The real-time web is a popular space for new tools.  Search, being among one of the most popular.

Sency, is a new real-time search engine designed to capitalize on the real-time search trend, and become the go-to resource for folks who utilize these types of searches.

Sency is not designed and has no intention to replace your Google searches.  It’s designed to give you better intel on events or conversations happening right now.  Google is used for general information regarding a subject.  Real-time search engines, like Sency, are designed to give you a pulse of what’s happening now.  Traditional search cannot provide this type of specific information.

Sency is a good place for getting a pulse on your brand, a competitor, or an industry in real-time.  Real-time intel can be very beneficial during events, a product launch, a crisis, and many other opportunities.

Key Features of Sency:

Perfect For Trend Monitoring

Sency is an efficient tool for monitoring trends and getting a quick pulse on a topic or brand.  I’m working with a local organic skin care start-up called Raw Element .  They’re new and not really sure what to tweet or blog about.  So why not type in a few searches that signal product interest like “Body Butter” or “Facial Scrub” or “Eczema”.  See what people are saying.  Look for popular links being passed around.  If there is a similar posts or links with specific topics that are popular, might be a good idea to write about that for the next blog post.

If you’re a brand and will be at the upcoming SXSWi…Sency is a great way to track moods and trends and what’s popular.  It’s a great way to give your team on the ground immediate information.

Spam Free

The problem with many real time search engines is that they’re easily fooled and manipulated by spammers.  If I’m a spammer and see that #NowPlaying is a trending topic, I can insert the hashtag into my tweet along with any link I want and disguise it with a URL Shortener.

Sency eliminates spam opportunities because when I search a trending topic, like #JournChat (a popular hashtag on Mondays) the results only show what is being said, not every individual link.

If I want to see what the most popular links are for a topic, I select the “Today’s Popular Journchat Links” tab.  This shows you what links are being mentioned the most per topic.

Content For Your Website

Possibly the coolest feature on Sency, is content for your website.  They offer a FREE widget for your website or blog that updates based on keywords.

What a unique way to update your readers and offer new information about a particular topic, directly for your website.  I’m looking into how I can incorporate this into RTM.  For an example, check out ThinkPress , they’ve incorporated the widget into their site (look in the top right corner)

So if you’re into real-time search, and if you’re not…try a few to see if you can find some benefits…give Sency a shot.  It’s a pretty cool tool and one I’ll be going back to.

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Scott S. Bishop is editor for Real Time Marketer and a marketing strategist with a specialty in social media.  He is an avid blogger and active across the net.  He is @thescottbishop on Twitter

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Your Customers Are Telling You Something Right Now

The real time web has gotten quite a bit of buzz, but are you actually using the available tools?  There are several areas where you can apply using real-time data to affect your business and your social media marketing.  Use the real time web to gather specific data.  Don’t let the amount of data at your finger tips paralyze your decision making ability or your social media marketing strategy. Have a predetermined list of information you are looking for.  Use these suggestions to boost your business.

Find Targeted Prospects

Do a quick search of Twitter and type in a few keywords that signal a potential interested customer.  If there are a few tweets where it looks like you can jump into a conversation, go for it.  Otherwise just follow the folks who are chatting and perhaps there will be a need down the road.  Even if they don’t buy right away, you’re now following targets you know have an interest in what you do.

Track Industry Trends

Use real time search engines like Sency, Icerocket, and One Riot to look at what the most popular infomation and links that are being shared about your industry, company, or products.  This can instantly offer advice about what your next blog post should be about, what customers are chatting about, and what customers are looking for.  It’s a good way to stay on top of competitors and get a feel for your industry.

Provide Customer Service

There are a good number of topics people chat about out on the web.  Naturally one of those is complaints.  Use monitoring tools available to scan the real time web for any of your current customers having problems and take care of them.  Comcast and their Comcast Cares Unit is probably the most well known company who uses Twitter for customer service purposes.  But I’ve been approached several times when tweeting about particular products.  Diffuse angry customers early.  You don’t know want folks online going nuts over your product without any response from you.

Online Campaign Tracking

I use Clicky every day to track my website analytics.  I use Clicky rather than Google Analytics because Clicky is in real time.  By keeping track of what links are drawing in the most traffic and what time of day, I know when and where to get the best ROI for links I share on the web.  This takes much of the social media marketing guessing game out of the equation.  You can use the service for free and I highly recommend it.

Instant Feedback

Maybe you have an idea for an event or a new product.  Why not bounce some ideas off of your networks and get the pulse before you go into dedicating a lot of time and money.  These obviously aren’t scientific surveys, but if this project is small you can get a feel if you start moving forward.

Information can often determine the difference between success and failure.  Utilize the real time web to give yourself a winning advantage.  I’d rather know things that are going on as the happen than after the fact.  Become a true Real Time Marketer by being smart and utilizing all of the tools in your belt.

This is DAY 18 of my “28 Day Blogging Challenge“

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Scott S. Bishop is editor for Real Time Marketer and a marketing strategist with a specialty in social media.  He is an avid blogger and active across the net.  He is @thescottbishop on Twitter

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What Tools Are You Using?

One of the great benefits of social media, is it’s ability to be able to analyze results in real time.  No longer do you have to submit an ad…and wait for sales…and wait…and wait.  The setback with many of the traditional marketing mediums like print, radio, television, and even market surveys…is that by the time you realize how well you did, it’s already too late to change anything.

The only thing that analyzing something that has already happened will tell you, is if you’ve wasted a tremendous amount of time and energy or not.  Social media tools offer full capabilities to post, analyze results, and tweak where necessary.

I strongly advise spending some dough on robust tools, but for many business owners or especially individuals, the pricing model of these robust systems is not realistic.

So here are 5 FREE tools to help you master some of the most popular platforms of the real-time web.

Clicky Web Analytics

Clicky – Real Time Web Analytics

Google Analytics is fine, but the problem is that it’s not in real-time.  In comes Clicky to the rescue.  Clicky is an amazing tool that tracks your website data to the minute, literally.

Why is this helpful?

With Clicky, I know when the tweets I post are most effective and driving traffic to my site.  It helps me analyze what time of day the most traffic comes in and from where.  If I see that the majority of my traffic comes from Facebook from 2-4pm, I know exactly when to post updates with links attached.  I can also judge when I am not getting any traffic and if my current campaign is a flop.  This helps me readjust and change wording and rearrange the structure of post content until I can get a winning combination.  It’s an invaluable tool…and it’s FREE.     SIGN UP HERE

Tubemogul video Analytics

Tube Mogul – In-Depth Tracking, Analytics for Online Video

If you’re not using video for your social media marketing, start.  Video is proven to sell your products, even if no one is watching it!!  Seriously, read this…HERE (Thanks to Tim Jahn for the link)

TubeMogul is a fantastic and free tool to track all of your video content.

Why is this helpful?

• One upload to TubeMogul distributes your video to the most popular platforms like YouTube and Blip.tv
• It tracks viewing time of every viewer (Great measure to see the attention span of your audience)
• Syndication Tracking:  Track detailed viewing behavior that occurs outside of your website
• Location Based Tracking:  Track your viewed minutes by region (Look for patterns, if one develops cater your content to that location)
• Player Tracking Analysis:  Compare multiple video players

It’s a winner.  If you create videos, use this tool.

Facebook Page – Analytics

If you haven’t changed the way you use your Facebook Fan page, you might as well shut it down.  The new Facebook algorithm was a punch in the face to marketers, because in most cases your post updates are never seen by the high majority of your fans.  What’s nice about some of the new Page features for admins is that you can see exactly how many folks are viewing it.

Why is this helpful?

Because right now you have no idea if your Facebook Page is actually accomplishing anything.  These new tools will give you that info.  You’ll be able to see how many impressions you get per post, how many people “like” your posts, as well as how many people leave comments.  The Facebook algorithm is based on engagement, so use these new features to analyze what posts are creating the most engagement. (NOTE:these features are in Beta right now and not available for every page)

Twitter Analytics – Hoot Suite

So how do you know if your Twitter account is working? Is it measured by followers?  Is it measured by Retweets?  You don’t know.  Use the third party application Hootsuite to give your Twitter analytics the boost it so desperately needs.

Why is this helpful?

So you can monitor how, when, and why your marketing on Twitter is working.

• Monitor the number of clicks in the last 24 hours, 7 days, 30 days or by date range
• Locate click hits by Geographic location
• Analyze and locate who the top referrers are, and what the most popular tweets were by clicks
• For each individual tweet, you can see the individual number of clicks

If you aren’t tracking how your activities are doing online, you never truly know if your time, money, and energy are actually creating any ROI.  Start with these five tools to take your social media marketing to the next level.

This is DAY 4 of my “28 Day Blogging Challenge“

Get the Real Time Marketer Directly to Your RSS HERE

Scott S. Bishop is editor for Real Time Marketer and a marketing strategist with a specialty in social media.  He is an avid blogger and active across the net.  He is @thescottbishop on Twitter

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