Hot Take: Social Technologies to Watch in 2023

Social media listening. Wait, what's the big deal? It's 2023.

If you made it this far and still rolling your eyes, keep reading. You may not yet realize the full potential of social technologies or how to apply the insights to more than just community management. Note: Social listening isn't just monitoring a hashtag.

Why this matters:

As we move into 2023, social listening technologies continue to play a critical role in business and marketing. What used to be a tool for community managers to track brand mentions has evolved into a robust platform that powers social care, audience research, product innovation, and more.

Over the last 24 months, there's been some interesting M&A movement. In 2021, Cision acquired Brandwatch, Meltwater acquired Linkfluence and Reputation.com acquired Nuvi. Earlier this year, Onclusive acquired Digimind. It's good to see the convergence of media monitoring tools and social listening software.

There's still a long journey ahead, though.

Sadly, analyst firms don't pay much attention to this space. I promise you … I'm not that grumpy old man screaming at neighbors to "stay off my lawn," but like last week's newsletter, this has been irritating me for a while.

To be fair, Gartner does publish a Magic Quadrant for Content Marketing Platforms. And the Forrester Wave report has teased us over the years with minimal insights. The AI-Enabled Consumer Intelligence report isn't published consistently, the latest being from Q3 2021.

Here are the results from last year:

• Leaders: Talkwalker, Netbase Quid, Synthesio
• Strong Performers: Brandwatch, Linkfluence, Sprinklr
• Contenders: Digimind, Resonate
• Challengers: Khoros

What I don't love about analyst reports is that they don't give you a complete view of the landscape. I understand it's "pay to play," but several vendors are missing from the Forrester Wave report. More on that in a few.

For the most part, and I say this with caution and multiple caveats … all social listening platforms are the same. They all pull data from social media. Sometimes, it's full access, or the data is sampled. Some have more data sources than others. And some have more sophisticated data visualizations.

The main differences usually involve pricing, access, data limits, data sources, setup, sophistication, and speed to insight.

Below is not a full review of every platform in the space. Instead, I have collected data points, challenges, insights, and observations based on my experiences working with these software providers. I've compiled a few bullet points on where I think the platform excels and where I think it could improve.

Before you make any significant investments in your martech stack, review these considerations and "questions to ask." It will help.

My top social technology picks for 2023

Infegy – Consumer Intelligence

Infegy is one to watch. But unfortunately, they are one of the platforms that did not make it on the Forester Wave.

Highs

• Speed to insight. The UI, integrated data streams, and low computing power consumption make it easy to get insights in literally minutes. Yes, minutes.
• Text analytics. Infegy has built-in text analysis capabilities, making it easier to find hidden meaning in the content.
• Customer success. The CS team is quick to respond, always available to answer questions and support with random requests, 24-7.
• News data. Infegy recently added Lexis Nexis as a data source and started collecting data in mid-2021. It doesn't pull in historical data, though.
• Product innovation. Infegy is consistently improving the product based on customer feedback, and they do so with urgency.

Lows

• Self-service. Without getting too much into the weeds, there are specific tasks that users can't do without customer success.
• Data is sampled. Not really a low because it depends on your use case. But I wouldn't use Infegy for brand monitoring, especially if you need to see every brand mention. Infegy is more for research. That is where the platform excels.

Talkwalker

Talkwalker was listed as a leader in the latest Forrester Wave. Unfortunately, I have spent less time than I'd like on the platform, so my perspective here is based on little experience.

Highs

• Free Search. The free search is fire. The data only goes back seven days, but they give you access to many of the features.
• Data Sources. They also provide access to premium data sources like Twitch, TikTok, Google Play, Podcasts, and more. I think the data is limited or sampled in the free search because I wasn't getting many results for a few different queries.??
• News data. The integration of news and how they package the data makes Talkwalker one to watch in 2023. This could become a complete alternative to media monitoring platforms like Cision, Meltwater, or Muck Rack.
• UI. The tabs, placement of visualizations, and interface are apparent and intuitive. The data loads WICKED fast. But, again, this is based on the free search tool with only seven days of data.

Lows

• It's not them; it's me. The only low is that I can only share my insights from the free version, so my thoughts aren't complete.

Tagger by Sprout Social

Tagger isn't considered a social listening platform. But last year, they released a new product called Signals, which can track the conversation and performance of creators.

?Highs

• Multi-channel. Since the data is based on creators and not mentions, Signals can pull in content from any platform where the creator is active. The only exception is LinkedIn.
• Focused insights. No spam. With Signals, you are only listening to an elite group of people. So, while the data is limited, creators make an impact and spread content and ideas across the digital ecosystem. These are the folks to watch if you want to stay ahead of trends.
• UI. It took some time for me to understand the setup. But once Signals is live, it's fast and easy to pull data into different tabs, make pivot tables, and more.

Lows

• Content analysis. Signals only tracks performance metrics based on the keyword query. It does not yet have the functionality to analyze the context or sentiment of the content. Hopefully soon.

Pulsar

Pulsar is another platform to watch in 2023, also not mentioned in the Forrester Wave.

?Highs

• Data Sources. Pulsar has access to many premium data sources like Amazon and Sermo, a social network specifically for the Physician community. Most other platforms can pull data from Amazon, but Pulsar makes it easy by adding it as a specific data source.
• Audience intelligence. Pulsar seamlessly integrates audience analysis capabilities through an integration with Audiense. ?

?Lows

• Set up. Most social listening platforms take time to understand the mechanics of how it works, the nomenclature of queries, dashboards, monitors, etc. But I have found Pulsar to be much more confusing during the "setup."

Thank you for subscribing to the?#DataDrop?- the only newsletter that drops insights like it's hot.

In every issue, we'll bring you the freshest data and deepest insights to help you stay ahead of the curve in your industry. So buckle up, and let us do the heavy lifting.

See you next week. Happy New Years.