Social Media Analytics

With Social Media applications and strategies being so quickly thrown into the greater marketing mix of a lot of business models, the need for a comprehensive analytics platform is incredibly important.  Even for smaller businesses, it is not good enough to simply 'be out there', hoping for a word-of-mouth snowball effect.  If you cannot make use of the information, it is a relatively meaningless endeavour.

I will let the article speak for itself, but the application is called Kontagent, and so far it's free.. One top level takeaway is that your actions as a company can have a critical, blindingly quick impact on your 'viral loop', or your social impact.  It would carry then that your actions and decisions carry that much more importance, and so should your data.

Followup: Geolocation Services

A good evaluation of what are some looming issues with geolocation based services and the impending swarm of location based messaging and marketing tactics.  Despite the real problem of aimless apps and the impending deluge of services/spam/messaging, I think consumers always keep up rather well by using equally great tools to filter their to their liking.  The one major concern I have is the below.

"Crime Cataclysm, Stalker Apps and Misrepresentation. With vase amounts of personal-location information being exposed, we're bound to see a rise in potentially damaging behavior. Ages ago (in 2009) a man tweeted about a family trip to Kansas City, only to return to a burgled home. What did he do? He blamed Twitter. On the flip side, I would be remiss if I didn't mention PleaseRobMe.com, a site that displayed Foursquare check-ins in real time, essentially listing "all those empty homes out there." The site is no longer active, but it caused quite a stir and fueled much debate when it launched in February of 2010. That sound you hear is consumer confidence gasping about the dangers of geolocation."

Some scary scenarios come to mind, don't they?