Social Media Monitoring Tools

This week I have a social media audit project due in my Social Media for Public Relations course. We were provided with a list of ideas and tool we could use for this assignment. Here are some really great tool you could use if you wanted to monitor a company/brand/person/event etc.

First of all Google Reader is an essential social bookmarking tool. It is a place were you can send all the information from all your monitoring tools through RSS feeds and keep it organized and compressed.  I use Google reader on a day to day basis.

Back to the presented topic. Here are some great tools I used for my project:

Google Alerts:
Google Alerts tracks the Web for Sites, Blogs, News, Microblogs, videos, and Images.
For this project, I created a Google Alert for any of the above having to do with iPad, iPod, iPhone, iTouch, iTunes, Mac, MacBook, and/or Steve Jobs.

The Alerts will be sent directly to my Google Reader as-they-happen.


Twitter Advanced Search:
Twitter Advanced Search gives the option to find tweets based on words, phrases, hashtags, people, places and attitudes.

Here's what my results feed looks like:

You can also RSS Feed these results, which of course I did. I highly recommend you do as well. This search also provides 'in real time' results like Google Alerts.


IceRocket:
IceRocket searches the Web for sites, blogs, news and more for your key words of choice. Here are my results:

IceRocket provides you with the option of viewing results from today, the past week, month or you can choose dates yourself. It has RSS feed capability as well as the others.

There are many more site like: Social Mention, BoardTracker, Delicious, Yahoo Pipes, etc.

You can also monitor the subject of your choice on Facebook and Myspace.

The point of all this monitoring is basically to research and see what other people are saying and reporting on your topic. It is a very helpful research tool, essential for social media savvy university students like me!

The Democratization of Fashion

If your a fashion enthusiast and love social media, you'll love CHIQ! 

This week I Finished my Personal Learning Project for my Social Media for Public Relations course. This Project was aimed at providing the student with the opportunity to tailor an assignment to our own learning needs and course related interests. I chose to create a digital media kit for http://chiq.com/

I believe that Chiq is unique and I am confident in it's mission to reshape the dissemination of fashion.

Chiq is an online community that encourages women who follow style to become fashion leaders. It is an indespensable resource for fashion dissemination and the Internet's only open platform social networking site devoted exclusively to fashion and online sales. Community members upload photos of their favorite clothing, shoes and accessories and are awarded points from other members who cast CHIQ-it votes for the items they consider 'hot'.

Now I know this doesn't make much since right now, but let me explain a little further...

Becoming a user:
Becoming a user is simple and best of all it's free! Just go to the Chiq web site and click the 'my chiq' link and it will prompt you to sign in or create an account. 


Once a member:
Once a member of the Chiq online community, you can upload and submit items from multiple sources which you believe are fashionable and want to share. It's an easy and convenient way to share your favorite fashions.

Chiq it:
Once a piece is uploaded, other users can vote on the item with the "chiq it" icon.


What's it for?
With users consistently uploading new items daily, everyone can keep up with what's new, trendy, and successful. Further, not only do members help determine what is showcased, but they also have the opportunity to network with other users who are passionate about fashion. 


What all does the site entail? 

Chiq provides an up-to-date feed of what users are uploading.

It provides a real time list of what's most popular via chiq votes.

 A blog reporting all the latest trends from around the world.

A list of the hottest topics being talked about in the chiq community.

Chiq is also participates in social media communication, such as Twitter and Facebook, so you can follow Chiq updates whenever you want!

So what makes Chiq different?

Chiq isn't just for fashionistas! It also for the user of bloggers, lables, and linkage partners. how so you ask?

Fashion bloggers can both utilize and contribute to Chiq tremendously. Bloggers can pull trends and new ideas from users and contribute to the forum by communicating their own thoughts to the community. 

Lables can take consumer feedback on their products and use the information to benefit the growth and innovation of their company. The more products produced by a label posted, the more feedback is provided.

Linkage partners can utilize Chiq as a promotional vehicle for fashion items as well as a traffic accelerator and sales mechanism.

Why Chiq matters!

Chiq is so unique and important because users now have a voice in shaping the marketplace.

Myspace: Reaching an End or a New Beginning?

I don't talk a lot about Myspace. I haven't held an account with Myspace since spring 2008. When I graduated high school in May 2007, I was reaching an end and starting a new beginning. Myspace seemed like a high school trend. I wanted new friends, a new network and a fresh start. Facebook soon after become the new social media must have. I deleted my Myspace account, along with my photos and my friends and created a Facebook account. I started a new life at a university, made new friends and took new photos. Facebook seemed like a more mature, organized, and user friendly way to network on the internet. Unfortunately for Myspace, this was the case for many users. Either users made a clean break like I did or slowly became less and less obsessed.

Today, I have very few friends who utilize Myspace. It seems to be a dying trend. so how is Myspace dealing with the retention of  users? Are they going to turn things around?

As Myspace's president steps out, Co-Presidents Jason Hirschhorn and Mike Jones step up:

As Hirschhorn (pictured, right) describes it, MySpace’s trajectory moving forward is about the “pillars of broadcasting, discovery, self-expression, and making content a part of all those experiences.” He spoke to quality, usability and engineering as major focal points: “We want as many people here to be people who build, and who create, and who have top-notch engineering talent.”

-Mashable.com

Myspace is looking to go back to it's roots and figure out at what point strayed from it's goal. They believe it's not only about the content or only about the social networking, it's about both. It's about pop culture. it's about what's new, what's hot and what's not. it wants to be the center of pop culture news, music, etc. 

So what about Facebook?

At Myspace, they don't see it as a "winner take all" scenario. They believe there is amply room for more than one dominating social networking site online. Think of Myspace as a phone service, like AT&T. There are many phone service networks in existence, more than a few dominate and thrive. AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon are just a few. People choose different services for different reasons. Myspace and Facebook are just two of those services. People will choose them for different reasons. They all co-exist and are successful.

Myspace plans on making user profile's more structured (like facebook) but still give them the freedom to customize their ow look. They will also add some new tools. Users will be able to follow stats on how many people view their profile, listen to their streams, watches their videos, etc. Users will also be able to earn badges. Further, Myspace will keep track of hot trends overall, the most popular music, videos, and topics. Like Facebook, Myspace will be able to recommend friends, music, etc. to users. Apps and games will also undergo future changes. According to Mashable.com:

Currently in testing now is a change to the former status update tool into an explicit publishing tool, allowing users to simply add videos, photos, links, and other types of content. Within the next month we should expect to see a new feature that allows cross-posting to sites like Twitter, Facebook and Digg via a simple dropdown. “Why not? Publish once, go everywhere. If you increase publishing, you increase engagement,” said Hirschhorn of the upcoming feature.

Users should have to wait too much longer before see all these new changes. Myspace is taking swift action in improving the user experience.

I  commend Myspace for staying strong. Although I dont plan on becoming a user of Myspace in the future, I recognize the changes they are making and the effort they are putting behind the site. I can see a possible comeback in the distant future. First you make changes, and then you have to pull your users back in. 

so demise or survival for Myspace?

Survival

A Virtual Map

This morning I decided to track my virtual journey and map my tracks. In other words, I decided to keep track of where one page took me to another and another and so forth. I wanted to explore how and why one page took my to another and beyond. So here it is: This morning I checked my Facebook, just like I do every morning. I browsed around at other users updates and came upon an update by "365 things to do in Austin", a page which updates each day to provide users with an activity they could do that day. When I came upon the update, I decided to go to their page to see what else they had suggested. The page got me thinking, "I really need to come up with some activities to do with my little (Big Brothers, Big Sisters of Austin)". So I went ahead and checked out the previous notes that had been posted on the page. One of the posts had to do with Capital Area Food Bank. I didn't really know much about Capital Area, but I heard of it before, so I clicked it to find out more. I ended up interested in the work done by Capital Area and therefore ended up at their organization's official web site. The web site inspired me and I signed up to volunteer next month! I went from checking my Facebook one minute to volunteering the next. The internet has endless paths for people to venture onto. You never know where you might end up! Other paths I took off of this Facebook page were to the Austin Children's Museum's official web page. I found out that the Museum is free on Sundays from 4pm-5pm! That's something great I can do with my little. I thought it was interesting that I ended up planning day trips left and right with my little for the next couple months.  An innocent visit to Facebook to check if I had any friend requests or event invitations (which I did as well) landed me a volunteer opportunity and a trip to Austin Children's Museum. The internet gives us this great freedom of knowledge to explore and endless resources.  

Facebook: social or professional?

Should Facebook effect your professional life?

  

I have been told many times that I should monitor my photos, my information, and even my friends because potential employers might come across my page. I have also been told that employers often judge potential employees by the photos, information, and friends that person may have on their Facebook page.

Is this justified?

Most people use this social tool for their social life. I keep in touch with friends and family, share photos, and stories. I can see how my page may give employers the wrong idea. It is full of my personal photos, and friends. I do have friends on Facebook that have questionable photos and content. Their content is not my own and I will not base who my friends are and are not on their Facebook content

Why should I be judged based on who my friends are? Why should I be judged on the "events" that I partake in? And finally, why should I be judged on what I like and dislike? (by a potential employers) 

What I do on my personal time has nothing to do with what I do on the clock. Have you heard,"keep your personal life at home?" That's what Facebook is, It's my personal life, so no one should involve it with the office. I personally don't have anything too inappropriate on my Facebook. But if for example, someone claims their political or religious party on their Facebook and this effects the decision of a potential employer, they may never know that was the very reason for their unemployment. Sure there are laws that say you can't discriminate for this or that reason. An employer can simply say there were others more qualified than you.

True or False?  

I have not experienced this discrimination, or as far as I am concerned I have not. This is a concern of mine though. I hate the feeling that I have to monitor every move I make on Facebook. I believe that Facebook should be used as a social tool only and not a professional one.