Over the past couple of years I have spent considerable time trying out different products and services which enable me to at least monitor what is being said and by whom. In most cases I found two areas of concern:
The results provided by services did not match the results I knew to be accurate using other tools and techniques.
The cost. There are some great services available however, for small and medium sized businesses the pricing structure of many of these services is prohibitive.
Recently I discovered a monitoring service by Ubervu. UberVu provides the monitoring capabilities I require at a reasonable cost, something I consider critical to assist small and medium sized businesses to leverage the power of Social Media, and provide the critical information required to monitor their Social Media Marketing Programs.
Quick and Easy Social Media Monitoring
While trying one Social Monitoring service recently, I set up my account, established the keywords, profiles and companies I wanted to monitor and received a message that my profiles would be updated and I would be notified of the results. Well I’m still waiting. With Ubervu I have found the account set up fast and straightforward which is a tremendous bonus as far as I am concerned as I happen to be one of the many time stressed people who just wants to get the job done without hurdles being placed in my way.
Within minutes my account was set up I entered a few of the keywords which were important to my client and clicked to get the results. Within seconds I had a very good indication of the popularity and sentiment about the particular topics, and as you can see from the image below comparing the popularity of keywords or more importantly comparison of your company versus your competitors is extremely easy.
Who’s talking and where
Knowing exactly who is talking about your business, your competitors and the topics relevant to your business is extremely important. One feature that I find very useful within Ubervu is the ability to interact with those on Twitter from inside the application. Facebook of course is much more difficult to monitor due to personal walls and accounts being password protected and therefore is a hit and miss affair. However, the volume of Twitter users provides a very good indication of the general popularity and sentiment of various topics and companies.
Social Monitoring Reports
Ubervu’s reporting features are easy to set up and can be as real time as you require with alert times varying from every 1/4 hour to hourly or daily allowing you to monitor your program from your in box.
The email reports contain the basic information, some of which is included in the screen shots. One feature which I would like included in the future would be a report which included information regarding the actual individuals who are doing the talking, of course the information is available on your account dashboard but it would be nice to get regular updates on who’s talking straight to the in box..
The Last Word
I have used Ubervu for 2 or 3 months now and I’m still using them, which is a record for me. I usually don’t last much more than a week before I cancel my account and move on to the next service to see if it will meet my needs. Sure, in the past couple of months I have tried other services and there were a couple that came close but costs being higher and at times too much information was an issue. Ubervu has found a nice balance of providing me with the information I need, in a very easy to use interface which means I can accomplish what I need to do in a very short period of time.
Of course no service is perfect and we all will have a wish list. This is a business application, the lack of Linkedin reporting must be addressed, since Linkedin is by far the most popular business Social Networking web site.
About The Author
Pete Hollier is an Information Scientist, and possesses a Bachelors Degree in Information Science. Pete is SeoWizardry’s owner and principal Web Site Performance Consultant, assisting businesses to leverage the power of the Internet to improve overall business performance.
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