Good morning all you social media fanatics! Today we’ll be taking a closer look at Flaptor’s Trendistic, a neat little tool that’s quickly winning the hearts of our strategic planning and research team.

What it is: In a nut shell, Trendistic is a tracking tool that charts Twitter trends for users.   It literally lets you see the hottest discussion topics on Twitter.

What it does: Trendistic gathers tweets in real-time and compiles them into one-hour intervals. You can then view the hottest trending topics of every hour, or even input your own topic.

Trend Graph: Once you input your search term(s), the first thing that comes up is the trend graph. This interactive line graph displays the latest percentage of tweets for your search topic in the past hour and up until 180 days. You can even isolate your own specific time frame by a simple click-and-drag.

Recent Tweets: Below the line graph, you can see the most recent tweets compiled by Trendistic containing your search term. If multiple search terms were used, recent tweets from all terms will be displayed, including time and date.

Recent Trending Topics: This running list of the top trending topics can be found on the right side of Trendistic’s main page. Looks like the Cowboys vs. Eagles game generated a lot of buzz this past weekend.

What it is good for: Trendistic is one of the many tools that allow you to identify and track the coverage a person, event, product, or company has generated on Twitter.  You can even input a URL into Trendistic and count how many times it has been shared.

This tool is extremely helpful for comparing the coverage of competing brands and identifying trends in the ever-changing online conversation.

A search for At&t and Verizon saw a spike in Twitter discussions for Verizon on January 5, 2010. Much of the buzz was due to Google’s Nexus One and its anticipated availability to Verizon wireless customers.

Final Thought: Trendistic is quite possibly the best free Twitter archive and trend tracker currently available. The simple user interface makes it easy to see exactly what people are talking about and when they are saying it.

Welcome to the first Brodeur Social Media Monday (ahem… Tuesday) post of the new decade!  This week’s spotlight is on a great little tool called TrendsMap.

What it is: TrendsMap tracks real-time, location-specific topics online – utilizing twitter, twitpic and news sites to aggregate all the information into a refreshingly well-executed user interface.

What it does: Track relevant or hot topics in your geographic area of interest, see how extensively your topic of interest has spread geographically, or track the history of a given topic both locally and globally. In short, this tool gives you insight into the intersection between location and social media:

Track relevant/hot topics in your geographic area of interest: While the net has made the world a smaller place, it has also empowered local communities to organize around topics of interest. One has only to look at the success of FourSquare and Yelp to see how friendly competition and local insider scoops drive successful brick-and-mortar business models as well as the success of platforms catering to them. If your business (or your client) needs local coverage, Trendsmap is a good way to filter out all the unnecessary information you couldn’t care less about. In other words, your wifi coffee shop in Wichita shouldn’t be too concerned that it’s not making the global twitter trends list… but a successful campaign would show movement in the Wichita area. TrendsMap helps you track this.

See how extensively your topic of interest has spread geographically: Let’s say your client opens up the coffers for a swanky Times Square event, invites the Twitterati and hopes to see buzz spreading throughout the land. TrendsMap lets you track this.

Track the history of a given topic both locally and globally: In both of the pictures above, there is a small, but interesting graph associated with volume of mentions. It may not be exportable or in color, but it does give you a sense of your campaign’s progress… or the lack thereof.

What it is good for: TrendsMap is a great way to get a helpful snapshot of the progress of a social media campaign, with a fun and simple interface to boot. (Take note other twitter-related tools… UI *is* important!)

Final thought: TrendsMap does not rise to the level of “must-have”, but it does rise to the level of “useful”.  While the data on this platform is not really exportable (for client presentations and reports), it does give you real-time insight into your campaign and can help you make the tweaks necessary to turn it around now. The folks at TrendsMap are always looking for users’ input on bugs to fix, but it’s not entirely clear whether they’re looking to expand the services offered here.  Stay tuned on that front. We certainly will.

Hello all you social media fanatics! So far, ‘Social Media Monday’ has covered the world of blogs, social networks and Twitter. Today, we’re going to take a look at forums with BoardTracker.com.

What it is: BoardTracker.com is a search engine designed exclusively for online discussion forums or message boards, hence boardtracker.

What it does: Boardtracker has a very simple interface and yields very simple results. All you need to do is input a keyword and press enter. Boardtracker returns all the forum threads that contain that keyword. You can get more specific by inputting a date range or a particular website or choosing from one of 20 categories.

In addition to being a search engine, once you complete your free registration, you can start to personalize the service. The ‘My Threads” tab is place where you can bookmark your favorite threads or forums so you can have easy access to them once you log in. Boardtracker also has a “My Alerts” feature where you have the option to send specific search results directly to your email.

What it is good for: Boardtracker is one of the many tools that allow you to navigate the ever-changing online conversation. People don’t hold back their opinions when posting their thoughts onto forums so they’re a great place to determine the overall sentiment about a certain company, product, person or industry. So when new business comes in, you can use Boardtracker to see what people are saying about that company online.

Moving Forward: Yes, Boardtracker does offer a general idea of what is being said online about a certain topic, but in order to grasp this general idea, you would need to manually go through every result and determine the overall sentiment. There are no “Top 10 keywords” or “Top 10 forums” associated with each search topic. However, there is an option to sort the search results by relevancy, indicating which posts are most important.

The site claims that they are currently tracking 69,511,291 threads in 37,284 forums, and are constantly adding more. You can even add your own board if it is not already in their database, so all in all it is pretty comprehensive. Additionally, all the information in Boardtracker’s database is from forum threads only, all extraneous text on a page is excluded by default which allows for more relevant results.

Final Thought: All in all, Boardtracker is a great tool to determine a general sentiment of an online conversation but should definitely be used in concurrence with other social media measurement tools to really grasp the big picture.

UPDATE - 12/15/09 – BoardTracker.com has a 2.0 Beta version in the works that addresses most of the issues above. Be forewarned, it is currently full of “Slowness, bugs and cats”. So keep an eye out for a review of BoardTracker 2.0 in a future ‘Social Media Monday’ post!

In this week’s installment of Social Media Monday, we take a look at one of our favorite Twitter search tools, Twellow.

What it is: Twellow is a people search tool for Twitter, allowing you to connect with people of experience and expertise in your areas of interest.

What it does: Twellow collects publicly available tweets, analyzes them, and categorizes each of the users responsible for those tweets into various categories—art, food, travel, politics, etc. Think of Twellow as an online phone book directory for Twitter, which connects users “with people who matter.”

Get listed: Registering for Twellow is easy; all you need is a Twitter account. Just visit their new user page, enter your Twitter username and voila! Once registered you can modify your categorization on Twellow and create an extended bio.

Categories: With over 1 billion followers and 11 million Twitter profiles, Twellow has literally hundreds of categories, and search features, which make it easy for Twitter users to “cut through the clutter.”

Search Toolbar: By default, search results are sorted by number of followers, but can be filtered by utilizing Twellow’s advance search tips—allowing you to connect with Twitter’s true influencers.

Twellow Suggestions: Makes is easy for users to see other tweeple that are tweeting about similar areas of interest.

TwellowHood: This nifty feature allows you to locate tweeple in your neighborhood who you can connect with. Simply click on any state to zoom in for a list of people that are tweeting in your city.

What it is good for: Twellow serves as a one stop-shop for industry folks interested in identifying Twitter’s most influential tweeple–in any category.

An instant search lets you see the number of people tweeting about a certain topic (in our example, biotechnology), their last tweet, and how many followers they have.

At Brodeur, we regularly use Twellow to identify ‘who’s who’ among tweeple, particularly in recruiting ‘followers’ that share our clients’ views and would benefit from our messaging.

Moving Forward: What makes Twellow unique is the number of indexes and search categories it provides—it really is the ‘Twitter Yellow Pages.’ By providing a comprehensive directory of Twitter users, Twellow makes it easy for anyone to study a certain aspect of any market.

While Twellow does a good job at eliminating the clutter and spam found on Twitter, there is still room for improvement. For instance, new users are initially categorized by their Twitter bio, and not by the message conveyed in their tweets. You can always go back and change your bio on Twitter, or update your Twellow profile, but a categorization by tweet relevance would be helpful.

Also, similar search terms produce dissimilar results. For example, there are currently over 1,200 user profiles under the Biotechnology category, but only 228 matches for the search term “biotechnology” and 598 matches for “biotech.” A ranking algorithm in Twellow’s directory could help solve this issue and make it easier to identify relevant tweeple.

Interested in finding out the latest and greatest on Twellow? Or how this search tool can help drive your clients’ social media campaign? Then visit Twellow’s blog to remain up to date on new site developments.

Final thought: In an industry rapidly becoming synonymous with social media, Twellow is a must have for keeping track of industry influencers on Twitter. If you don’t have it, get it, and if you do have it, love it.

In today’s edition of Social Media Monday, we will be taking a look at the blogosphere through the eyes of Technorati.

What it is: Technorati is a blog search engine tool that’s packed with extras to help you navigate the ever-changing online conversation.

What it does: Plain and simple, Technorati is a search engine for blogs. Type in any keyword and Technorati will show you in real-time which blogs are addressing the topic. Displayed in the search results are the blog title, post title, URL, a brief excerpt of the post, a small screenshot and a rank based on Technorati’s ‘Authority’ algorithm.

Beyond the search engine tool, Technorati’s home page offers several other features that help qualify the blogosphere, including:

Today on Technorati: Here you can check out the day’s important news stories, as well as recent product reviews and other relevant blog posts.

Top Blogs: Technorati ranks their blogs by ‘Authority’. This section reveals the top 5 “risers” and “fallers” in terms of this Authority statistic. There is also a link to the top 100 blogs by Authority.

Latest Articles: Technorati prides itself on aggregating blog posts almost as soon as they are posted on the blogs themselves. These are the latest blogs that come into Technorati’s feed.

Hottest Blogosphere Items: It is not clearly defined what makes an item “Hot” but one can assume that this is an extension of Today on Technorati, displaying the latest news stories and product reports.

Most Popular Videos: Frequently watched videos from across the web.

What it is good for: Technorati can provide you with a general idea of the who, what, why and where of almost any topic in the blogosphere. Even if you don’t have a specific keyword in mind, Technorati provides the latest posts within several categories including technology, business, entertainment, lifestyle, sports and politics.

When new business comes in, it is important to know where that potential client stands in the social media landscape. A key element of determining their position in this landscape is seeing what type of blogs the client is mentioned in and what is being said about that client. A quick keyword search and Technorati makes it all available.

Moving Forward: What makes Technorati unique is its ‘Authority’ ranking system, which measures a site’s “standing & influence” in the blogosphere. According to the site, Authority is calculated based on a site’s “linking behavior, categorization and other associated data over a short, finite period of time”.

This number could be very helpful when determining which blogs hold more weight when discussing an individual client or a particular industry as a whole. It can also help establish which blogs are most influential and therefore more appropriate to pitch for your client.

The only pitfall is that you have to trust that the data gathered by Technorati is accurate. The site does suggest that it involves certain “linking behavior” and “categorization” but it’s the “other associated data” that raises my skepticism. I would be much more confident in the data if they explained the actual algorithm instead of using vague internet-speak.

Final Thought: Skepticism about Authority aside, Technorati is still an excellent tool to establish a basic overview of what is being said in the blogosphere about a given topic and what type of people are talking about it.

What it is: Launched on April 15, 2008, Facebook Lexicon is a neat tool that allows users to follow language trends across Facebook’s public and semi-public forums or walls. Similar to Google Trends, it offers users the ability to track the popularity of different words or phrases.

What it does: In short, Facebook Lexicon counts the occurrences of words and phrases on profile, group and event walls over a period of time — as far back as 2 years — while creating a trend graph in the process. Simply enter your search terms (up to five) and witness the discussion trends users engage in on a daily basis. A new version of this mapping tool offers the following functions:

Dashboard: provide quick metrics, like number of posters, percentage of posters, number of posts, and user demographics all in one screen

Demographics: breaks down who is discussing a given topic by age, gender, and country. Percentage of Posters shows the percentage of posters in each demographic that mentioned the topic each day.

Associations: Similar to a tag cloud, the “associations” function shows terms that frequently show up in posts with the topics on X and Y axes. For example, the terms “Red Sox” and “Yankees” will frequently occur in posts about “baseball.”

Sentiment: shows the percentage of posts that are positive vs. negative about the topic

Pulse: shows keywords that frequently occur in the profiles of users who mentioned the topic, ranked by how many times the keyword occurs and how closely associated the keyword is with the topic

Maps: shows where people are talking about the topic, with darker colors indicating more mentions of a specific topic per day

What it is good for: In an industry that’s rapidly adopting web 2.0 applications in branding strategies, Facebook Lexicon offers communications professionals the ability to dissect user data from the world’s most popular social networking site.

By pulling data from the wealth of Facebook discussions, Lexicon offers users an insight of what Facebook addicts are talking about. This can be a powerful tool for industry professionals who want to gauge coverage of their product, or that of a competitor, among users.

For instance, the graph below illustrates the buzz generated by both Duke and UNC. As one can see, Duke’s presence on Facebook is slightly higher than that of their tobacco road rival. It is also evident that the majority of online discussions take place during March. I wonder why?

Moving Forward: Overall, Facebook Lexicon has the POTENTIAL to be a must-have for all agencies serious about social media metric tools, but not just yet.

Although Facebook Lexicon does do a great job implementing Google Trend properties into the social networking site, it still has some flaws—all dealing with lack of data. Depending on your search term, you could receive a gold mind of information or the dreaded “There is no data for your query. Please try another term.”

According to Facebook, “A term will only be displayed if there have been sufficient mentions of the term to display results. If a term doesn’t show up in the graph, or if there is a gap, it doesn’t mean that no one mentioned it; it means that not enough people mentioned that term for it to exceed the threshold.”

Another drawback to this nifty tool is that all the neat functions listed above (dashboard, demographic, sentiment, etc.) are still under development. Users can preview this new version by searching one of the 17 predetermined search terms listed by Facebook, but it ends there.

On a comforting note, Facebook Lexicon does go out of its way to protect user privacy by stating that “The system strips out all personally identifiable information so that there is no way to track a mention back to a specific person. No human at Facebook ever reads these Wall posts, and Lexicon does not look at personal messages, invitations or any other private user-to-user communications.”

Final thought: Wall discussions are read by tens, hundreds or even thousands of people (depending on your friends list) and in an industry rapidly merging with social media, keeping track of user sentiment across all web 2.0 properties is a must. Although the new Facebook Lexicon is still under development, go ahead and play around with the current version; you might be surprised at what discussion trends you find about your company!

Our client Avnet graciously invites us to attend several business and charitable events here in Phoenix. The one that I look forward to the most every year is Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism luncheon. Mr. Cronkite couldn’t make it this year, as he’s reached the proud age of 92 and the rigors of travel would be too difficult for him, but that didn’t lessen the quality of the 25th annual event.

This year’s Cronkite award recipients were Robert MacNeil and Jim Lehrer. The PBS news anchor team was recognized as epitomizing, “The best of thought-provoking and in-depth broadcast journalism.” They join a list of legendary journalists who have received this award, such as Bob Woodward, Bill Moyers, Tom Brokaw, Cokie Roberts, Helen Thomas, and 2007 inductee Jane Pauley.

The best part of the event is always the “remarks by honorees” section. Three years ago recipient Dave Barry had us crying we were laughing so hard at his remarks. This year’s speeches from MacNeil and Lehrer took a decidedly different tone. Lehrer, who I usually expect to be calm, composed and impartial, let loose with a rousing call to all current and future journalists, going so far as to say, “Journalists have mostly fear itself to fear,” and “I never want anyone to confuse news with entertainment, or me with the clowns.”

MacNeil, with intense gravitas that only a select few can get away with these days and seem sincere, discussed how journalism is, “A life course in semantics,” where journalists need to, “Read between the lines to determine ‘how am I being snowed, how am I being spun?’”

As a PR professional (and ex-journalist), their passion for the trade of journalism struck me as both inspiring, but also seriously “old school.” Because, you see, while MacNeil was dismissing new media by saying, “Whatever the means of delivery, the quality of information remains the same,” I was tweeting on my BlackBerry and following an NPR reporter sitting a table away from me, getting her impressions of the same scene I was witnessing. I LOLed when a few hours later I heard her report on air and discovered that the same quotes she put in her tweets were included in her broadcast. Yes, the information remains the same, but I knew what she was thinking hours before those listening to her via “old media” did. And even more amusing was that she tweeted some of the same quotes from the presenters as I did at exactly the same time – which made me feel engaged with the story as a participant, not just the audience.

There will always be a need for the thought-provoking and in-depth reporting that the likes of MacNeil, Lehrer and Mr. Cronkite have provided over the years (and that I consume in excess as a self-professed NPR junkie). However, I hope that these esteemed journalists, and those that will follow in their footsteps, are able to bridge the gap to deliver information across multiple platforms and connect with people who consume information in real time, not just audiences that passively listen and watch according to schedule.

With the growth of Web2.0 and the social media, press release companies are leaning toward the web and SEO for every release that hits the wire. What do you do for releases that aren’t a good fit for a social media release? They should still go on the web, right?

Companies should be making a SEO friendly PDF available on their website for every release that hits the wire. While many people have been doing this for years, I notice that they are regularly doing it incorrectly. If you are one of them, good thing that you’re here!

There are a few rules that you need to follow to make a PDF SEO friendly. Below is my checklist for every PDF I create that will live on the web.

• Complete the document properties. The title, subject, category and keywords can make or break your document on the web.
• Use a text format. Don’t scan a printed version; the search engine will not be able to read it.
• Keep the file small. People don’t want to download a huge document.
• Place links to your website. Users will many times download a PDF; let’s make it easy for them to find us when they want to!
• Backwards compatibility… Save files down using a lower version of Adobe Acrobat than what you have. Consider yourself lucky to have the latest and greatest. The rest of us may not be so lucky!
• Don’t make the user search for your pressroom. Make links available on the homepage! This will also give your site a non-static feel as the content will refresh with every release.
• Optimize the language for the web. Don’t use keywords. Instead, use search phrases in a natural tone.