Latest posts from Danny Brown

Enjoy the latest posts from Danny Brown, and feel free to add your own thoughts in the comments after the post.

Three Cool and Inexpensive Tools to Track Twitter Hashtags

Judging by the outcry over Tweetchat having to close, due to Twitter’s new API restructuring, and the interest shown in replacement platforms, it’s fair to say that Twitter chats continue to be popular for both Twitter users and brands alike.

The ease in which topics and conversations can be filtered using the hashtag on Twitter enforces the idea that, when done right, Twitter chats and their attached hashtags are a great way to solicit feedback, user experience, crowdsourcing and more.

To make that ease even more effective, here are three cool hashtag trackers that don’t need a second mortgage to use.

1. Tagboard

The first platform is one I came across just last week, called Tagboard.

Working out of Redmond, Washington, Tagboard allows you to view hashtags across multiple networks. They currently support Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, App.net, Vine and Google+.

You can either track popular hashtags currently happening across these platforms, or create your own to monitor. Below is an example of the one I created around the Influence Marketing book hashtag.

You can either view all conversations across the platforms your hashtag is active on, or use the top navigation to filter out the channel(s) you wish to concentrate on.

If you want to join the conversation, you can reply directly on Twitter via the Tagboard panel, or click the comment/reply option for the likes of Google+ and Facebook and be taken directly to the discussion on that platform.

While fairly simple at the minute, Tagboard offers a clean and uncluttered snapshot at who’s talking about what, and on what platform, when it comes to your chosen topic.

Pros: Free to use (currently), clean, ability to upload logo for some personalization, multiple channels.

Cons: Limited customization, no analytics, no embed feature, no live stream option. (Note – these are available to users that contact Tagboard and request these features turned on, with price to be determined.)

2. Keyhole

Next up is Keyhole, from Waterloo, Ontario in the technology heart of Canada.

The pet project of technology whiz-kids Saif Ajani and Minaz Abdulla, Keyhole was originally built as a personal solution to the pain that often comes with trying to track Twitter conversations. That solution became Keyhole and is used by several brands today.

What I like about Keyhole is it goes a little bit deeper than standard impressions and reach (although they’re still catered for here). Instead, you can find out more about your demographics and where they’re sharing the conversation.

In the image above, for example, you can see a conversation around car manufacturer Audi. As well as the numbers around tweets, users, reach and impressions, you can see who had the most retweets, what their Klout score is, and top recent tweets around the topic.

When you set up a hashtag to track, you gain access to even more information.

Other useful data provided includes:

The Top Sites section allows you to see what domains were mentioned using that hashtag, and what tweets sent traffic there;
Share of Voice shows which vehicle is being spoken about the most;
Most Influential informs who gets the most retweets, who has the biggest Klout score, and who talks about the brand the most.

Add in Location, Demographics, Topics based on Hashtags or Keywords, and Top Sources for tweets, and Keyhole offers a fairly sturdy platform for solo users and brands alike.

Pros: Lots of useful data, clean layout, three monthly pricing models ($14, $39, $99), downloadable reports, embed options.

Cons: Only for Twitter, no way to respond to a tweet from inline.

3. oneQube SmartStream

Located in New York and built by Internet Media Labs, oneQube and its SmartStream product offers a host of solutions for anyone looking to really dig deep into Twitter chats and their accompanying hashtags.

While oneQube offers more than just SmartStream, it’s that part of the oneQube jigsaw that offers the most potential for hashtag users and trackers.

By setting a hashtag, you can not only track it, but use the oneQube dashboard as a social dashboard, along the lines of Tweetgrid and Hootsuite. This allows you to seamlessly take part in a conversation you’re tracking, without the need for multiple dashboards.

But that’s bread and butter stuff – the real meat comes from the data you can glean from SmartStream around the hashtag in question.

Much like Keyhole, you can see the most engaged, the most retweets, and the most “influential” users around a topic. However, where SmartStream really gets interesting is with the extra data they provide around that basic information.

If you look to the right of the image above, you can see a section called Secondary Hashtag Conversations. This allows you to see topics that could be related to the core one you’re discussing, offering an opportunity for brands and Twitter chat moderators to reach a wider audience.

SmartStream also offers a handy hashtag map that lets you see how closely tied these other conversations are to yours – the larger the circle, the bigger the relevance and opportunity.

On top of that, you also have access to detailed information around not only the standard demographics of your hashtag participants, but additional data-points like the type of profile (Business, Individual, Commercial, etc.), as well as the trending topics around that discussion.

This kind of information is useful for brands, obviously, but it also allows Twitter chat moderators to provide extra details about the type of people their chat attracts, which can help them find sponsors to work with. You can find a detailed guide to SmartStream here.

Pros: Currently free in beta mode, detailed anlaytics, hashtag map for connected topics, integrated social dashboard.

Cons: Currently suffering from bugs (the SmartStream fails to load), no threaded conversations option on the dashboard, Twitter only.

UPDATE 28 JUNE 2013: oneQube is currently offline as they look to update their servers. The bugs I highlighted in the Cons need to be fixed before the platform is public again.

Your Turn

These are just three platforms that have caught my eye when it comes to hashtag tracking. Each has their Pros and Cons, which I’ve shared here. It must be noted that beta products do tend to suffer their fair share of bugs, so keep that in mind when coming up against any glitches.

How about you – what tools do you currently use for hashtag tracking and Twitter chats, and why these ones? Share in the comments below.

The Third Stage of Influence Marketing – Free @Vocus Webinar

On Wednesday June 5th at 2.00pm EST, I’ll be hosting a free webinar in partnership with Vocus around actual business results through influence marketing. Details of the webinar and where to register are below.

For anyone that?s been involved in marketing for any amount of time, you?ll know there are shifts in thinking that take us beyond what we know, into what we can truly benefit from.

Think about some of the shifts from the last 20 years or so:

Print media and flyers to social media and banner ads;
Telesales to geo-fenced mobile marketing and QR codes;
Direct mail to email marketing;
Billboards to digital signage.

These shifts allowed us to be smarter at targeting audiences on a wider scale, and also to measure our campaigns more effectively.

However, despite these improved methodologies and metrics, there was still one form of marketing that could trump all of them ? word of mouth.

If we heard positive or negative feedback from a peer, friend or colleague about a certain product or service, there was a much higher chance of conversion to that recommendation than there was from any of the methods highlighted at the start of this post.

Brands understood the power of word of mouth marketing, and looked for ways to be part of these recommendations. This paved the way for influence marketing as we know it today ? otherwise known as social scoring.

The problem is, when it comes to actual business results like lead generation and customer acquisition, that definition hasn?t moved the marketing needle as much as the other shifts highlighted here.

Scoring platforms like Klout and Kred can help brands achieve share of voice and amplified awareness, but for true business results, we need to move deeper than the solutions they currently provide.

We need to move into the Third Stage of Influence Marketing.

What is the Third Stage of Influence Marketing?

When it comes to influence marketing, there are three clearly defined stages:

Stage 1: Celebrity Endorsement

PR pioneer Dan Edelman introduced the concept of celebrity endorsement in the middle of the last century. Seeing the shift of power to celebrities and how the public reacted to them, he pioneered the method of using stars like Vincent Price to represent the California wine industry. Through increased media, this led to an increase in sales and profits, and celebrity endorsement as a marketing tactic was born.

Stage 2: Social Scoring

While celebrity endorsements had a fine run and can still be used today to great effect, the danger of using a celebrity for your brand showed the flaws of that approach.

Tiger Woods; Lindsay Lohan; Mel Gibson; Oscar Pistorious; Lance Armstrong, and many more like them. Personal issues spilled into the public and began to tarnish the brands connected to these endorsers. A new method was needed, and this is where social scoring stepped in.

Early adopters in the social influence marketing space saw the potential of finding who was influential on a topic, and connecting these people to brands in that vertical to share that brand?s marketing message with their audience.

Initially, it worked. Superstar bloggers and social network users with large followings helped raise awareness for a brand or product, and public scores from Klout, Kred and PeerIndex could show which person was influential around what topic.

However, flaws started to appear in that methodology as well. Critics questioned the validity of the data and lack of success stories being shared publicly; influence was only measured by public Twitter updates unless you connected your other networks; and profiles and scores were being allocated to people without specific permission.

These flaws, along with how the algorithms on these platforms could be gamed, led to the need for a more effective and truer reflection of influence and what it means in the marketing sector.

Stage 3: Customer Centric Influence Marketing

The problem with both celebrity endorsements and social scoring when it comes to influence is that they both place the ?influencer? at the heart of the marketing circle.

While they may have a large following or audience, that doesn?t mean they?re right for the various segments of a brand?s customer base, current or potential.

The purchase decisions of a customer are influenced by many factors: emotional, financial, familial, peer, logical, time and many more.

Additionally, a message resonates differently with customers depending where they are in the purchase life cycle.

Research. Awareness. Consideration. Intent. Purchase. These are just five stages of the purchase life cycle that need to be addressed differently ? then you also have guilt and vindication play into the mix of decisions.

As you can see, the simple act of making a purchase is far from simple, if we ? as marketers ? are looking to encourage the customer along the decision-making path and into the action of making a purchase.

This is where the Third Wave of Influence Marketing succeeds, because it places the customer at the heart of the marketing circle and works back from there.

We can identify where customers are regarding their decision to buy; we can identify what issues or questions they have around it; who in their immediate circle influences them and at what stage; and how we can overcome disruptors like competitor messaging and situational factors.

The upcoming True Influence webinar will show you exactly how to utilize this new wave of influence marketing, and how to drive real business metrics that add to the bottom line ROI while improving the top line, as well as the lifetime value of your customers.

I look forward to sharing with you.

To register for the webinar, click here.

A Fireside Chat on Influence Marketing

On May 15, one of our favourite influence platforms, Traackr, were the kind hosts of the official U.S. launch of our Influence Marketing book.

Held in downtown San Francisco, the event saw over 100 professionals from agencies, organizations and brands representing marketing, communications and PR.

The event was held in a relaxed, “fireside chat” format, and chaired by marketing veteran Chris Heuer. We discussed the core concepts in the book, and opened the floor up to questions from attendees, to make it a truly interactive evening.

You can watch the full chat in the two videos below, and our sincere thanks to Traackr, as well as partners Nimble and Eastwick, for hosting the event, with special thanks to Evy Wilkins, VP Marketing at Traackr, for making the evening such a success.

[vimeo width=”650″ height=”400″]https://vimeo.com/67246181[/vimeo]

[vimeo width=”650″ height=”400″]https://vimeo.com/67246180[/vimeo]