Quick, name a social media monitoring tool that can monitor Instagram. Got one yet? Not sure? I found four in seconds. Here's how.
I launched Social Media Analysis in 2009 to move industry news coverage from my personal blog to its own site. A little over a year ago, I added a free directory of social media analysis companies, which continues to grow as I discover more companies in the market. In yesterday's webinar on choosing social media monitoring tools, I realized that the news archive is the better tool for finding specific product capabilities.
SMA's directory has its own search feature, which knows a few tricks, such as finding companies based on a search for their old names. But if you're searching for a feature, the directory is only as good as the descriptions that the vendors have written about themselves (in this challenge, a directory search found one result). For something as specific as covering a particular network, it's not likely to be a big help.
If you write long enough, you build a history
The good news is that the main site also has a search feature and nearly four years' archive of industry news. The weekly roundups of product updates are particularly rich in keywords for the search engine to use. A quick search for "Instagram" revealed four monitoring tools that have announced Instagram coverage.
Even industry observers who make a point of keeping up with the tools market can't remember every detail of what 400+ companies are doing. Is SMA on your go-to list of resources for keeping up with the social media tools market?
Vendors, have you checked your company's entry recently? Is it complete and up to date? Does it contain the right keywords for searchers?
