Now social media takes it one step further. I not only can find your past exploits online, but I can hear the conversations that the entire globe is having about you, right now, with a simple click (and maybe some typing too).

Twazzup, Addict-o-matic and SocialMention are three free platforms that allow you to measure your social media mettle—or more simply put, see all of the buzz or conversations surrounding your brand online, at any time.  Never heard of these platforms?  No worries, I’ve got your back!

Platform Overviews

Twazzup, as stated by ReadWriteWeb , is a bridge between Twitter and a search engine.  Sticking with the “stay with what you know” mantra, Twazzup mostly plays in the Twitter sandbox, but plays very well there.  From logging Tweets per hour to giving mug shots of the top influencers of any search, Twazzup gives you a full-circle view of how your brand is performing in the Twitter space.

Addict-o-matic, with the least D.A.R.E.-friendly tagline, “Inhale the Web,” is exactly the first thing you should think of when you say the words “social search.”  Addict-o-matic lets you see how your brand is being presented on a number of different social platforms all in one page.  With all search engines, aggregation sites like Digg, Flickr and YouTube for media-phile searchers, Addict-o-matic literally takes the platform we just reviewed, ItsTrending.com, and puts a more comprehensive spin on it.

Even Addict-o-Matic's robot looks like he's got drugs on him.

SocialMention, with its simplistic and very professional design, would seem to be the most mature of the three platforms at first glance.  All jokes aside, while the other two platforms are either very straightforward (Twazzup), or comparing their data to narcotics (Addict-o-Matic), SocialMention sticks to words that have been made popular by today’s social media thought leaders.  Measuring things like “sentiment,” “passion” and “reach”—then having the ability to quantify such usually subjective terms—makes SocialMention the platform that your boss would approve of you using daily.

Do not ask whose measurement this is...

Enough with the intros and wit; let’s figure out what’s the best platform. We’ll start with features:

Twazzup

Twazzup pigeonholes itself out of the gate by being Twitter-centered.  But the Twitter features it does have are nothing to sneeze at.  Looking for influencers?  Perhaps your topic is the Gulf oil spill.  Guess what? The top 10 or so people you need to talk to are right there. 

What are the links leading to your keyword search? No problem, there’s a clear list.  What’s the latest news on the subject?  It’s right at the top of the page.  Pop-up previews of links are an added bonus that will make you smile because your life just got a little bit easier.

On the other hand, I’m a bit confused with two things.  The Highlighted Tweet seems to be arbitrary.  Unfortunately, for those of us who are slow, clicking on the heading doesn’t give us any insight on why that tweet is so important, but I’m sure it’ll give a boost to the tweeter.  If you could only figure out how to get there…

Craig Ferguson? As you can see, Twazzup is not always 100% accurate with searches…

Addict-o-Matic

Addict-o-Matic, with its “more is more” approach, has features that continue that line of thought.  Not only can you create your own page and create a shrine for your selected keywords, you can also add tons of popular (and not so popular) social sites to give you as much or as little data overload as you require.

In terms of raw features, they keep it pretty simple; either add more info or take info away.  No cool previews, but you can move any content box around to position the most important info on top.

While the ability to see what’s being posted across many social sites is awesome, there seems to be one specific 500-million pound gorilla that’s been excluded from Addict-o-Matic, even though said gorilla has spent most of the year adding social widgets to over 100,000 sites.  Maybe they should call ItsTrending.com and have a meeting.  This is a big exclusion for me.

For a site with a drug theme, I expected brighter colors.

SocialMention

SocialMention gives you tons of features to play with, but unfortunately if you’re a beginner, you’ll need to see their FAQ to catch up before you get started really appreciating what they’ve done for you.  Instead of choosing one social network, or even grouping the info by network, SocialMention chooses to give you a streaming timeline including content from places like Twitter, StumbleUpon and Google Blogs.  They also let you know how many mentions and how many different people are mentioning you.

The most important feature, if I may be honest, is one that I call the “tattletale” feature.  Clicking on the word “negative” under the sentiment area sends you to a list of the so-called “negative” posts waiting for you to jump in the conversation at any time.  They’re not very specific on how they determine why it’s negative, but check them all out and be safe instead of sorry.

While I love the feature above, I am disappointed that I can’t click on the unique authors or retweets section. It would be a huge bonus to be able to see a list of those authors.  As a marketer, if I had a list of who was talking about me, it would be as easy as pie to connect and grow those relationships from there.  SocialMention makes you dig through their timeline for that data—good for them, bad for me.  You can export the top users, but the data still required some extra effort to turn into a hit list.

This page just LOOKS like work, doesn't it?

Who’s More Ninja?

All that is cool, but who should you use?  How should you decide?  And more importantly, what are the ninja features that nobody else is thinking about to put you ahead of the curve?

Twazzup

Ninja Tactic: Get in with the cool kids quickly

Twazzup lets you see who is talking about your niche quickly and painlessly.  If you were being ninja, you would quickly make a list of the cool kids and find a way to add value to them ASAP.

These people are not only already talking about this niche, but they are sharing the most content about it with their networks.  This is how you can create something that we call an “influence circle.”  If you want to get content shared faster and farther than your account can accomplish, you need to have a relationship with the people in your industry who do just that.  Especially valuable for new Twitter users with fewer relationships.

Addict-o-Matic

Ninja Tactic: Outcast platform awareness

Addict-o-Matic lets you get all of the latest info on a subject from tons of platforms, but you can get Facebook, Twitter and YouTube info from about a million different tools.  Addict-o-Matic allows you to customize an interface and keep track of a number of sites that, to be honest, nobody else is thinking about.  While SocialMention blends these platforms in a live stream, Addict-o-Matic makes it very easy to see the latest buzz from sites like Truveo, Blinkx and Twingly, which aren’t being harvested daily by most marketers/content sharers.

Use this tip to stand out in the content crowd by posting the most unique and diverse content in your niche.  Right now, many marketers are reposting popular content, but to build your own reputation, you need to find/create content that comes from you, or is found by you.

I hadn't heard of 30% of these sites before today… I promise.

SocialMention

Ninja Tactic: Sentiment timeline

SocialMention has a feature that should make any data-driven marketer smile.  They let you export the results of your search to a .csv file.  Why is this important?  It’s important because most companies are not properly measuring their social sentiment at all, and those that do measure are seeing snapshots over periods of a month, at most.

A serious marketer will want data to examine change over months and possibly years to evaluate where the brand has come from, and if they’re progressing towards a predetermined goal.  SocialMention allows you to use their algorithms to track easy-to-understand numbers over time, and export them into your own internal system.  Once you control the data, you can manipulate it in any way that you see fit to benefit your brand, giving SocialMention another notch in the “most mature platform” belt.

Good to know that people aren’t letting the tropical storm get them down…

And the Winner Is…

SocialMention, for being the closest to a complete solution of the three.

Twazzup comes in second, but only for its focus on Twitter.  If they could find a way to integrate other platforms, or partner with other niche-specific platforms for a robust solution, they could vault to the top.  But at this point, you need about seven different solutions to use in conjunction with Twazzup to be completely covered.

Addict-o-matic, while awesome in name, falls short in this specific horse race.  Other than its fringe social network additions, there’s not much difference between Popurls.com or Alltop.com except the search bar.  Just like Twazzup, you’ll need more tools to round out your kit, and Addict-o-Matic is more of a role player than a starter.

See a feature, benefit or shortcoming that I missed? Know of an upcoming improvement that will rearrange these rankings?  Is there a completely different platform that should be in the race?  Let me know in the box below.

A major component of answering those questions effectively is understanding in which social outposts your customers are concentrated, because there really is no benefit in beating your customers to the punch. Companies should follow, not lead, their customers across the social web.

At conferences, I’m often asked something along these lines: “My boss thinks none of our customers are on Facebook, but I think they are. What do I do?”

Here are 4 ways to find out where your customers are in social media:

#1: Hire a Spy

Update: Since the publication of this article Flowtown no longer offers these services.

Flowtown and Rapleaf are two of the leaders in the emerging field of social anthropology. It’s ingenious and a bit freaky (like Cirque de Soleil).

You provide a list of your customers’ email addresses and these services figure out how many (and who) among your customers are on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and niche social networks, what their “likes” are and other important details.

Flowtown is perfect for small- and medium-sized businesses (see my review here). Rapleaf is for larger companies. My friend Kyle Lacy does a lot of consulting in this area, helping organizations with Rapleaf analyses.

#2: Ask

Perhaps the most obvious way of finding out where your customers are hanging out in social media is unfortunately the least utilized. Ask them.

If you have a “Contact Us” form, an online lead generation form, an email newsletter signup or a shopping cart, why are you still only asking for name, address and email address? Add data collection fields for Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn (at minimum).

#3: Email Behavior

Have you added links to your social outposts in your emails? Have you added the ability for email recipients to share content on Twitter, Facebook, Digg and elsewhere? If you send email routinely, you need to integrate email and social immediately.

Most quality email service providers give you the option of easily adding sharing tools, and you can then run a report showing which of your subscribers clicked your Twitter link and/or shared content on Facebook. Presto! Now you know that person is active on those social sites.

#4: Gmail Stalking

Twitter, Facebook and other social outposts have incorporated functionality that allows you to see whether your Gmail contacts are using the services and invite them to connect with you. While this integration is intended for personal use, you can use it for your business, too. Here’s how:

• First, create a .csv file from a list of your customers’ email addresses (you only need email addresses, not names, mailing address, etc.).
• Next, create a free account on gmail.com specifically for this purpose (you don’t want to be doing this on an existing account).
• Third, upload the .csv to your Gmail account.
• Now, go to Twitter and create a new account using your special new Gmail email address.  On Step Two “Find Your Friends” of the Twitter signup process, select Gmail. Bam! Twitter automatically reads all of the email addresses of your customers stored in Gmail, allowing you to track the number on Twitter and/or follow them immediately.
• Now, set up a new Facebook account using your new Gmail address. On Step One “Find Friends” of the Facebook signup process, indicate that you have a Gmail account, and follow the simple instructions. Bingo! All of your customers on Facebook are presented to you, and you should be able to become their “friend” with a single click.

I uploaded a list of approximately 2,000 subscribers to my email newsletter, and was able to track down more than 1,000 on Twitter and 500 on Facebook. Total cost? Zero dollars and about 30 minutes.

Create a free account on gmail.com specifically for this purpose.

On Step Two “Find Your Friends” of the Twitter signup process, select Gmail.

On Step One “Find Friends” of the Facebook signup process, indicate that you have a Gmail account, and follow the simple instructions.

As the social web becomes more interconnected, understanding how your customers are connected (or connectable) to your brand in social media is a sizable part of the success equation.

Are you a social media detective? Let us know your thoughts and ideas below.

Want to make it easy for readers to share your great content with their tribes? If so, keep reading as I share six social media add-ons you can effortlessly integrate into your blog today. Your immediate result: much better engagement with your readers. And by the way, I’ve used them all—many on this very site.

An aside… The key to encouraging social activity is making it easy for people to act. The less friction there is between desire and action the more likely people will share your content or reach out to you. Fortunately these six excellent tools make encouraging activity easy—and dare I say, fun!

#1 TweetMeme—The Ultimate in Social Proof

In times past it was said that comments were the currency of bloggers. But far too often outstanding content only attracts a comment or two. What if there was a better way to determine if people like your posts (while also driving traffic to your blog)? Well now there is. Introducing TweetMeme’s Retweet Button.

TweetMeme’s button provides readers an effortless way to share your post on Twitter (and much more). Readers simply push a button and your post shows up on their Twitter feeds—driving more traffic to your page! But the real power is in the number it displays on your page. Every time anyone tweets about your article, TweetMeme tracks and displays a number on the page (whether they used the button or not).

This is one of the most powerful social barometers I have ever seen. The bigger the TweetMeme number, the more others feel compelled to read your content and share it.

You can add the TweetMeme badge anywhere on any page (blog or not). I like to display it at the top of the page. The higher the number, the more likely it broadcasts to readers, “Others think this is important, so you need to read this too!”

I really like the WordPress plugin (note that other platforms are also supported) because you can substitute your own Bit.ly account (a URL tracking service) and include your own Twitter ID in any retweets.

Here’s an added bonus. If one of your readers has a TweetMeme account (not required to use), when he or she clicks the “retweet” button, TweetMeme publishes the page to their Twitter account without leaving the page, a really powerful feature.

#2 DISQUS Comment System—The Ultimate in User Engagement

DISQUS is a VERY powerful comment system that takes over your existing blog’s comment functions and adds very powerful features. For example, with DISQUS readers can add video comments or leave comments using their Twitter or Facebook ID, and you can have multiple individuals moderate your comments.

I was a bit critical of DISQUS when I first reviewed it.  However, the service has since increased its features.

A few of my favorite capabilities include an indented comment stream (see image below) and the ability to add and display new comments without the page reloading. The experience is so user-friendly that I found people leaving a lot more comments after I installed DISQUS.

Also, if you have a free account with DISQUS, it recognizes you whenever you visit a site that uses the service. This means no need to type in your name and email, simply leave a comment.

A few pointers: As a commenter, you should register yourself with DISQUS. When you do, set up your name and website address so it will display properly when you leave a comment (under Profile | My Settings). So instead of non-identifiable ID I was assigned (like MikeS22) I can customize it to say “Michael Stelzner” and link to my site. If you do not do this, your name appears abbreviated and will not link back to your site, making it hard for folks to discover more about you based on your brilliant comments. While you’re in there, add an avatar or link to one from your Twitter account.

#3 Gravatar.com—Faces Make Comments Come to Life

Gravatar is a universal platform that displays a reader’s picture based on the email address he or she enters into a blog’s comment form. Thus, when you visit a blog and leave a comment, your email address is matched against the Gravatar database and your picture displays (see sample below). This only works if you have registered your email address with Gravatar and added a picture.

I’m pretty sure the latest versions of WordPress work automatically with Gravatar. However, if you are hosting an older WordPress blog, you’ll want to install WP-Gravatar for Gravatar support.

A few tips.  If you have multiple email accounts, set them all up under your Gravatar account to ensure your mug shot always appears, regardless of which email address you use.

#4 Sexy Bookmarks Plugin—The Easy Way to Share Great Content

There are a number of tools that allow your readers to share your post on different social networks, but none come close to Sexy Bookmarks.

This WordPress plugin allows you to display the social sites of your choosing and is visually appealing.  When a user “mouses over” an icon, it animates on the screen.  And yes, you change the “Sharing is sexy!” text.

The backend of this WordPress plugin is exceptionally sophisticated. For example, you can enter in your Bit.ly API code and the plugin will use your account to create tracing URLs.

#5 Twitter Follow Badge—The Simple Way to Grow Twitter Followers

Twitter Follow Badge creates a nifty little button that always remains on the page as users scroll through your content, making it easy for them to follow you on Twitter. You also can customize it to match the color scheme of your site and determine where you want it to live on the page.

The main benefit of this little widget is folks can easily follow you on Twitter.

#6 Meebo Me—Adding Live Chat to Your Page

Ever been to a website that said, “Click here to speak to a live agent”? How would you like something like that for your blog (or any web page for that matter)? You can with Meebo Me, a simple embedded chat system you can place on any page (or all pages) of your site.

This free service allows anyone to chat with you immediately. What’s cool about this is it integrates into all your other chat accounts. So now you can have them all in one interface AND still answer live questions from your readers.

This chat capability is very powerful and should also be used on your product landing pages.

So what do you think? Do you use any of these tools with success? Do you have others to share? I’d like to hear from you. Just type in your message below.