How to Monitor Social Media Conversations

by Andrew Hanelly on May 12, 2011

There’s a lot of social media static out there. And sifting through it is not an enviable task.  

Just ask any overly-caffeinated person tasked with making sense of the 100 million pieces of Facebook content, 90 million Tweets, and nearly 50,000 new blogs that are generated each day.

Luckily, there are some tools that make the process of social media monitoring a little bit easier. I’ve highlighted the process in this do-it-yourself social media monitoring guide:

DIY Social Media Monitoring

With a little bit of elbow grease and a lot of patience you’ll be monitoring social media conversations and gleaning insights in no time.

[image: asurroca]

Andrew Hanelly

Written by: Andrew Hanelly

Andrew is VP of Digital Experience at TMG and for one semester in college, was a sociology major. Follow him on Twitter and Google+.

  • bill

    Holy crap this is awesome! Thanks for posting!

    • http://www.twitter.com/hanelly Andrew Hanelly

      Your comment is clearly better.

  • isaac

    So that’s WTF social media monitoring means :P

    • http://www.twitter.com/hanelly Andrew Hanelly

      Indeed, Isaac. That is exactly WTF it means!

  • http://www.mindsharenet.com Jeff Kryger

    All good tips. This is exactly part of what I do, and something I check daily. I highly recommend others reading the slides follow the advice contained within. I actually need to pair down my reader feed, I keep stumbling upon great new resources and tools, and it is starting to get overwhelming and time consuming. Any tips for tightening up the filter?

    • http://www.twitter.com/hanelly Andrew Hanelly

      The only tip I can offer is non-scientific: don’t be afraid to weed. About once a month I go through and am brutally honest about what I’m actually reading and what I’m skimming. I unsubscribe to the skims (and ignores). If I stumble across them again, I might add them back to Reader, but if I haven’t used them via Reader, they leave.

      Also, Google Reader has some usage statistics if you click on the “Trends” link in the left-hand menu. I dip into there every once in a while and it tells me my most-read feeds, which ones I’m ignoring, etc.

      If a source publishes more than a few times a day, I tend to remove those, too, just because it’s too cluttered and it’s not in-depth enough.

      Another trick I use is to try to find aggregators who have editors picking the best from a bunch of sources I may subscribe to. For example, CMO.com has allowed me to unsubscribe from many sources because they pick the best of the best from stuff I was (barely) reading.

      Thanks for the comment, Jeff!

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  • http://e-business.ie Ann Donnelly

    OK, don’t get a swelled head, but it is awesome. Very important information presented so that nearly anyone can implement! *copying, pasting, paraphrasing (enough to keep from being sued)*

    • http://www.twitter.com/hanelly Andrew Hanelly

      I appreciate you saying that! I’m glad you found it to be useful. In terms of the size of my head, let me say it’s difficult to find hats that fit. But that’s a personal, physical problem. I’ve got a big noggin!

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  • Kevin S

    Such an awesome guide! I just have to ask, I’m about to graduate college in the fall, with a Communications degree with a minor in New Media, and I really want to get in to this field are there any steps I should be taking right now or any tips you can give me?

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