I am currently at the Strategic Social Media Conference in Manchester. I gave the opening presentation and have been tweeting for most of the day using the hashtag #stratsm but I’ve been missing a trick. I have an iPod touch with me and I could have been live blogging using the WordPress app on the touch.
Well I am now. Robin Wilson of my alma mater McCann Manchester is now on stage talking about evaluation. I know Robin a bit but I’ve never seen him speak before. He’s good and generous with his knowledge.
Evaluation is a major topic in social media marketing. There are a myriad of free tools like HowSociable, Icerocket and Board Tracker; all using key word searches. The really powerful tools however are paid for – Radian 6 and Andiamo are just two of the many Robin mentioned.
It’s been a good conference. Martin Thomas co-author of Crowdsurfing was a highlight for me but the live feedback for all of the sessions has been good; Alex Aitken, Mark Hanson, Sarah Hartley, Ann Longley, Simon Collister, Sarah Lundy, Craig Elder and of course Robin have all provided great insight.
Don’t Panic Events ran the UK’s first ever social media coverage in 2005 so no surprise that they know how to get it right. By the way Robin is still speaking but my battery is running low.
PR and the Social Web 
Though it was very useful too and really enjoyed your talk. Plenty of real life case studies and examples… helped a Twitter noob such as myself understand the benefits with minimum confusion – I’ll definitely be attending future events.
Sounds like an exciting conference. Social media has evolved from the why do that to a how do I do that approach and evaluation is at the center of this evolution. There are several tools to choose from, so it is important the organization pick a tool aligning with their social media objectives and overall business goals for best integration.
Lauren Vargas
Community Manager at Radian6
@VargasL