Not too long ago Aaron Newman, Founder of Techrigy, & I began a conversation about his product and the needs of the community. That evolved into his inviting me to join his team & lead their community! I enjoy the brand monitoring space for a number of reasons so it’s a good fit – more on that below & why.
I will also continue to work with Network Solutions. So I like to be busy, what can I say?! For those that know me well (ie connected on IM) you know that I work seven days a week.
In regard to Techrigy, I’ve been connected to them for awhile. They’ve been syndicating my blog into their community for their customers. Their product SM2 is a monitoring & measurement tool. If you read my blog regularly you know that I focus on building brand & social networking. My philosophy is that a community manager should be actively participating in the full range of marketing, PR, awareness of competitor’s products & visibility, product development, etc.
I’m excited about SM2 for a number of reasons! I’ve been using various tools since 2006. The trick is to efficiently identify the relevant information & respond. The other aspect is the reporting & to be honest I’m a bit of a stat’s junkie. (That may be because I have majors in math, chemistry & physics. You didn’t know that huh?! I’ve always enjoyed collecting data & making sense of it. Now you know the rest of the story! I enjoy pondering ROI too.).
In addition to SM2 they also offer a Freemium version that allows 5 keyword phrases & up to 1000 results. Aaron & his team have created an amazingly robust product! There are many tools that offer the same basic features. The following features in SM2 stand out for me:
- Results are emailed to me daily – so I don’t need to use a number of monitoring sources
- In the dashboard, the results are displayed in a variety of manners allowing for easier interpretation (they’re sliced & diced in many ways!)
- The keywords define the results, but categories subdivide the results offering more in-depth interpretation
- preset categories are available to get you started
- you can create your own
- you can share your categories with others & likewise use shared ones
- Access to results back to late 2007. Or you can choose specific time segments
- Demographics – this information that would be very helpful to marketing as you identify your customer segments
These are graphs from my search for the keywords of ‘Community Manager’, ‘Connie Bensen’. The 2/3 male results are as expected as is the age. All graphs are drillable to view the results that generated them.
Domain information lists the domains, along with the # of results, & an authority calculated by an algorithm (for some reason Twitter is my highest!)
Maps have pins depicting the number of search results. (As everywhere you can drill down & see results from a certain locale).
Finally each result has this powerful little tool bar:
From left to right:
- pencil/paper – you can edit the placement of that result in the categories
- magnifying glass – you can view information on a specific result. It provides considerable information on the blog & owner including author demographics, email address, traffic details & ranking. This is really helpful to quickly gather information on an identified influencer.
- mark as spam
- delete result
The last 3 each open a new window so that you can view the result in the corresponding analytic tool.
- technorati
- compete
- alexa
See why I’m loving it? My goal is to provide the community with:
- assistance in learning to use the tool so that it’s a timesaver
- workflows for utilizing the data on a daily basis & for reporting (ROI)
- ideas on how to use the search results & data to leverage their social media efforts (I hesitate to use the word ‘campaign’)
- gathering product feedback to make improvements & for feature development
- increasing brand visibility
- connecting them with others to share ideas on how they’re using the tool
If you want to check it out, sign up for the Freemium version. The trick is to use keywords that aren’t too broad. We will be glad to help with that. If it pulls the max search results, then just delete them, and make your keywords more specific.
And of course let me know if you need assistance. On Twitter I am @cbensen or send an email to:
@Jacob_Ramos everything in one place, ability to analyze the results in a # of ways & respond http://tinyurl.com/4au2up & comments has more
@stephaniewebb Hi, I’m the comm mgr for Techrigy. I blogged about SM2 http://tinyurl.com/4au2up We’d be glad to do a demo.
@SavvyAuntie add tweetbeep & our SM2 & it’d be a rocking mix http://tinyurl.com/4au2up (no one would be safe! ;) ) How’s the community?
Congratulations, Connie! There’s nothing quite like the fun of getting to play with a new tool…and get paid for it!
Hey Tim, my analytics junkie friend,
No doubt! And you’re the one always keeping me on my toes about justifying things with numbers. I look forward to showing you the depth of it.
Connie,
Welcome to the family :) We are glad to have you on the team, and I see a bright future for Techrigy.
Aaron Newman
Congrats on your new venture, Connie! It seems like forever since we’ve connected. Let’s chat soon! Hope you’re doing well! :D
[…] Connie Bensen posted that she had formalized a relationship with Techrigy to work on their community, I had to take a look! She gave me a demo of their SM2 […]
Congratulations Connie. I am not a techie but I believe in having measurable goals aligned with every strategy, which calls for acquiring data.
However, sometimes web content seems written for techies, and in my brief visit to freemium, I didn’t see enough to click through. Maybe you can help them with creating better and clearer content. And maybe you can help me: How is Techrigy different (differentiation should be on every web page) from other data-based products such as sitemeter, for example?
BTW: The home page is just like the freemium page. Techrigy could use writing help for their copy (or lack of it).
Hi Lewis,
Thanks for the feedback.
http://www.techrigy.com/ has 3 pages (there is a next button)
And I do have some ideas on the verbiage, etc. Here’s the info in regard to the differentiation:
1) Historical content – The only product that gives you full historical analysis for the past year.
2) Real-time alerts – We provide real time Volume and Category alerts.
3) Advanced categorization – including built-in categories, user-defined categories, and “learning” categories
4) Unmatched Analytics capabilities – Includes analysis of demographics, geographics, popularity, theme detection, level of buzz, etc…
5) Automated sentiment analysis – provides negative and positive sentiment.
6) Flexible licensing – licensed based on search results, not based on profiles or clients.
7) Ability to white label the product, branding it with your agencies logo and company names.
Congrats ! Connie.
[…] now working with the Techrigy guys on a full time basis. :) I’ve been working with them part-time for the past three months.There are a couple of things that make the position […]