Tracking The Chatter In The Twittersphere
From my perspective as a newspaper editor, social media is an exciting, but daunting task. We have a great opportunity to touch new readers and strengthen our connections with long-time subscribers through sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
But try keeping track of all those sites and do a full-time job. Many of you probably have. And many of you probably feel the same burn out I do!
Followers And Foes
But beyond the challenge of simply finding the time to Tweet every time a clever thought comes into my head (luckily that’s a rare occurrence) the other challenge is to keep tabs on what others are tweeting about us.
Unfortunately, there aren’t any easy answers, according to Debra Murphy, who runs a company called Masterful Marketing in Marlborough.
After years of working in corporate marketing for the tech sector, she went out on her own in 2001 as a consultant and has moved into the job coaching sphere within the last few years. She’s also a big social media user and helps businesses figure out how they can leverage online tools like Facebook and Twitter.
Many of the services that allow you to streamline your interaction with sites like Twitter and Facebook are focused on going “outbound,” i.e. sending messages about your company out to the Twittersphere. However, there aren’t many services available that let you track “inbound” information — yet.
“I’m waiting for someone to come up with a really good integrated tool,” Murphy said. “I know there are definitely companies going in that direction.”
Murphy said she uses Seesmic to keep track of her own Twitter feeds. Another popular tool is TweetDeck.
I also recently discovered a service called ConvoTrack, which allows you to see the “conversation” around a given web page. To use it, go to ConvoTrack.com and download what they call a “bookmarklet” to display on your web browser. Then, go to your business’s web site and click the bookmarklet. If anyone is talking about your business on Twitter or other sites like Digg and Reddit, the comments will be displayed.
You can also search Facebook now to see if people are talking about your business on that site.
I haven’t come across any extremely negative comments about the WBJ during all this social network tracking. But I’m bound to at some point or another.
Murphy recommends keeping these efforts in moderation — with a good deal of perspective.
“It’s never good to be obsessed, and you have to take every comment with a grain of salt,” she said.
“You have to weed through the comments and always understand where someone’s coming from.”
Go to WBJournal.com for links to the web sites mentioned in this column. Got news for our Digital Diva column? E-mail Christina H. Davis at cdavis@wbjournal.com.
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