Social Media Analytics: Tracking Tools

Ever wonder if all your promotion on Facebook, Twitter, Technorati, Digg,etc. is worthwhile? Are the 2374 followers on Twitter even listening? Here are some analytical tools to help with tracking on social media endeavours.

Bit.ly is a URL shortener, that has analytics information. This tracks information like number of clicks, traffic sources, and when clicks occur. Click here to see what bit.ly can do.

Xinu Returns is a great site that gives a dashboard view of 20-3o different stats including, ranking, backlinks, bookmarks and indexed pages. Just type in the domain name, no sign up is necessary.

Facebook Lexicon is a tool on Facebook that lets you map trends by typing in a word or phrase, similar to Google Trends It produces a chart format that shows the number of times a word is used, where, and the sentiment. For example, it can tell you that 6531 people used the word Obama today, 53% were female. 47% male and their age ranges as well.

Try Facebook Lexicon here.

Bing vs Google

Could Bing be an acronym for "But It's Not Google"?

Microsoft has launched Bing.com, going head to head with Google Search and playing offensive by implying that Google creates confusing, overloaded and overall poor results pages.

Want to compare them for yourself? visit google-vs-bing.com to run your own tests, the site displays each search engine in a shared window.

Along with TV commercials nationwide, Bing has done some interesting marketing locally by sending "Bing trucks" around Microsoft's Redmond campus with large screens showing traffic reports, weather, and other useful information for drivers in the area.

Leaving Microsoft for Google

Google's Vic Gundotra- VP of Engineering, explains why he left Microsoft for Google, why Mobile is the next big thing and how even a 4 yr old knows that.

Tenori Pop! Interactive marketing with digital projection

NTT IT has created interactive art projections, Tenori Pop , that could progress into a cool new marketing tool to grab consumers attention, or at least project an image onto them as they walk down the street.

How does it work? Overhead projectors with digital cameras can detect an outstretched hand and beam an image onto it. As the hand moves, the image moves with it and can be mixed with other projections to create new images.

Example, “sun” and “rain” images together can create a “flower” onto the joined hands. It can even be used in a group, with people passing images and making combinations together.

Imagine walking down the street and getting a coupon code or "free coffee between 1-2pm" ad beamed into your hand!

Konami code works on facebook

Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right B A.
You probably used this cheat code as a kid to get 30 lives when you were playing Contra or TM Ninja Turtles or Dance Dance revolution or any other game it would work in. The Konami code holds a special place in gamers hearts all around the world. So it it any surprise that it works on Facebook, Google Reader and jQuery? Go try it and see what happens.

The free lunch: Free online business tools

They say there's no such thing as a free ride, but things have changed in the today's market and with Google, Skype and web 2.0 paving the way, you might be surprised at all of the free business tools that are available.

Free Faxing
FaxZero lets you fax up to 3 pages anywhere in the US or Canada for free. Just enter your email, the receiving fax number and attach the document. When testing the service, we attached a 4-page PDF document and it still worked fine. Try FaxZero for yourself by clicking here.

Paint.net
Don't want to pay for Photoshop, but need to edit your images? paint.net is perfect if you only need to use the basic functions, and best of all it's free. To visit paint.net and download the program, click here.

Free website, email and hosting
From Microsoft Office Live, this is a great new tool for small business and it's much easier than messing around in wordpress and godaddy to get your website running. Check out this Microsoft Office Live tool here.

Online project management
Although this site isn't as complex as MS Project or a sharepoint site, it provides the basic milestones, to-do lists, and updates to your project team. project2manage.com is great for getting your small projects done while keeping everyone on track. Try project2manage here.

Google "Me"

Ever googled yourself, only to find some random PDF documents from when you signed a save the whales petition in 1984, or when you came dead last in that 10K race. Wouldn't you love it if those weren't the only results making up your google reputation? Maybe have some input in what comes up under your name?

Google has created google profiles which help (slightly) manage your online identity, by letting you update your own profile which appears in the search engine results pages. Currently it shows up at the bottom of the page under 'profiles' and in US results only. What's cool about this is that it can also act as a central hub linking to your blog, twitter, delicious, flickr, picasa, youtube, and all the rest of web 2.0 that you are getting tired of logging into.

Google has made the move to create their next step in social networking here, and it looks like it could take off in a very big way.

So go to google and type in 'Me'

Click here to read Google's blog on this.