Social Flow helps companies analyse the realtime web
Perhaps the most challenging aspect of social media is the sheer speed at which the conversation changes. In the realtime flow of social media, it is increasingly difficult for companies stay abreast of the conversational context – and in turn, to know when and how to make meaningful contributions.
A new start up, based in New York, takes an innovative approach to the speed/context conundrum. Directed at brand marketers, Social Flow is an automated data mining tool that generates contextually relevant contributions by analysing a company’s Twitter account. For example, the tool follows a company’s Twitter feed, determines which followers are online, what the followers are talking about and what keywords they tend to be using during their conversations.
In the words of Om Malik: “Once the system determines that you (the publisher) has something interesting to offer, it tweets out a link that’s contextual to the conversation. The right link at the right time, theoretically speaking, translates to more effective responses and higher click throughs. Social Flow in many ways is a start up built for the new, data-rich, real-time web with the concept of serendipity as its driving principle”.
The underlying approach taken by Social Flow is similar to contextual search advertising: rather than matching keywords with searches, it matches realtime conversations with brands. However, Social Flow also points to a more powerful approach: by automatically mining the social web, companies have the potential to connect with their followers in a more proactive and relevant fashion.
A word of warning though. An application such as Social Flow ultimately needs to be part of a much wider arsenal of tools and skills. An effective social media strategy ultimately depends on the vision and collective experience of a communications team – regardless of the speed at which any software can analyse conversations.
