Analytics Is King

Reflections on the Radian6 User Conference

10 Apr 2011
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#social2011 General Posts lauren vargas philip sheldrake radian6 radian6 user conference

This week, I had the opportunity to take part in the first ever Radian6 User Conference. The conference brought together customers, industry practitioners and, of course, several members of the Radian6 team to participate in two days of new product announcements, sharing of best practices and general frivolity that comes from a social media conference. The conference ended on Friday and, truth be told, I suck for taking two days to get my recap onto paper (errrrrr blog post form). Honestly, it has taken me this long to really gather my thoughts on the event as a whole. So, let me try and provide a three-part recap in one blog post that doesn't take 4 hours to read. :) First, the product announcements:

Radian6 Insights - The first major product announcement came on Thursday morning when Marcel Lebrun announced the new Radian6 Insights. I'd encourage you to check out this video outlining the product as it does a much better job than I could do. Here's what it means to us from my point-of-view... more sophisticated text analysis capability. That's the bottom line... Heavy users were beginning to move toward API access where they would take the raw data and plug it into a more sophisticated business intelligence tool. Will this stem that tide? Time will tell as the product gets rolled out more broadly. However, I think it's a step in the right direction.
Engagement console - If you are more on the engagement side, you'll love the new features coming to the Radian6 Engagement Console in the coming weeks. The primary one is managed accounts. Think CoTweet meets the power of the Radian6 dashboard. The second is an extensions gallery. This is going to be a developers dream scenario. Not only will you be able to engage and analyze through the dashboard, but you'll be able to add extensions for twitpic, bit.ly, Klout (save your opinions on Klout for another post), etc..
Klout integration - This is probably the most controversial thing announced during the week. As part of the new Radian6 Insights product, the user will be able to access Klout scores for folks talking about their brand. I've been a pretty vocal critic of Klout, but I do think this is a step in the right direction. If there's someone on the back end to scrub the scores, which there will be with integration into the R6 dashboard, the numbers become somewhat more believable.

Second, the content...

Panel on influence - My participation in the event was a panel on influence in social media on Friday afternoon. The good news was it was a packed house in the conference room. I think this is a very important topic for people to understand, and clearly the conference goers agreed. Lots of positive tweets following the event, but I think we're a long way from understanding the topic. I'd encourage you to read more from Philip Sheldrake on this topic (including his upcoming book) if you want to understand influence even more. Bottom line, and I think this came through in our session, is that influence and reach are not the same thing. You should be pushing your brand to consider relevancy metrics just as much as reach metrics.
Overall content - I don't know if this is a function of having low expectations for content at conferences or the tremendous thought given to the panels by the folks putting together the conference (combo of both, probably), but the content at the User Conference was very, very good. It was a mixture of content for the analyst and for the engagement professional (this line is continuing to blur, for the better). I hope they put on a second user conference because of the good experiences I had with the content.

Finally, overall perceptions of the conference/people behind it...

Smaller is better with social media conferences - I don't remember the exact number (I think it was about 500) of people who attended this conference, but whatever the number was it was the right number. It was the perfect size to be able to network with people, and still learn a lot without being overwhelmed. I know this is a fine line to walk because conferences want to make money, but capping the list of attendees at a smaller, manageable number would be a move in the right direction.
Lauren Vargas - She deserves her own shout out... She was one of the primary drivers of the conference and did a phenomenal job. Being a part of BlogWorld the last two years, I have a sense for the work behind something like this event. Not only was she managing the conversation flow around an acquisition and new product announcements, but she was responsible for handling a lot of the logistical elements behind the conference. Mad props to you, Lauren. You kicked ass.

At the end of day 1, the #social2011 hashtag generated more than 10,000 tweets. That's incredible. A testament to the organizers and the content. Here's hoping we have a second user conference next year.

Understanding Motivations in Social Media

4 Apr 2011
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Influence Tom Webster online influence radian6 social 2011 user conference social media social media influence

We're all a mixture of different skill sets. Some of us come from an analytical background. Others come from a pure communications background. Still others come from a political science background. The fact of the matter is that we all need to be a little bit of all things. What's the ideal make-up look like?

Sociologist - Understanding how offline societies interact often helps us determine how online societies will perform.
Psychologist - This goes without saying, but understanding human behaviors is critical. If I put out a piece of content, how is someone going to "feel" about it? (full disclosure: my dad was a forensic psychologist. I tried to major in psychology but, well, quickly changed after the first class. :) )
Communicator - Obviously, right? You don't need to come from the traditional PR background, but you need to have strong interpersonal communications skills to succeed in social media (really any profession). This also includes the ability to write, and write well.
Ambassador - You aren't going to come up with a solution that makes everybody happy. Building on the wisdom of Solomon, finding a way to split the baby is often how you survive in this business.
Hard ass - I was looking for something creative to say here, but "hard ass" was the only thing that came to mind. Listen, there is going to be someone along the way that challenges you. When that happens, you have to be a mixture of all of these things, including hard ass, to survive.

I hesitate to rank any of those in order of importance because I honestly believe it is a blend of all, but my intuition says, particularly in social media, that being a part-time sociologist and psychologist are most critical (probably followed by communicator). We have to be able to answer the "why." Why is someone talking about our brand online? Why do they have such a negative opinion about a member of our management team? Why are they turning to Facebook instead of a forum where the rest of our community lives? Said another way, we have to understand the motivations of our online community. Nowhere is understanding the underlying motivations more critical than when developing and then implementing an influencer program. This week, I will be participating in the Radian6 Social 2011 User Conference on a panel about the value of influence. We're going to be talking about everything from the metrics used to define influence, to how to utilize an influencer list to even something as fundamental as whether influencer lists are necessary. There has been a lot written on the subject lately, and I'm under no delusion that we're going to solve all of the issues associated with influencer analysis, but hopefully we can make a dent. One of the issues we'll likely be tackling is determining the influencer analysis output. What I mean by that is understanding how we want the list to be used, and what the heck do WE actually mean by influence. In a post a couple of months back, my friend Tom Webster pointed out that one of the ways influencer analysis could be improved is understanding motivations. I couldn't agree more. We have to know what influences people, why they are talking, what messages they respond to and how they want to interact with brands. If you can't answer those, your influencer analysis output is going to be flawed. You'll never completely answer the "why" using listening data, as Tom noted in his post. The only way you truly know is by asking (and yes, I know, people can lie). So, as you start working with influencers what can you do to fully understand the "why" when asking your community may not be practical at that stage? A few things:

Use your listening data - Yes, I know I just said you can't rely on this solely, but it can be helpful in gaining a basic understanding of why people do what they do online when referencing your brand.
Asking the influencers themselves - In theory, you should know through your research what types of content communities react to from these influencers. But, why (there's that word again) not ask them? You might find a totally different answer from the blogger/forum poster/mainstream press member, etc... then what your research is telling you. That's valuable intelligence.
Surveying the online community - No, social media listening is never going to fully replace surveys. They have value. No, they may not be a truly representative sample of your online community. Yes, there is valuable intelligence to be had from using a survey instrument.
Knowing your motivations - Why do you want to interact with influencers? Is it to increase awareness in the form of share of voice? Is it to improve sentiment about your brand? Is it to build long-term brand value. Not only should we understand the motivations of our community, but we need to understand why we're doing what we're doing. Only then can you truly grasp the entire landscape.

We have to be one part psychologist, one part sociologist, one part communicator, one part ambassador and another part hard ass to succeed in this social media world. Whether that's participating in social media more broadly, or developing an influencer identification program answering the "why" is critical. We're not going to solve this dilemma during our panel at the Radian6 conference, but likely through more informed conversation online and off. Think back to the programs you've built using social technologies... Have you sufficiently answered the why internally and the why within your community? If not, it isn't too late to course correct depending on your findings.

Reactions to Yesterday's Salesforce.com/Radian6 Announcement

31 Mar 2011
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Social Media Analytics radian6 salesforce.com social media listening social media monitoring

If you are involved with social media at all, you likely heard the announcement that Salesforce.com has acquired Radian6. It was literally the only thing that was in my Twitter stream for several hours during the day. Rightfully so, by the way, this is huge news for the listening and social media world. It isn't a secret that I'm a big fan of Radian6. They've been very helpful to me in my career, and I think the world of their product and people. There's a reason people call them the "industry leader." It didn't take long for the posts to come out dissecting the news (more on that in a second), but I wanted to wait a day before diving into it. So, here are some takeaways that I've had from the news:

Positive news for Salesforce.com - It seems pretty clear that this is going to be a huge value-add for the Salesforce.com product. Further incorporation of social listening data with CRM (notice: I didn't say social CRM) can only be a winner. Our motto should be, "the more I know about my customer, the better." This new relationship should only help that.
Industry consolidation has started, but should now pick up in earnest - Listen, there's nothing I like more than learning about new monitoring solutions. I'm a data geek. However, in 2009 it became pretty apparent that we had too many players on the stage. When conducting due diligence, companies were looking at dozens of different companies when the differences between them were really miniscule. The same consolidation happened with Investor Relations tools to the point, now, where if you don't use ThomsonReuters or Shareholder.com it's a complete anomaly. That's OK by me. If I can go one place for the entire solution suite I'd consider that a win.
More resources behind Radian6 - Truth be told, there was a period of time as Radian6 was ramping up where the customer service suffered. It has improved significantly as they've added more people, but the considerable resources of a public company should only help add to the people arsenal of Radian6. For those of us who are heavy users, the more potential touch points we have within the organization, the better.
Innovation will continue - Radian6 has a long history of product innovation. I remember seeing it in 2007 and thinking that the data was cool, but wasn't entirely there as an offering. Now, it's the industry leader. That growth has happened because they've been diligent about innovating the product. Salesforce.com has that same tradition of innovation. Together, it should be a power house. I don't buy the notion that big public company stifles innovation...at least in this case.
The cost of the acquisition shows just how big this market has become - $276 million dollars (plus $50 million in stock) is a gigantic sum of money. It's hard for me to wrap my mind around that because I see it as an excellent monitoring solution. Someone paying that much money seems foreign to me, but it's a testament to the work Radian6 has done. It also shows how important listening to social conversations has become for brands. Trust me, Salesforce.com isn't going to spend the money on a solution like Radian6 if they don't think they can turn around and sell it to companies.
Move toward making social analytics more mainstream - Just so we're clear, I don't view Radian6 as a social analytics tool. I view it as a listening tool, and the "analytics" part comes from an analyst. That being said, the more mainstream we make social analytics/data, the more likely we are to continue advancing the space. Data is an integral part of the strategic planning process in social media. Companies are starting to notice it more, but still not to the level it should be. When they are exposed to that power through a CRM platform like Radian6, adoption rates should go up.

As I mentioned above, there was a race to be the first person to dissect this announcement from top to bottom. One of the better ones dissected the implications for Radian6, Salesforce.com and the broader analytics market. There's a lot in that post I agree with, but a few things I completely disagree with:

We're taking the word "analyst" a little too far - Not everybody is an analyst just because they have access to the tool. If an enterprise has heavier data crunching needs, they are not putting Radian6 in the hands of a PR person or marketer. And if they do, that PR person or marketer should be smart enough to involve market research professionals.
Immaturity of the market doesn't mean consolidation shouldn't happen - The social listening market is very new, and definitely green. However, the race to create a listening platform helped to sufficiently muddy the waters for brands when in truth there was very little difference between the platforms. I'm no economics wiz, but supply had outstripped demand. Consolidation was an inevitable byproduct.
Innovation will continue - Similar to what I mentioned above, but I dispute the notion that an acquisition leads to the disintegration of innovation within a company. Have you met the guys from Radian6? Ditto Salesforce.com? Those people are always working to perfect the product. I have no concerns there.

Anyway, those are just some of my takeaways from this news. I want nothing but the best for my friends at Radian6, and the industry at-large. Net result of this news should be positive for the industry...At least in my humble opinion.

Dazed and Confused: The Story of Online Influencer Identification

19 Jan 2011
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#pr20chat Influence Jason Falls heather whaling justin goldsborough radian6 social media influence

Hopefully you'll permit me a quick shotout to a pretty ridiculous movie with that title...You'll understand why in a minute. Defining and measuring influence in social media is definitely the hot topic right now. Heck, Jason Falls' blog covered this topic at length last week with posts about how to improve online influence measures, revealing a new online influence tool (mPact) and then providing some background on the influencer identification tools marketplace. Radian6 also joined the party by releasing an eBook on defining and measuring online influence on Monday (co-authored by yours truly).The opinions about how to tackle this problem are varied. The varying opinions about an area this (relatively speaking) new is only leading to confusion in my estimation. People are confused about how to develop a process of identifying influencers, what tools to use, what's the appropriate amount of rigor you should apply to your analysis, is there a common set of influencers we can identify for all brands (put that one to bed right now - the answer is no). There are even those who openly are wondering if influencer analysis is even necessary. Let me be totally clear -- not only is it necessary, but it is absolutely imperative that we get the analysis (and the framework) right. And by getting it right I mean some combination of quantitative and qualitative. I'm a self-professed data geek. The more data the better (as long as there are actionable insights, of course). We need data to develop strategy and then ultimately tactics that make us look amazing to our bosses. My love affair with data doesn't mean I'm going to throw qualitative analysis out with the bath water. Quite the contrary. Influencer identification needs, and is currently crying out for skilled analysts who understand the brand(s) better than any computer possibly could. What the appropriate balance is will really be dependent on the brand or agency. My preference would be close to 50/50 (I'm not going to play Solomon here), but you have to make that call based on avalaible resources, which includes budget and people obviously. I think we can all agree that this combination of qual and quant is necessary, yes? It's interesting then to follow along with chatter (aside from the posts linked above) about how lists are developed, let alone used. I don't get an opportunity to participate in Twitter chats as much as I'd like, but one of my favorite ones is #pr20chat hosted every Tuesday night by Heather Whaling and Justin Goldsborough. During this week's chat, they asked a question (posed by yours truly) about how the participants come up with their influencer lists. Check out the conversations around the topic here if you'd like. What you'll notice is that of the 10 (I'm making that up for the sake of conversation) people who responded to the question, the majority outlined different approaches. Interesting, huh? I'll grant you that there are likely to be different ways to slay the dragon, but a majority with different methods? The number of varying methods must make a client's (or boss') head spin. I know it does mine and I live this stuff... With that as a backdrop, I thought it might be helpful if I gave you a couple of "standard" things you should use for any influencer analysis you're conducting. Yes, it is my contention that some of these more "structural" things can be implemented across brands. I'm hoping you'll drop in a comment if you disagree.

Be tool agnostic - We all know that there are a lot of tools available in this space. Jason outlined several of them in the post linked to above. Don't be hampered by one tool or algorithm (unless it is one you've developed yourself). If you want to use one of the tools that are available to measure Twitter influence or blog influence that's great. But, don't get into the habit of relying on their metrics as anything more than a gut check.
Develop your list of metrics - I mentioned above that every influencer analysis is a combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis. Before you go digging for people to identify, make sure you spend a little time upfront identifying the types of metrics you want to use to judge people's influence.
Create a method for defining brand relevancy - This is absolutely critical, and it is something we mentioned in the white paper linked to above. Some of the world's largest blogs are great, but chances are that they've never talked about you. That isn't to say that they will never talk about you, but how much time do you want to spend on a site that doesn't seem to be talking about you or the subject matter you are most interested in? Probably not a lot (at least I hope).
Set your influencer timeframe - There are a lot of places where influencer analysis falls down, and the amount of data you gather tends to be the largest offender. Listen, there's a lot of "gut feeling" in any kind of influener analysis but please don't make the cardinal mistake of pulling in too little data. Spend the extra time to get six months worth of information instead of three. Your output will be significantly better.
Understand what your list is going to be used for - This is a pretty common misconception in the digital marketing world - everybody identified as an influencer MUST be an outreach target. *Cue ridiculous game show buzzing sound here.* That is just simply not true. If you have a list of 100 people, you might have 20 who are direct outreach targets, 20 who would only receive a press release, and 60 that are listen only. That might be an extreme example, but I think you get the gist. There are going to be folks who are influential to the online community that you may not be able to reach. That doesn't mean the intelligence they are providing you by talking online isn't valuable. Listen to those people's conversations, and don't worry if you can't engage directly with all of them.

Anyway, those are just some thoughts from me. I tend to think there is more confusion than ever around online influence. Hopefully through more educated dialog we will come to some sort of consensus. However, knowing the online space as I do I wouldn't look for that anytime soon...

Five Ways to Make Your Listening Reports Better

12 Dec 2010
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Listening radian6 social media listening social media monitoring

Well, this has certainly been quite a week hasn't it? Everything from tough family news, to reading about (and then apparently creating) drama in the social media world. Well I hate to disappoint you, but this post will hopefully bring back some sense of normalcy to this blog. That said, the interwebs have proven us all wrong before! Anyway, I was having a discussion with a few colleagues at WCG about how I conceptualize listening reports for clients. Occasionally I have the opportunity to dig into an actual report for clients these days, but more of my focus now is on teaching and guiding. It's honestly a blast watching people who aren't necessarily of an analytics mindset dig into the data and find the big insight. That's what makes this job fun. So, after the session was over I had a thought: Couldn't the rest of the people working in this space use some of these ideas? Nothing I'm sharing here could be considered trade secrets. They are just a lot of common sense things I've learned while building reports for clients. Here are a few ideas for you as you embark down the listening path:

At this point, almost everybody is using one of the listening or monitoring solutions on the market. If you aren't, wake up! Seriously, it can be pieced together using Google but you're just making your life a lot harder than it needs to be. Anyway, for all of the love I give to Radian6 I actually find their use to be somewhat limited. That's not a slam, by the way. The best use of the platform is in a data capture capacity. Yes, the dashboard that's presented to you is nice and easy to digest for the executive audience. However, I find it much easier to put together a presentation (or report) when all of my data is together in a singular spreadsheet.
That dovetails nicely into the second point: Tell a story with your listening reports. This is no different then if you are giving a presentation at a conference. Each subsequent slide should be building off of the one previously presented until you've told a coherent story, or made a strong argument. Far too often we get stuck developing reports that are overly "templatized." If you've downloaded the data into one spreadsheet and you're realizing that it's telling you something different then what your template would allow, then go ahead and change it up.
Do some basic online research. This is less of a problem for the brand folks out there. In theory, you know your "product" very well and don't need to spend time as much time reading online. However, for the agency folks who tend to spend only a certain amount of time on a brand reading online conversations before you start listening is critical. Spend some time doing a Google Blog and Group search. What are people talking about there? Spend some time reading about the topic area. What are some of the conversation themes you are noticing? Similarly, play around with the topic area/brand name in Google Adwords. What kind of search volume are you seeing? Are like search terms relevant to the scan you've done of online conversations? Who is likely to be doing a lot of the talking? Men or women? These are just some basic questions, but you'd be surprised how much they'll help you as you start building your deck/report.
Start building the deck backwards. I know that sounds silly, but hear me out for a second. The quickest way toward boring your audience with listening reports is by creating the deck from slide 1 to slide 10-15 (by the way, that's all that should be there unless there's something totally wild going on with conversations). I'd much rather you spend time analyzing your data, coming up with a set of key insights/recommendations and then building the deck from the back. It's not necessarily something that's intuitive for us, but try it sometime. You'll see just how valuable the final report will be. If you need to outline the entire deck to be able to do this, then so be it. Do what you need to do.
Finally, and most importantly, form a hypothesis. No, this isn't high school science class all over again. You aren't going to be asked to regurgitate scientific method for a final exam. However, now that you've done your online research (pre- building your listening profile) you will no doubt have an opinion of the types of conversations you are going to see. Are you going to see a lot of forum conversation? Are a handful of sites coming up and over-and-over? Is one demographic doing a lot of the talking? Is there no conversation volume about your brand at all? Based on your preliminary research, you'll know what to expect when you dig into your actual Radian6 (or other providers) profile. With that hypothesis in mind (and maybe an outline if you need it), you'll be able to create a deck that not only tells a coherent story, but is also laced with actionable insights.

These are just some of the things that have helped me. When you've done listening reports for your brand/client, what's worked for you? **By the way, thanks to my colleague Alexis Bizares for pushing me as hard as she does to have these kinds of conversations with other people we work with. It helps crystallize my own thoughts that I then get to share elsewhere. Thanks, Abiz!**

Can we please stop using monitoring and listening interchangeably?

25 Oct 2010
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Listening radian6 social media listening

I have a revelation for you... Radian6 is not a monitoring solution. Yes, if you go to their Web site you'll see several references to monitoring but they aren't your monitoring partner. Need some evidence? Take a look at their "About" page. Where do you see "monitor," or "monitoring?" That's right, you won't see it. Does this mean you can't use them as a monitoring provider? Absolutely not. You buy the tool, you can use it however you see fit. Just know you aren't getting maximum benefit out of the technology. Anyway, this post isn't meant to be a perpetuation of my image as a Radian6 fanboy. No, what I wanted to illustrate is that the terms "monitoring" and "listening" are not interchangeable verbs. Folks who should know better are using the terms interchangeably, and I'm confused as to why. Sure, this could be a total "inside the beltway" issue, but I don't think so. Brands have very established perceptions of monitoring. It's something they want to spend as little money on as possible, and (generally speaking) do not act on. They are getting the clips every day (month/quarter) for "reputation management." If you believe that then I'm looking to sell some swampland in Jersey. No, the clips are coming in because it's what we've always done in PR. We're not even sure why we still pay for them, but we know we "need" them. Where does listening differ? First of all, you'll never hear someone in traditional communications saying they are "listening" to traditional media channels. That's like saying I want to put peanut butter on a piece of pizza (you'll forgive me, but that was the only disgusting analogy I could come up with). It just wouldn't occur to anyone to say. It's becoming less foreign to marketers, but we've still got a ways to go. Anyway, listening differs from monitoring in that it implies a second action. Whether that's helping the person doing the talking with an issue with a product, or adding them to a CRM database (oh, horror, a DATABASE), or leading to a convergence with offline market research, listening should lead to something else. Listening, at its core, is a market research function if you're doing it right. How many monitoring programs do you know that feed market research? Not many I'd bet. Before you come running at me with the pitchforks let me just explain one other thing... I have no problem with monitoring. Are you maximizing your research dollar by using a monitoring solution? No. Is there some value in at least having a tangential understanding of the chatter online? Absolutely. Would I spend my time monitoring? No. Do I understand that listening is a big investment? Absolutely. However, if my vision is improving my product, or customer service, or one of the many things listening can help you do I'd be looking for an opportunity to transition my monitoring practices to more listening practices and investing in the future growth of my organization. To wrap this up... Listening = strategic, leading to a secondary action and often requiring significant resources Monitoring = tactical, and not requiring significant investment in resources That's just how I see it... the words aren't the same so lets stop using them interchangeably.

Seven Essential Tools for your Analytics Toolbox

3 Aug 2010
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Social Media Analytics analytics tools backtype compete google adwords google insights quantcast radian6 search analytics web analytics

I get asked all of the time about what analytics tools I use to do my job every day from folks who know this stuff inside and out, as well as folks just starting out in the business. My answer is usually that it really depends on the project. Sometimes I rely heavily on monitoring solutions, while other times it's mixing and matching from a bunch of different tools. However, there are a set of tools I go back to time and again. Here are some that work for me and I hope, in turn, work for you.

Radian6 - The people who know me best would probably call me a Radian6 fanboy. I guess there are worse things in the world, right? I've known those guys for a few years now and firmly believe they are producing the best monitoring solution on the market. There is significant debate in "listening" circles about that point, however, so if you'd prefer to use someone like Alterian I won't think less of you. They are both good tools, it's just my feeling that Radian6's is more comprehensive (maybe too comprehensive sometimes, but that's the subject of a different post). The listening tool is the building block for all other tools. It gives me a sense for who's talking about my brand, where they are talking, what are the main themes, etc... Without it, we're flying blind
Backtype - Backtype provides some baseline metrics on the "reach" of a particular URL. Granted, one of the metrics they provide is impressions (ugh), but the other data on tweets, clicks, Facebook shares, comments and likes more than makes up for that. Depending on how popular the link is, they'll also give you metrics on digg's and number of reddit's
Compete/Alexa/Quantcast - If you don't have constant access to Omniture or Google Analytics, you'll need at least one Web metrics tool. I'm kind of indifferent on which I'd use amongst these three because they are all giving me (essentially) the same metrics. I'm most interested in total visits, unique visits, time on site, percent change in site traffic, bounce rate, etc...
Yahoo! Site Explorer - If you are ever wondering who is linking back to your site, this is the place. Not only that, but it gives you the total number of indexed pages for a particular site. Oh, and one other thing... it allows you to download the inbound links for future use. Really cool tool.
Google Adwords - As I mentioned in my first post here, the intersection between social, brand.com and search is very real. Adwords gives me the most popular search terms relevant to a particular phrase that I've entered. Not only that, but it gives me information on the competition for that word, global volume, local volume and a direct link to Google Insights.
Google Insights - Most people have been exposed to this tool already, but Insights gives you the ability to break down search trends by category, seasonality, geography, as well as get a handle on what terms are the most popular now
Wordle - You may not see this as an analytics tool, but I do. We often need visual representation of the data we are collecting, and Wordle gives us a great free tool to do that.

Those are just the seven I use all of the time. What are some tools you utilize to gather data about your brand?

Reflections on the Radian6 User Conference

Understanding Motivations in Social Media

Reactions to Yesterday's Salesforce.com/Radian6 Announcement

Dazed and Confused: The Story of Online Influencer Identification

Five Ways to Make Your Listening Reports Better

Can we please stop using monitoring and listening interchangeably?

Seven Essential Tools for your Analytics Toolbox

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