When winning means everything

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Over the last several months I’ve spent a considerable amount of my time evaluating and testing various social media monitoring platforms for medium-sized and enterprise-class organizations. I’ve narrowed down my focus to three with an outstanding reputation in the industry. There are certainly others who have an excellent reputation as well but among paid platform providers these have stood out from the pack from the research I have done:

Radian6, ScoutLabs and Sysomos.

My conclusion: They are all winners in their own right. Numero uno truly is relative and depends on the context of your enterprise’s needs. But more on that in a sec.

So I’ve looked at lots of platforms but the three I am most impressed by and have looked at most closely thus far are Radian6 (which I’ve demo’d and tested), ScoutLabs (which I’ve also demo’d and tested) and Sysomos, which I’ve demo’d and plan to test early this coming week..

The question we at VMR and myself in particular have been asking continually is not so much which is the best platform, but which is the best platform (or combination of platforms) for us to service our clients and prospective clients and their specific needs.

When it comes to something as complex and sophisticated as social media monitoring / listening and engagement platforms, each of the three above have their strengths (more on that in a future post) but the bottom line is that the best option for your enterprise really depends on the context of your situation.

The answers to questions like the few (of many) that I have listed below, will hopefully help you engage in meaningful dialogue internally as well as externally with vendors and agency partners vis-à-vis your social media marketing, public relations, customer service, and sales efforts online:

1. Are you looking to compare your share of voice online versus that of your competitors and track that over time using easily comprehensible metrics that can be assigned a $ value?

2. Whose voice do you want to listen to? Key influeners? General consumer sentiment? Stakeholders? Traditional Media? Male? Female? In North America or worldwide?

3. Do you need a platform that can be used in focus group fashion to slice and dice general consumer sentiment, key influencer sentiment, and or journalist sentiment?

4. Do you need to know where the fish (your prospects and key influencers) are currently swimming (“conversing”) before you dive into or create an empty pond?

5. Would you like to track how well your PR campaigns have increased share of voice specifically among key influencers or among consumers at large?

6. What about your sales and customer services teams? Are they looking for the actionable
intelligence that a social media monitoring platform can provide? Will the monitoring platform you choose need to integrate well with a CRM like salesforce.com?

7. Which social media “venues” are you most interested in monitoring? Blogs? Traditional News Outlets? Forums? Linkedin? Facebook? Youtube? Blogtalkradio? Podcasts? (Check out the conversation prism below to get a better sense for what’s out there)

8. If influencing the influencers is important to you, do you need a platform that helps you identify key influencers by showing you inbound links, comment count, level of engagement?

9. Is yours a global brand where you need to monitor not only key influencer sentiment but also the so-called “Long Tail” of your marketing sales curve?

10. Is your CMO demanding specific and meaningful metrics that can demonstrate a clear ROI from your social media engagement efforts?

11. If you are monitoring global brands, will you need a platform that translates content and sentiment in multiple languages?

12. Do you have the resources, expertise and social media savvy currently to fully leverage the capabilities of whatever platform is best for you?

13. How much historical data will you need? Some platforms have absolutely enormous amounts of historical data. Is that going to be helpful to your PR and marketing teams? Or not worth paying extra for?

14. What about ease of use? Do you need a platform that multiple users in your organization will learn quickly and easily, thus increasing their level of online engagement?

There are many options and just as many needs-analysis questions out there for medium-sized and enterpise-class organizations when it comes to monitoring platforms and social media agencies.

While content may indeed be king (is it still?), when it comes to evaluating your options in the world of social media and understanding how to engage after listening carefully, context i is queen.

That’s how we are approaching our needs analysis at VMR for ourselves and for our prospective clients. I’d love to hear from the three leaders above, their competitors, their current clients and those that are taking a look at them. Now’s your chance to speak your mind and voice your choice.

Do you agree that there is no number 1?
What questions would you add to a needs analysis?
Which questions concerning social media and social media monitoring are most important for your organization to consider?
Which ones have you had the most difficulty answering?

Bring on the comments. I’ll be listening. :)