Whilst Google Alerts provide a useful source for the latest items that are indexed by its search engine, to understand properly what is being discussed by your brand it is worthwhile investing in some detailed buzz tracking. You can drill-down into your keywords, understand which discussions are prevalent across different social networks and online communities and identify, measure and track your main influencers online. Samepoint – A conversation search engine. Surchur – An interactive dashboard covering search engines and most social media sites. HowSociable? MORE >>

Mapping Startups & Services Filtering For Relevance In A Matrix DataSift Curation Engine Aims for Relevance in Real-time On August 27, 2010, in Social Web , by Mahendra Palsule As I have said many times previously, if 2009 was all about the hype of Real-time, the future is all about capturing Relevance in real-time. Text and language of tweets Geo-location of tweets Verified users Source of tweets – web, Seesmic, TweetDeck, etc. Stream outputs from Datasift using such rules can become columns in Twitter clients like TweetDeck. It is just a matter of time. link] [.] MORE >>

new report from the makers of EdgeRank drove this point home last week, noting that its analysis of more than 1 million Facebook updates on 50,000 pages show that when users post updates using a 3 rd -party applications like Hootsuite or TweetDeck, engagement drops, on average, by about 80%. Theories abound as to why there is such a huge drop (that Facebook penalizes the apps or collapses their content, or even that communities regard these posts as spam), but the fact remains this is a big blow to effectiveness. Image by Robert Scoble. Dunbar. Social Networking Growth Slows. MORE >>

Or that a third (or more, depending on which study you believe) of all clicks go to the top result on a search engine query? Social Media Stats, Facts and Research Does Facebook Need To Build A Search Engine? Citing these and other statistics, Laurie Sullivan ponders the meaning of the term “search engine.” Facebook (71%) and Twitter (67%) are close behind…Other channels used by B2B marketers include YouTube (48%), blogging (44%) and online communities (22%).” Or that 73% of U.S. ” Nearly a quarter prefer video content to text. Oh yeah. MORE >>

and Inbound Marketing Harnessing social & new media to amplify your brand, sustain your community and make you stand out from the rest! B2B #apps 23 08 2010 Fostering strong and vibrant online communities is a key goal in any social media program. Here are some points I would like discuss with the social media marketing community and the Altimeter Group when answering this question: Is Facebook marketing right for everyone? So, I’d propose we add a criterion: Be a resource for your community and activate around the community interests, not just your brand. MORE >>