Spy Journal 3.0 Filtering the web for you

Right now Social Media is huge. For some people Facebook is the internet. Every TV show you watch has a back channel on twitter, and live commentary on most sports shows are now mentioning the tweets they are reading during the broadcast – indicating the commentators are well aware of how their performance as well as the sport itself are being discussed in this live manner. People were even given early warning of a recent earthquake in the US via Twitter.

As companies and brands race to adopt social media and harness the obvious power in the potential engagement with their fans and others there are scores of tools and analytics being produced and made available to users. Some of these are free, others have a free component as a teaser to get you to purchase their premium services and others are far more consultative and personalised and thus more expensive from the get go.

I have been trialling and researching a lot here recently. My tweet cloud shows my most used word in twitter is #socialmedia.

Here are some of the tools I have been using and trialling. This isn’t a “thou should use these” type of post, but i do invite you to check these out and see if they suit your requirements. No particular order to these.

http://bottlenose.com/ – a web browser based tool that allows you to aggregate various accounts and then analyse them, provide trending topics and info and i find it as good source of news to follow and share.

http://tweetreach.com/reach?q=spyjournal Search your own twitter name or other keyword and see what exposure you are getting. Heres mine.

http://www.twentyfeet.com a new analytical tool i am trialling. Seems to have some pretty detailed data and charts.

http://twitalyzer.com some pretty cool ego surfing here!

http://kred.com/ – credibility tool and analysis of all sorts of useful information as well.

http://klout.com indexing and ranking tool of credibility showing influencers and those you influence, topic credibility and has a perk system as well.

http://www.peerindex.com an credibility style tool like Klout and Kred but nowhere near as good in my opinion.

http://www.tweetdeck.com/  i couldn’t operate without tweetdeck – both the PC app and the mobile app on my android phone and tablet. Add multiple accounts, tweet from any of them, add columns for search, synch settings across devices, engage with followers and conversations.

http://www.socialmention.com analytics tool – use to check keywords, users sources and hashtags

http://www.socialpointer.com keyword analysis tool – useful for checking who’s talking about you and your keywords

https://followerwonk.com/ a good analysis tool offering many different ways to slice – including analysing your followers, as well as those you follow. Probably the best detailed breakdown of any of the tools here.

http://bufferapp.com – an invaluable tool for setting timing of tweets. i research 2 times a day and stage tweets to go out using buffer. I have it on my pc browser and also my tablet and phone, so i can access it in all three places. You can change the order of timing, edit the actual tweet, post it now etc.

https://crowdbooster.com/ this tool is great for understanding the reach your tweets had as well as indicating people you should engage with.

http://www.howsociable.com check the magnitude your brand has on many of the popular social media platforms.

http://www.socialbro.com/ – an analytic tool that i haven’t found too useful in the free version – but I can see the value in the paid version. Check it out and see if the paid version would be useful to you.

Finally I have started a paper.li newsletter – I have two, a weekly spyjournal special version and a daily newspaper. Feel free to subscribe.

Do you have any other tools or services that you use or recommend?