“We have seen a clear evolution in demands from our customers. They are better informed and far more sophisticated in their expectations and requirements.”- Mark Redgrave of Hapax.

True!! With the advent of social media they now have their own platform to express their views and opinions. The main intention behind social media monitoring is to track these conversations as I have mentioned earlier. Determining if these conversations are positive or negative is called Sentiment Analysis.

Listening to the sentiments behind a customer’s voice is very important for any company that wishes to act upon these opinions. According to me, sentiment analysis is very important to any social media monitoring initiative. It is vital to analyze whether good or bad conversations are driving your brand in the social media space. In fact, tracking sentiments is one of the real reasons why businesses enter social media. At iridium, we use several tools to do this.

Automated sentimental analysis tools are generally used to give numbers to these customer sentiments. It is good if you dig deeper than the statistics to get a clearer picture. Also you will need to compare sentiments across several brands over a time period.

If the consumers have positive sentiments with a brand, its all good, but when there is negative sentiment it makes the analysis interesting when you have to uncover the reasons behind this particular sentiment. Sentiment analysis coupled with social monitoring tools make this study even more interesting. It is more like stepping into your consumer’s mind and understanding what drives their thinking about your company.

I would not like to confuse you further, so I conclude by stating that sentiment analysis is nothing but social media monitoring with a qualitative twist.

As I would put it, these free tools are good as long as you can wade your way around it and get the output you are looking for from these tools. But if you are lost with these tools, which I know many do in the beginning, then you might have to look into other alternatives.

There are some more shortcomings of these free tools:

Firstly, these tools can be used to assess a campaign or strategic prerequisite, but not for a large amount of data in an all-inclusive Web 2.0 coverage.

Secondly, free tools are just the tip of the iceberg; they do not have the ability to go into the details. They can only introduce you to the listening tools.

Thirdly, machines are great data retrievers but it’s the human touch that makes it into valuable information. This is one big shortcoming of automated, free monitoring tools.

The need of an analyst arises at this point when you have the What, Where, and When answered, but the most critical, Why? and How? are still left to be answered.

Why do consumers think this way about my product? How can I change their perception? An analyst like Iridium can help you draw insights from the data and develop a strategy.

So for all the companies waiting to explore social media, your customers are waiting to hear from you! Begin now to at-least play with the new set of social media monitoring tools. Next, begin taking expertise from social media experts who can take your brand, your voice to the next level. Its not too late…take the first mover advantage!!!

Watch out for more from me as I will take you through a deeper understanding of the Social Listening space…its time to evolve!

Follow us on @iridiuminter or my personal twitter @sbharatam.

Here are some free Social media monitoring tools that you can use to assess all social media metrics.

1. How Sociable: it is a free tool that defines simplicity. Just punch in the brand you want to measure metrics for and you will get the visibility score for it across 32 social networks. http://www.howsociable.com/

2. Addict-o-matic: This tool provides you with a comprehensive view of discussions on a topic across the most popular social networks. In just one view you can see all the discussions on all popular social networks and blogs. http://addictomatic.com/

3. Technorati- This tool is used to find top blogs and posts on any searched item. http://technorati.com/

4. Google Blogsearch- This is also a blog oriented tool that generates top discussions happening in blogs on a topic you want to search for. http://blogsearch.google.com/

5. Googletrends- Shows the worldwide traffic/searches of this particular keyword. http://google.com/trends

6. Twitterstats-  This is one tool that serves all my twitter purposes. It shows all the relevant twitter stats for the Iridium account and allows comparisons with other accounts too. One stop for all twitter analytics is what this tool is all about. Check it out on http://www.twitterstats.com/

7. Quantcast- This tool is apt for tracking traffic to a particular website and gives Graphical display and demographics wise data segregation. http://www.quantcast.com/

There are numerous free tools available but its your requirements that defines your choice. After my stint in social media monitoring, these are the top 7 tools I frequently use.

Follow us on @iridiuminter or my personal twitter @sbharatam.