Recently I’ve been on the hunt for a new tool that allows me to more effectively monitor NITA’s social communities. I’ve been looking for something different from Hootsuite or similar tools, because those tend to focus on a one-way channel of content dissemination and on managing the creation of that content. I wanted a tool that allows me to receive a lot of information on what is going on in our community. I wanted to know what people are talking about, because you can’t have a conversation if you’re only talking at people–that defeats the purpose of an online community.
Through one of my LinkedIn Groups I came across a new application that focuses on Social Media. It’s not uncommon for someone to note a ‘cool new widget’ in these communities, and typically they don’t live up to their hype. But this particular post piqued my interest, and I checked out Bottlenose for the first time. I was extremely impressed right from the start. The entire focus of this app is to give you the ability to listen to your online community, which was exactly what I was looking for.
Enough of the small talk. Here’s some meat and potatoes:
Bottlenose allows you to link the following accounts: Twitter, Facebook, Buffer, Google Reader, and LinkedIn.
You can stay up-to-date on world events and topics in the “Global Trends” dashboard.
But the really impressive features of Bottlenose happen in the your Dashboard.
You can see what’s happening right now in “Your World”
Keep up on “Your Streams”
See what’s new in a customized “Paper”
And, my personal favorite, see how topics are trending via the “Sonar.”
Like any new application, there is a learning curve, but if you truly establish and maintain a successful online community and presence then this is an extremely useful tool that will go a long ways for you.
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