ImpactWatch Blog

We are passionate abo0ut social media monitoring here at ImpactWatch. Therefore, we wanted to share some of the social media statistics for two recent blog posts on the The Bivings Report about our 2010 newspaper facebook fan study.

Infographic entry (published on 12/14)

• 132 likes on facebook
• 52 tweets
• 1,485 page views since 12/14 (making it the #5 most popular TBR post in the last month)
• 7 total disqus comments
• Picked up by Facebook News, feedburner, twitter, sites on tumblr, and poynter.org

Top 10 List (published on 12/17)

• 167 likes on facebook
• Average time on site for the post – 1:50
• 109 tweets
• 2,820 page views (making it the #3 most popular TBR post)
• Picked up by feedburner, twitter, sicrono.com and facebook.

Are you curious about what other developments the Bivings Group is monitoring? Check out our two new new SLURP140s – one about the CES 2011 conference, and one about the launch of Drupal 7.  With SLURP140, we are able to track multiple hastages and usernames via the global twitter stream – and track the most influential users and keywords pertaining to a certain event.

• http://www.slurp140.com/ces/
• http://www.slurp140.com/drupal7/

This week we are introducing a new angle to the IW blog, aptly named “Impact Watch Feature of the Week.” In these posts, we’ll explain and showcase one ImpactWatch feature every week to help illustrate how important using IW can be for a business or department.

IW's Social Media Monitoring

Social Media Tracking: Facebook and Twitter integration in ImpactWatch

Did you know, that in addition to tracking keywords and news across the blogosphere and open source media – that Impact Watch can also integrate real-time Facebook and Twitter information? ImpactWatch offers users the ability to look for certain keywords across unprotected and publically-available tweets and facebook messages. This includes messages posted to users’ walls, public groups, as well as Facebook Fan Page posts by companies and businesses who mention tracked keywords.

The data generated through Twitter aggregation (using a souped-up version of SLURP140) will be able to be graphed and charted, just like the standard IW-generated reports.  The the data gleaned through a real-time use of twitter will enable many organizations to use Twitter to detect new trends and hot-button issues in their business realm. With ImpactWatch, your business can have it’s very own trip-wire reporting system – with all the generated data coming from Twitter.

The advanced social media monitoring features within ImpactWatch enable users to search through hashtags and keywords within both Facebook and twitter posts – allowing businesses a greater understanding of their market and business climate. These social media features enable companies to stay in tune with the rapidly changing public perceptions and trends, while simultaneously being able to track changes through a customizable dashboard.

Of course, this social media information tracking is an addition to the already-extensive list of IW features such as

• Customizing report generation for your company’s needs
• Simplifying clip collection and tagging across open source media AND the blogosphere
• Creating custom graphs and metrics
• Automating daily email briefing

One of the most popular features of ImpactWatch is the email alert. Instead of logging into your IW site, the news comes to you!

Here are some of the basic features that can be customized in your alerts:

• Frequency – the email alerts can be automated to send at specified time intervals or you can send them out manually whenever you want to distribute information.
• HTML vs Text – in addition to setting a default format for your emails, you can also specify a preference for every individual user of your IW.
• Summary Content - you can always choose to include a written summary or message to your distribution list. The IW admin tool provides a simple interface for adding and formatting text.
• Coverage Format - there are tons of options for how mentions will appear in the email alerts. Choose to include any combination of headline, abstract, full text and URL.
• Organization – preset your coverage to appear in order of date, importance, by business unit or any other mention attribute. You can also manually order your coverage before sending.
• Individual vs Aggregate – choose separate emails for each mention or an aggregate email that includes all mentions since the last alert.
• Ad Hoc Search Results – distribute search results from the newscenter or archives.
• Appearance – email alerts can include your company’s logo and branding.

Of course, this is just the beginning of your personalization options. As a custom software developer, we can work with you to make sure  ImpactWatch fits your organization’s workflow.

If you can think it, we can make it happen!

ImpactWatch now displays a real-time feed of custom filtered tweets right on your dashboard.

Based on Slurp140 technology, the new Twitter stream updates automatically to display new tweets, a leaderboard of most frequent tweeters, and stats on your tweets over time.

Best of all, you can instantly reply to or retweet any mention right from your tweet stream!

The new Twitter tool complements ImpactWatch’s existing range of feed sources which includes print, online or broadcast news, and social media sources. Depending on your monitoring and measurement needs we can customize your platform with the sources that are important to you.

Graphs and statistics also update in real-time on the Dashboard page, so you can see the who, when and what of your Twitter coverage.

We have a lot of features on the way in the coming weeks, so keep an eye out for more. Sign up for a Demo Account now to check it out!

The beauty of ImpactWatch is that you can literally add content from any source – this includes RSS feeds. Setting up a new RSS is easy using the administrative tools on your ImpactWatch system.

1. Go to the admin dropdown and select “feed config“. This will present a list of all of the content feeds presently available on your system.

2. Select “RSS feed” from the list. This page displays all of your current RSS feeds.

3. Select “Create a new RSS feed” at the bottom of the page. This will take you to an entry page for a new RSS feed.

4. Select your RSS options.

- Enabled – click this check box to make the RSS feed active. You can make the feed inactive at any time by unselecting this option.

- Warn Hours – enter the number of hours after which ImpactWatch will send you an email to let you know that no new content has arrived from this source. Keep in mind how active you expect the feed to be when selecting the time period.

- Feed Interval – select the frequency with which ImpactWatch will retrieve data from this RSS feed.

- Source Media Type – select the type of media that best represents this source.

- Article Type – select the type of article that is most frequently provided by this source.

- Name – give your RSS feed a name so that you can easily pick it out of your comprehensive feed list.

- Query URL – copy and paste the actual URL of the RSS feed.

- Full Text Feed – click this box if the RSS feed provides full text. This determines where the content will be entered by the ImpactWatch system.

- Parser type – select the name that corresponds to the type of RSS feed you are setting up – Yahoo, Google News, Google Blog, Radian6 or custom.

5. Click “Add New RSS Feed Configuration” and the system will retrieve data from your RSS feed at the time interval that you have selected.

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The whole process takes no more than a couple of minutes and your new feed is ready to go. Of course, you should feel free to ask your client manager if you have any questions. They will also be happy to set up your RSS feeds up for you.

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Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnnysilva/ / CC BY 2.0

Thank goodness the media monitoring industry isn’t regulated by the FDA. They would probably make companies actually back up the claims they make in their advertising.

I’ve always found it interesting, for example, that every single media monitoring service monitors the most publications in the industry. You would think by definition that only one company could hold that honor, but not so!

Who really has the most sources?

ImpactWatch. I was going to make you wait for it, but I knew you just couldn’t. Really, any platform like IW that doesn’t limit the integration of content ultimately offers the most monitored publications.

Source availability is complicated in this industry. Some companies limit source number based on your monthly plan, some on whether the publication is public, some use secret algorithms to determine which sources to search for your news.

Another issue is the timeliness of new source integration by media monitoring companies that create their own data feeds. New blogs, forums, online news sources and social media platforms can be created at any moment. How long do you have to wait to start searching them for your coverage?

We avoid most of these issues by partnering with pretty much any content provider there is. If they make the coverage digital, we can put it in your ImpactWatch. And since they are professional, dedicated feed providers, they focus on offering the widest and most up-to-date source lists available.

Leaving us to focus on what we know – making cool web-based software.

What sources do I care about?

I really should have added this to the last Media Monitoring 101 installment. But I forgot, so I’m looping back.

In addition to figuring out what publication types (print, broadcast, online, SM) you want to monitor, you should also identify your top publications.

This is usually fairly easy. You want to take a list of important outlets that are talking about you now and add to that the list that you want to have talking about you in the future. These are the sources that you will verify as being offered by your media monitoring service.

Tangent: a neat thing we do for clients with this list is divide your coverage into tiers of importance.

As an example, we have a client who gets mentioned  – just between print and online news publications  – 30,000 times per month. It would be extraordinarily costly to have humans read and analyze every single one of these mentions. But the client still wants subjective analysis on their most important coverage.

So, the ImpactWatch system divides their coverage by importance. All mentions from their top publications are routed to human analysts, while the remainder is processed and tagged using computer automation.

How do I make sure my sources are covered?

Take the list you just made. Email it to your current/potential media monitoring service. Tell them you want to know which are covered. The company should be happy to provide you with availability.

What if my sources aren’t covered?

Find out if the source offers a digital version.

No – Some niche trade publications are literally only available on paper. Not a single media monitoring company can get these for you automatically. However, some offer the option of receiving your paper copy, analyzing and digitizing it for you. If you are a highly specialized or industrial company, this might be an issue for you.

Yes – Ask the monitoring services that you are using/considering if they can add your missing publications. Often, that’s all it takes.

If you are missing many of your top publications and your monitoring firm can’t make them available, email your list out to other firms to compare offerings. This should tell you if you have a tough list or if your service just isn’t up to par.

How many sources does ImpactWatch offer?

Millions. Certainly tens of millions. Possibly hundreds of millions.

But it’s unlikely that your company will be mentioned in more than a few thousand of these, so make sure we cover the ones that you need!

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Follow Hannah on Twitter.

Photo Credit: Benjamin Rossen

As Twitter use explodes, tracking your brand and/or issues on the platform is becoming increasingly important to companies and organizations.  Through a variety of free tools that are out there, it is possible to easily find out what people are saying.  However, no tool that I’ve seen has the metrics and collaboration layer that I’d really like to see on a tracking platform.
Here is my own personal wish list as to what I’d like to see in a Twitter tracker:

• At the most basic level, display tweets relevant to the client along with meta information about the tweet author (number of followers, frequency of updates, etc.).  I think it would also be cool to show related tweets as discussion threads to provide some context, and provide a way to sort tweets based on the authority of the author.
• I would want a way to graph trends over time as a way of seeing how my brand is doing.  Are the tweets positive or negative?  What are recurring topics that come up about my company or issue?  How is the volume of tweets changing over time?
• I’d want to be able to quickly look up which Twitter users are talking about my brand the most, and which of those users have the most authority.
• Integrated within the platform, I’d like a way to track the success/failure of my own Twitter account.  What is my follower trend?  How often am I being retweeted?

These are just my initial ideas.  What would you like to see in a Twitter tracking tool?

Two weeks ago, I showed you how to change your password under the My Account section of ImpactWatch. 

This week, I want to make sure that everyone is aware of the other customizable options in My Account.

Want to receive your daily email alerts in plain text as opposed to HTML?  Easy; simply change the selection under My Account by using the content box shown below:

You can also check the boxes of all the daily email alerts that you want to receive.

Want to skim the News section at your leisure, but view all the trending graphs and analytics when you first login?  Select Analytics under the Home Page Format section and check Remember Me to always see the graphs upon first login.

Don’t forget to click Submit to save all of your changes!

ImpactWatch lets you customize the way you view the news that is relevant to you and your company.  Use the My Account section to make it even more impactful.

With the Beijing games’ conclusion in August, the Olympics Demo we’ve been running has a lot to show for itself. Over the course of the summer, we picked up thousands of news stories ranging from athletic scandals to the cuisine of China, medals sweeps to Tibet supporters.

Overall, as noted in our previous posts, the Olympic games held a much higher favorability rating than that of host China. Nearly all articles reporting on sporting results were much more correlated with the Olympic Games or other countries, while China’s stories consisted largely of pollution, Tibet, and human rights.

As the games began, the “Phelps Fever” swept the press. With the flexibility of the ImpactWatch platform, I was able to add attributes to tag all articles related to Michael Phelps. Taking data from August, here is a graph I generated showing the topics breakdown:

It is incredible to see that out of the articles published about athletes, Phelps-related stories comprised of nearly 1/5 of the total news about athletes. I had expected it to be slightly higher, but this is still an incredible percentage.

Our demo worked out just as we had intended. Aggregating articles about the Olympics and arranging them in intelligent and meaningful ways yielded interesting results, as well as provided an outlet to showcase the features of the ImpactWatch platform. As this demo was my first IW experience, I am convinced that the platform is a valuable tool for monitoring media (our clients agree!).

We’re throwing some ideas around within the IW team for a smaller-scale demo in the future, and so far we’ve come up with UFOs, assorted B-list celebrities… have a suggestion? Drop it in the comments, we’d love to hear it.