Radian6, "a complete platform to listen, measure and engage with your customers across the entire social web," just launched their new dashboard this past week to private beta (set to end in April) that brings their powerful monitoring tool to your desktop via Adobe Air.

This new tool is quite powerful. It not only tracks the conversations happening on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Google Buzz, LinkedIn, mainstream news sites, forums, videos, blogs, boards, and public discussion groups but it also lets you engage your social communties straight from the interface. No more worrying about going to 10 different websites to track the latest comments on your newest YouTube video, it can be done in one place.

While the above is a strong feature, I believe the biggest benefit to any campaign team or new media shop is the ability to have a dedicated workflow. This allows you to tag, assign, and route posts to individual members of your team.

As expected it has the ability to break out the different media types into separate windows or to even break out on different keywords, tags, etc... This is very handy, if for example, you are tracking an individual item within your campaign that maybe separate from your specific message.

The cost for this product starts at $500 month for up to "10,000 net new monthly results (individual posts that match your overall profile keywords)"  From there the cost goes up to $1,000/month for 25,000 results, $1,500/mont for 50,000 results, and then $500/month extra for each 50,000 results.

So yes, it is costly but it can be a life saver if you are a smaller campaign trying to track a message within a large media market with only a few staff members.

Hattip to TechCrunch as they reported on this article, but also mentioned a few start-up companies that are challenging Radian6 in this space: ScoutLabs (starts at $199/Month), Visible Measures, Viralheat (starts at $9.99/month), HootSuite (Free), People Browsr (starts at Free).

Have you used Radian6 or any of these services? If so, were they productive for your campaign or organization?

YouTube Calling:  Now Serving Ads on the YouTube Mobile Site

Mobile phones are rapidly becoming essential tools for surfing the web, connecting with friends, and sharing and watching video online, and we're seeing these effects at YouTube. The YouTube mobile site is more popular than ever: site traffic grew by over 160% in 2009, and now millions of people all over the world are streaming tens of millions of videos every day on their mobile phones. The mobile space moves fast, so we've been working hard to roll out new features and functionality quickly, especially as more and more people adopt YouTube-capable phones.

Micro-Targeting:  It's Not Just for Niche Brands Anymore

Nielsen Wire reports: The rise of new technologies and increased channel fragmentation makes reaching consumer targets more challenging than ever. More and more consumer packaged goods manufacturers and retailers are finding that micro-targeting strategies—traditionally employed by specialized business—are unleashing new, deeper insights into their customer targets enabling them to grow brands in creative and profitable ways.

The Truth About the Average Twitter User [STATS]

A new study from security firm Barracuda Labs provides some interesting insights into the state of the Twitterverse. Unfortunately for the microblogging startup, the stats say that most of its users aren’t very active.

The study looked at around 19 million Twitter accounts (PDF) in order to figure out how people are using Twitter (Twitter). It started with one assumption: an active or “True” Twitter user has at least 10 followers, follows at least 10 people, and had tweeted at least 10 times. By that definition though, only 21% of Twitter users are active users.

The Adfero Group and the National Press Club team up to host educational seminars to help you get PR Smart in an evolving media world.

It seems like a new Web-based communications technology is introduced every day. As more and more people embrace these creative methods of sending and consuming information, PR professionals are challenged to stay up to date with the latest trends and tactics to help clients reach their target audiences. The emergence of social media, in particular, has forced PR pros to get out of their comfort zone and expand their skills to remain competitive.

Report:  Facebook to Add Location Features

Beginning next month, Facebook may start telling its users not only what their friends are doing, but also where they're doing it.

The New York Times' Bits Blog says the popular online social network will announce this "location-based" feature at its upcoming conference, called f8. The conference takes place April 21-22 in San Francisco.

Site users, according to the post, will be able to add their locations to status updates on Facebook.

What the Alzheimer's Association Gets and 100 Other Organizations Don't

I just flipped through today's Politico hard copy - actually it was the digital online version of the hard copy which is wonderful - it even makes the "turning the page" sound - anyway, the only ad that contained social media icons was the one presented by the Alzheimer's Association.

The Elusive Follower/Following Twitter Ratio

I seem to be agreeing with Wesley Donehue a lot lately. His latest post “Claire McCaskill’s Twitter Arrogance” addresses an issue I was considering writing about. The optimal Twitter followers/following ratio is a topic that many have weighed in on. Some say that your followers should always be 5% more than those you’re following, some say only follow people you care about, and some say you should only follow people with “influence.” There are dozens of theories on what your ratio should be.

How to Create Web Pages that Share Beautifully on Facebook

It’s really the fine details that matter most when it comes to website design: the balance of text and images on a page, the user experience after submitting a form, how linkable text appears throughout the site.

But think also about how your website appears when shared on other sites, like when someone shares it as a link on Facebook. It’s important. When Facebook users scan a busy news feed, a strong image or a bold headline can make all the difference and lead to a better click conversion.

Social Business Beyond Just the Marketing Department

I've been thinking a lot about how organizations extend the use of social networking beyond the marketing department. You've probably thought about this too or are even implementing it at your company.

It seems there are three phases of development as an organization matures its social business 

Young Republicans More Enthusiastic

A new Harvard Institute of Politics poll of 18 to 29 year-olds finds young Republicans are showing more enthusiasm than young Democrats for participating in the upcoming midterm elections with 41% of Republicans planning on voting, compared to 35% of Democrats and 13% of Independents.

Data Shows Articles with Digits May Be Shared More on Facebook than Those Without

More new Facebook data, continuing this series.

The next Facebook sharing data point I analyzed is the presence of numbers (in digit form, 1 through 9) in titles. In a wide range of marketing arenas digits have been shown to perform very well. They tend to help conversion rates in the form of prices and on social news sites like Digg “Top 10″ style posts have always done well.

 

When the Staff Tweets, Who's Talking?

Among the many innovations that social media tools have brought to the world of campaign politics are new ways to conduct opposition research.

Like any employer, political candidates have a vested, if indirect, interest in how staff members express themselves on personal social media sites such as Facebook or Twitter.

But in the hypersensitive and competitive world of campaigning, the question is especially sharply felt: How many degrees of separation are there from a legitimate campaign issue and a campaign staffer’s personal views posted on their personal social media page?

Dan Riehl's take on White House Tweets Spread President's Message....

Twit-in-Chief Now Using Twitter for White House Spin

Given that White House press secretary Robert Gibbs seems to get into trouble, often putting his foot in his mouth when he tries to speak in full sentences, I wonder if they didn't decide 140 characters was probably the most he could handle at one time? If Rahm is tweeting and you want to see it, you'll probably have to drop any profanity filters you may have installed. heh!

Don't be the Next Toyota: How You Can Use Social Media to Make a Difference in a Crisis

Over the last few weeks, I have been monitoring the Toyota recall and subsequent Congressional hearings as well as reading some commentary and articles on the subject. It is all very interesting to me for a number of reasons. Not only did I grow up in Motor City with family members working in all aspects of the auto industry, but I also directed the grassroots and public affairs efforts for the American International Automobile Dealers Association for a few years and we have a Lexus RX in the household fleet. I feel close to this situation and know firsthand how this crisis is creating a serious economic and confidence challenge to Toyota's numerous stakeholders.

Chris Pirillo Debuts E-Book: 140 Twitter Tips

One of our favorite geeks has just released an e-book on best practices for Twitter use.

Chris Pirillo's 140 Twitter Tips, a 14-page PDF, is a concise compendium of useful guidelines and helpful hints for every kind of Twitter user, from doing-it-wrong noobs to social media addicts. From the best time of day to get retweets to how to process public criticism, the e-book also covers a broad range of common issues users experience.

Twitter Analysis: Influencers Still Signing Up; Lots of Followers Doesn't Equal Lots of Lists

Twitter launched lists in October 2009 and this feature has quickly become an essential part of the Twitter ecosystem. The power of lists isn't just in their ability to organize your followers, they also provide an an insight into how other users use Twitter. The number of followers an account has might show its popularity, but the number of lists called, for instance, "most influential" or "essential", that it appears on reveals just how important that account is.

Check out this informative presentation from Altimeter - Social CRM: The New Rules of Relationship Management.

And this is an oldie, but goodie, that I failed to share with you when it came out. Conservative blogger, Adrienne Royer, was featured in the Washingtonian's Blogger Beat last week...

The Blogger Beat: Cosmopolitan Conservative

Adrienne Royer’s love affair with politics started in first grade. The class was learning about the 1988 Bush/Dukakis race when six-year-old Royer thought, “This is so cool. We get to pick our leaders!” She wore pro-life buttons in elementary school and a handmade T-shirt that said, “A person is a person no matter how small!” A right-leaning political junkie was born.

In college, Royer traded in her puffy paint for a blog. She started her first site, Girl From the South, as a way to keep in touch with family and friends back in Tennessee. Two years ago, she decided to delve into politics. “Cosmopolitan Conservative sounded like a fun name,” she says. “I knew it worked when I told a liberal former colleague at happy hour one night, and he burst out laughing.”

I don't know U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill from Adam. She could be the sweetest, most caring person in the world. I don't know much about her, but when I look at her Twitter page, arrogance is the first thing I think of. My friend and political strategist Warren Tompkins has been writing a lot about the arrogance of the liberal elite, and I see no better example than Claire McCaskill's web strategy.

According to TweetCongress, she's the second-most followed member of Congress on Twitter, although Sen. Jim DeMint is quickly gaining on her. Despite having 36,691 followers as of the morning of March 8, McCaskill is only following one person. That screams arrogance. It’s as if she’s saying, “It's all about ME. I don’t care about you.”

Twitter is a tool for two-way communications. It's where elected officials can feel the pulse of the electorate. Yet McCaskill uses it to tell her followers about University of Missouri basketball and plans for breakfast.

As I’ve said many times, the Internet is an important tool for campaigns and elected officials to do what they want to do. From the website, to Facebook, to Twitter and email, there are endless ways to connect with voters and keep people informed. But it’s more than just letting people know what you’re doing. It’s about hearing what’s on other people’s minds too. A politico who is not following people is like that jerk at a party who has to be the center of attention, who only talks about his/her self, and who could give a damn about other people.

Yes, this is a representative democracy. People are elected to cast votes because nationwide direct democracy isn’t an effective form of government. However, because someone is elected to lead, that doesn’t mean they can stop listening to people. While McCaskill may well be browsing papers from across Missouri and brought concerns from home received by her staffers, her Twitter account is like an alarm going off.

Having a 36,000-to-one followers-to-following ratio says that she might be just a little out of touch with involved voters in the Show-Me State.

Oh, and then there's John McCain.

Data Shows: Articles Published on the Weekend are Shared on Facebook More

When I started posting my new series of Facebook data points, one of the most requested graphs was the days of the week (and times of day, which is coming soon) that are best to publish on to get lots of Facebook shares. What I found when I looked at days of the week is at first a little unexpected, but upon further thought fairly logical.

How Targeted Online Ads Helped Sink Lou Dobbs on CNN

Be sure to catch this article from the February issue of Politics Magazine, particularly if you’re looking for examples of how even a relatively small online ad buy can reverberate across the media landscape. Late last year, longtime CNN host Lou Dobbs resigned due to pressure from a coalition of organizations, including media watchdogs and groups representing Latinos and immigrants. Lacking a huge budget, the organizers used a strategy planned to leverage their limited money into as much news coverage as possible. According to Josh Koster and Tyler Davis, online advertising gurus working with the coalition and the authors of the Politics Mag piece...

Google's Establishmentarianism

National Journal suggests that political incumbents have amongst their advantages Google Juice. The longer political records of office-holders, as (generally speaking) compared to challengers, provide Google more to work with, and can boost those establishment folks higher in search rankings than their underdog peers.

Cashmore: Why I'm Banking on Facebook

We already connect with friends on Facebook to share photos, videos, text updates and Web links, but might we also use the service to exchange money?

I'm willing to bet we will.

Buxter, a Facebook application that launched this week, tries to make that logical leap: Users add the app to their Facebook pages to send U.S. dollars or euros to friends.

Is the Internet a Fundamental Right? [POLL]

In a study conducted by the BBC World Service, four in five respondents said they believe web access is a fundamental right. 90% described the Internet as “a great place to learn,” and 78% considered it a source of “greater freedom.” A bit more than half said that the Internet should not be regulated by government at all.

Ralph Benko, author of The Websters' Dictionary and self-proclaimed "Webster," was on C-SPAN's Washington Journal this morning where he discussed politics and online activism.

Of note, when asked what organizations "get it" on the right he said TeamSarah.org (which Ralph helped build up and disclosed as such on the show) and Americans for Prosperity. In particular, he tipped his hat to AFP's Erik Telford.

This week, the former speechwriter for former Gov. Jim Hodges – and current associate with Qorvis Communications -- Wyeth Ruthven, came up with an analysis of Twitter use in the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial campaigns, as well as the special election for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts.

No matter your political stripe, it’s possible to take some lessons from what he put together. One main takeaway is to look at everything Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds did, and do the opposite.

According to the analysis, the Deeds campaign had three separate Twitter accounts – one for the candidate (@CreighDeeds), one for attacks on Republican nominee Bob McDonnell and connections with rural voters (@DeedsCountry) and one attacking McDonnell’s thesis and controversy surrounding it (@BobsThesis). Needless to say, doing a three-pronged Twitter strategy is not a good idea.

Ruthven makes the point: “Campaigns should resist the temptation to create a new Twitter account for each issue or micro-campaign that they are running. Multiple accounts breed message dilution. Staff should limit their own tweeting on campaign topics. Recurring issues and themes can be highlighted by creating appropriate hashtags on a unified Twitter feed.”

And while it’s great to hear that Deeds is such a big fan of groups like the Drive-By Truckers and The Band, having your candidate for governor tweet about how he’s listening to the bands while on the road, as opposed to thoughts on topical issues, is not a good idea, either. According to the study, over a three-month period, Deeds tweeted about music 39 times, and talked about his transportation plan – a major issue in Virginia -- once.

As I’ve said before, the Internet is a tool of a wider effort. Scott Brown’s campaign in Massachusetts seemed to understand this. There was a period between the end of the primaries and when the general election campaign began in earnest. Shortly after the primaries, the Democratic candidate, Martha Coakley, went dark on ads and on Twitter. Brown did not. While continuing his free and paid media blitz, his campaign also kept it up on Twitter. In the first month of the general election campaign, he out-tweeted Coakley by about two-to-one.

It’s worth pointing out here that Brown had 15,827 followers, as opposed to Coakley’s 4,361. He also happened to tweet more unique news, “calls to action,” and “self-promotion.” Again, here’s why Twitter can be an effective tool. A “call to action,” as defined in the analysis, consists of requests for donations, volunteers, voter registration and get-out-the-vote. A campaign isn’t meant to be on Twitter to be your pal, it is supposed to be organizing to win. Brown did that.

If you want your tactics on the Internet to be effective, don’t play around with Twitter like it’s a toy. Sure, it might be fun to think that a few people would like to see the personal side of your candidate, but that isn’t going to convince them to help you stuff envelopes, knock on doors, write letters to the editor or contribute.

Twitter Hits 10 Billion Tweets

It’s official: Twitter has surpassed 10 billion tweets. While Gigatweet’s counter is down due to over-traffic., you can tell by the actual tweet ID numbers that we have crossed the magical threshold.

The milestone shows that Twitter’s still growing at a rapid pace: it broke 1 billion tweets in November 2008 and 5 billion tweets just four months ago.

YouTube Extends Automatic Video Captioning

YouTube, in a significant development for millions of deaf Internet users, extended automatic caption capability Thursday to all English-language videos on the video-sharing website.

YouTube users have been able to manually add captions to videos since 2008 and in November of last year the site began offering machine-generated captions for about a dozen partner channels.

Clever Facebook Base-Building Idea: Target your Fans' Friends with Ads

Here’s an idea from my NMS colleague Soren Dayton (R) — once you’ve built a core following for a Facebook Fan Page, try buying ads targeting the friends (and friends-of-friends) of your initial base. Since humans as a species tend to run with like-minded people, ads aimed at fans’ friends have a better chance of reaching someone interested in the same topics, plus limited targeting tends to drop the cost and increase the ROI for an ad buy.

Twitter Sees 347% Growth in Mobile Browser Access

There's good reason tweets are limited to 140 characters - the microblogging social network was developed specifically with mobile in mind and 140 characters is the size limit for a text message. With that in mind, it's no surprise that Twitter has experienced a 347% jump since a year ago in people accessing the site via mobile browser.

Ads Posted on Facebook Strike Some as Off-Key

Facebook, the world’s biggest social network, is selling more ad spots to big companies like Wal-Mart Stores, Procter & Gamble and PepsiCo.

But the site’s pages are also home to countless ads from smaller companies that can be funny, weird or just plain creepy — those suggesting you are, say, eligible to get a free iPad because you are exactly 26 years old, or entreaties to see what your offspring would look like if you had a child with a celebrity. 

The Bivings Group is Hiring

We’re looking for a social media expert to join us in our Washington, DC office.  You can view the details and apply for the position here.

Facebook is Growing Up; Beefing up Washington Staff Amid More Scrutiny

Facebook is beefing up its staff in Washington, a move that comes amid growing scrutiny over the social networking giant’s handling of privacy online.

The company this week posted two job listings on its Web site related to public policy. It is looking for a manager of public policy to deal with regulators and lawmakers at state and federal levels. That lobbying position would also lead outreach to pro-consumer organizations. Facebook also wants to hire a public policy associate who would attend congressional hearings and meet with nonprofit groups and tech lobbying associations.

Google Index to Go Real Time

Google is developing a system that will enable web publishers of any size to automatically submit new content to Google for indexing within seconds of that content being published. Search industry analyst Danny Sullivan told us today that this could be "the next chapter" for Google.

And read-up on this new study on how @BobMcdonnell used Twitter in the #VA2009 election.  (H/T @vincentharris @justin_hart)