My name is Dan McDonnell and I am a Community Manager for the American Evaluation Association. With the vast amount of different social analytics and measurement tools that exist – particularly for Twitter – it can be time consuming to research the ins and outs. Today, I’ll be giving a brief overview of a handful of tools, in a quick hits-like format to help you find the best tools to enhance your use of social media – without the need for hours of research!
Rad Resource: Twazzup – Evaluate Hashtag Data
Twazzup lets you dig into keyword or hashtag data on Twitter with a quick search. While the typical Twitter search just returns the most recent (and popular) related Tweets, Twazzup pulls a list of the top influencers who Tweet with your searched term – a great way to find new, interesting people to follow.
Rad Resource: Commun.it – Manage Your Network
Commun.it makes it easy to keep in touch with your Twitter followers by providing helpful suggestions. In addition to daily insights, Commun.it reminds you to @reply to followers, and updates you on suggested people to follow or unfollow based on recent activity. With one click, you can give a shout out to your top followers to say ‘Thanks!’
Rad Resource: Topsy – Listen Better
Topsy is like Google Alerts, but for Twitter. Set up monitoring filters to comb Twitter and email you updates on when certain keywords or hashtags are mentioned. It’s a great way to get by the minute updates on a particular topic on Twitter. Quick tip – set up a topsy mention to monitor your blog URL, so you can see when people link to you on Twitter!
Rad Resource: Buffer + Feed.ly – Share Cool Stories on Twitter, Later!
I’ve mentioned Buffer before, but I thought it worth mentioning again in tandem with Feed.ly, an RSS feed reader, as it’s one of my favorite tool combinations. Add your favorite blogs and feeds to Feed.ly, and if you have a Buffer account set up (on your PC or your phone), a Buffer Icon will appear as a share icon below each post in the feed. Simply click the Buffer button on any article that you want to share on Twitter, and Buffer will let you customize your Tweet, and automatically schedule it to go out at a later time. It takes just two clicks to share each news item, blog post or story with your network, so this is a tremendous time saver.