Social Media Aggregation 101Keith Gerr
AMA Oregon: Professional Development10.09
What we’ll cover:
• Defining social media aggregation (SMA)
• Navigating the landscape
• Tools/Techniques
• Where is SMA headed?
Social Media Aggregation - consolidation of inbound/outbound web-based feeds into a dashboard view for the purpose of creating efficiencies in:
• Monitoring
• Dialoguing
• Sharing
• Collaborating
• Measuring
• To-be-determined purposes
much more than simultaneously
updating your “status”
Current State
• SMA market is rapidly growing and evolving with a mix of highly interoperable platforms
- Mix of free and paid services allows for low-cost trial/error
Current State
• SMA market fractured by feature-set and platform support
- Need to consider time/skill-sets to tie things together
Current State
• No single robust tool exists yet that provides a holistic feature set
- Opportunity for enterprise dat-application providers (SCRM, BI) search engines and major social-nets to bring a full-featured solution to market
Segment Macro Micro Specialized Transformative
Definition
Supports large amount of social
streams
Messaging/dialogue focused
Supports limited number of social
streams
Messaging/dialogue focused
Focused on a specific function like monitoring or format delivery like
video and url shortening
Strong business focus
Includes listening platforms, SCRM, BI
SM management tools and other enterprise application providers
Example
SMA segments we’ll dive into
Given the fast-evolving SMA space, it’s important to determine selection criteria:
• Purpose - business, personal, both?
• Functionality - dialogue, monitor, syndicate, measurement etc. ?
• Scale - api, mobile, workflow, etc.?
• Interface - easy to use, customizable etc.?
Macro: FriendFeed
• Supports many social-feeds
• Individual/Group subscription and contribution
• Accessible from email, phone and IM
• API support
Macro: Netvibes
• Supports many social-feeds
• Extremely widget friendly
• “Follower” and “Friend” support
• No analytics yet (they suggest using Google Analytics)
Macro: Flock
• Social -browser (based on Mozilla Firefox architecture)
• Drag and drop functionality
• Supports many social feeds
• Blog editor and photo-upload tool built-in
Micro: TweetDeck
• Supports Twitter, Facebook and MySpace
• Dialogue-friendly/customizable interface
• Built-in video recording and watching (via 12seconds and Qik)
• Analytics can be accessed if use Bit.ly url shortening
Micro: LinkedIn
• Robust personal/group/company networking
• Widget integrations w/ Slideshare, Wordpress, Company Buzz etc.
• Poll syndication widget
• Premium subscription provides stats on visitors
Specialized: Socialmention
• Free keyword-based monitoring
• Can search by blogs, microblogs, comments, events, image, video etc.
• Real-time “buzz” widget
• Data export feature
Specialized: TubeMogul
• Multi-site video uploader
• Free and premium versions available
• Cross-platform analysis
• Multi-user and multi-campaign functionality
Specialized: bit.ly
• Url shortening service
• Allows for real-time link tracking
• Growing API integration includes Twitter, Google Reader and TypePad
• Browser bookmarklet and sidebar available
Specialized: Digg
• Crowd-sourced content curation and rating
• Facebook Connect integration
• Community comment threads
• Promote interests/follow others
Transformative: Radian6
• Listening and dialogue platform
• Provides workflow features
• Pulls from wide range of social data (blogs, forums, social-nets etc.)
• Growing API integration with enterprise systems like CRM and analtyic platforms
Transformative: Buddy Media Platform
• SM production/management system
• Facebook and Twitter client integrated
• Listening capabilities
• Real-time SM campaign analytics
Where is SMA headed?
• Increasing market demand for a “one-stop”, hosted SMA solution will drive rapid innovation and consolidation
- Likely to see horizontal and vertical product segmentation: personal productivity, SMB, enterprise, industry, trade
Where is SMA headed?
• Custom builds by agencies, social business consultancies other web integrators
- Similar to custom CMS/email solutions, “productization” of social media management tools/dashboards will be looked at as a revenue growth area
Where is SMA headed?
• Consolidation among macro, micro and specialized players
- Acquisition/mergers will increase as aggregators are forced to integrate growing social media properties/platforms/features to retain/expand audience
Where is SMA headed?
• Transformative players will continue to load-on BI and contact-center capabilities
- As SM listening/monitoring services become commoditized, transformative players will need advanced customer intelligence and engagement features to “grow” with paid client-base
Where is SMA headed?
• Social Customer Relationship Management (SCRM)
- Existing and new CRM entrants are introducing cloud-based platforms that provide flexible integration with social media and other enterprise systems (SFA, CMS etc.) that leverages/enables peer:peer/peer:pro dialogue
Where is SMA headed?
• Google/Facebook
- Both have the audience scale and technical resources to become a defacto aggregation hub (i.e.Google Wave/Analytics/Social Search and Facebook Connect)
- Over time will develop and/or acquire in-demand social media features
Continuing down the SMA path
• Prioritize current/future needs
• Evaluate tools from a business and technical administration perspective
• Don’t overlook aggregation/syndication features within existing social-nets
• Product reviews, social bookmarks, survey responses - they’re all part of the mix
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