Fine Print

Social media + measurement + tool? My interest was piqued when this request popped up in my LinkedIn network. So, in the spirit of good karma, throwing it out there for some feedback on behalf of Michael Strutton, Director Product Management, Vitrue. (It’s not a closed beta.) The tool is here if you want to test it out: vitrue.com/smi/

I was curious about this part from their description: “Based on our patent-pending technology, index scores are comprised of various online conversations from text-dense micro-blogs to multi-dimensional video sites. The Vitrue SMI score provides a snapshot in time to help make sense of the overwhelming amount of measurable data.”

I’m sure most of these services track the same sources, so asked Strutton what facet of social media his tool includes. He replied: “We look up data in real time, from varying sources. The index number presented is associated to that date. The e-mail function at the bottom will send you a unique URL to retrieve that historical report in the future. Handy, if you want to see change over time.
 
“While it’s possible to see the Vitrue SMI scores change in the middle of the day, we don’t feel that level of granularity is necessary. So, we cache results per day. In other words if you search for Starbucks (278) today the number will remain the same until it’s queried tomorrow.
 
“The data, the technology, and algorithm is patent pending, so I’m not at liberty to describe in great detail. However the tool currently looks at sample data from popular sources in the following categories:
 
“Social Networking - general sharing
Video Sharing - high engagement of viewing time and authenticity of dimension
Micro-Blogs - key influencers who chatter and actively push content
Photo Sharing - social meta data
Blogs - general blogosphere, commentary mentions”

So, no concrete examples there, but at least there are more tracking and measurement services of this type appearing now, which can’t be a bad thing.

You can read an interview with Vitrue at Forbes.com.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada