The value of Social Media tools is in tracking and analysing Online conversations in blogs, posts, forums, discussion groups & comments on Social Networks.

iParticipate uses tools  to generate data, to analyse data and to track Online campaign performance. As a specialist Social Media marketing agency and not a technology company, we do not write proprietary software. Rather smartly, we are free to access all the best tools - there are over 26 tools available - and partner with the cleverest software providers that are accessable at any given time.

In fact, we can use free Online tools that reduce the cost of Social Media marketing for our clients - some of these are mentioned at the bottom of the page. At iParticipate we are continuously experimenting and testing newly available tools in the market.

For an evaluation of the latest tools an their availability just send us an email; friendlyperson@iPSocialMedia.com

The tools used enable us to measure the following data to enhance the effectiveness of Social Media marketing;

1_Share of voice; analysing the relative visibility of subjects being discussed by measuring specific mentions or the total number of discussions/articles

2_Coverage of discussions; analysing each subjects coverage on the different platforms in Online Media. Again, this can be measured by the total number of specific mentions or the total number of discussions and articles

3_Trending; analysing the number of mentions or discussions of selected subjects over a specified period of time

4_Sentiment; positive and negative sentiments in Online Media can be selected, displayed, analysed and trended

5_Associations; analysing how different topics are being associated witheachother in Online dialogues

6_Influential platforms; highlighting the sites, blogs, forums and discussion groups with the largest audiences where the most Online conversations are taking place

Some of the free tools which provide effective data for analysis and tracking Online performance include:

1_Social Media visibility tracking - www.howsociable.com - benefits include; easy to use, no cost, comprehensive coverage of Social Media, performance benchmarking, drill down to individual mentions & Email updates on performance

2_Website analytics - www.google.com/analytics - benefits include; free, easy to use, simple tracking code must be installed onto Web pages (copy & paste from Google), dashboard interface to measure site usage - visits, page views, pages per visit, average tiem on site, geographical mapping of visitors, % new visits - runs reports  tracks traffic sources

3_Online buzz - www.google.com/alerts -  benefits include; free & simple, monitor your own coverage across the Web (including Blogs and Social Networks), stay up to date with competitors, industry news, manage frequency and number of topics

4_Search terms - www.google.com/trends - a Search volune indexing tool to demonstrate the popularity of Search words / terms and there is no cost attached

5_Building Social Networks - www.ning.com - a straight forward build your own service which is free of charge if you are willing to accept advertising on your Social Network. For a monhly fee,  your Online community can be free of commercial messages

For an evaluation of the latest tools just send us an email; friendlyperson@iPSocialMedia.com

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