cost— This is an obvious one, but it should not be the only consideration.
Mobile capability— Social media listening tools have begun to develop mobile applications so that communicators can track conversations while on the go.
• Application programming interface (API) access— Most tools offer users the ability to collect data and then repurpose it.
• Consistent user interface— If the user interface is difficult to use, it is time to look at another solution. For example, some of the tools available on the market utilize flash technology, which can make it unstable.
• Workflow functionality— With your social media listening tool, can you easily route mentions to other members of your team?
• Historical data— It is important to have as much data as possible in order to identify trends.
