New Analytics Tool: Find Your Angle With Topsy

Key Features

From the announcement, here are the key features of the Pro version:

• Activity Analysis – exact mention counts and share of voice for any term in realtime or over time
• Link Analysis – URLs resolved to alias-independent form, classified as link/image/video, indexed
• Link trending – trending URLs identified within topics, media types and websites or domains
• Topsy Sentiment Score – sentiment quantified, and positive and negative Tweet/posts counted
• Exposure Analysis – the gross exposure of Tweets, people, terms or hashtags
• Event Timeline Analysis –communication originators and amplifiers identified for any trend
• Influence Analysis – find influential people for any topic and drill into their communication

Topsy also tracks the posts by country and language. According to Topsy Labs CRO Eddie Smith, the tool has more sophisticated means of determining the location of a tweet than profile details, which he finds that few people fill out completely. All of these statistics can be viewed on a graph or exported into a spreadsheet for reporting purposes.

Things like influence and sentiment are relatively new – and still imperfect – ways to look at social media activity, but the value of this tool is that it lets you view actual conversations to figure out what people are saying.

Example

Daily deal site Groupon made the news after a disappointing second quarter, which spooked investors and sent its sales force running. At least according to the headlines. But a look at the most popular posts in the last 24 reveals a more detailed story.

While the Wall Street Journal‘s coverage of the subject was highly influential – and rightfully so – the most popular tweet about Groupon in the last 24 hours came from the @gselevator account, a wry digest of the gossip overheard in the elevators at the global investment banking and securities firm Goldman Sachs. Their take on the matter? “Groupon…food stamps for the middle class.” Selling discount vouchers from local businesses (the company’s core business model) just doesn’t sit well with the people who don’t use it. The tweet’s source could be made up, but its resonance in the Twittersphere proves its value.  This tweet was mentioned 817 times.

And the public was right about Groupon. Sort of. Flash forward a few hours, and a new headline appears from Reuters: “Barclays downgrades Groupon on shift to low-margin business model.” Groupon’s newest product, Groupon Goods, showed the most growth in the second quarter. This turns the business into more of an online Costco than a place to find discounted services, which investors fear will be less profitable and require more marketing efforts.

Where to Get It

You can find more information on Topsy Pro here. Sparks & Honey, an agency that bases its brand content on what’s trending in pop culture, is already using Topsy Pro to help with the creative process.

For companies on a budget, there’s a free version of the tool that’s laid out like a Google search page. It can be customized by time, type of content, network, or language and will also send email alerts on a particular topic. Just go straight to the website.