Archive for July, 2011

Lately I’ve been searching the web for online tools that will help me better understand my social media reach. I’ve been fairly active on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn for the past few weeks. However, I’ve been asking myself a lot of questions.

“Am I truly reaching the people I want to? Is anyone reading my posts? What is my social media presence?” Sometimes, I get the feeling when I write and hit the “publish” button, it all goes out there into the Internet abyss to never be heard from again. “If a tree falls in the forest, does anybody hear it?”

I figure someone must be reading some of the posts, but how many and whom? I needed more data to quell my fears, to validate my faith in social media and to prove that all my hardwork thus far is paying dividends.

First off, I found this exceptional site on all matters regarding social media – The Social Media Examiner is a great resource I highly recommend. I found a few tools, some I’ve started using and others I am interested in.

The very first evaluation tool I started using was Klout. Using your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn data and a complex series of calculations, it determines your overall influence and presents it in a graphic format that is easy to digest. Statistics covered include: Score Analysis, Network Influence, Amplification Probability and True Reach. For a more in-depth definition click here.

In it’s simplest terms, it gives you an overview of your activity and outreach. My Klout score is below (as of July 4th, 2011).

The next tool I just started using today is called My Web Career. It analyzes data from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Quora and web search results to determine your “Career Score.” Unlike Klout, it utilizes data from web search results. I love the “My Data” and “My Network” areas, it presents my data in pie-chart format. Cause everyone loves pie.

You can even drill down deeper into the data and explore various connections by industry, companies you’ve worked for and even your contacts. Think of it as “6 degrees of Kevin Bacon“. Although I haven’t explored all the stats this tool has to offer, I’m pleasantly impressed so far. My Web Career score is below. (as of July 4th, 2011).

The next tool I want to test drive is called Crowdbooster. Crowdbooster determines when your posts will receive the most interaction and have the most influence on your audience and recommends the best times for you to tweet the following day. It sounds exciting!

I can’t wait to start using this one. I’ll be sure to keep you posted. Oh and feel free to let me know what tools you find interesting and are using.