Sysomos, now part of Meltwater Reviews & Insights

I was consulting with a company that was involved in political polling and social media for political candidates and campaigns. I used Sysomos Map to query conversations regarding candidates, their campaigns and other wide varying subjects regarding climate change, alternative energy and traditional energy economic impacts. Sysomos Map gathers conversational data across the internet in detail from websites, forums, blogs and all major social media outlets. Sysomos Map is very effective at being able to reach backwards in time; which was very important and enlightening for my work.

I think purchasing or leasing Sysomos MAP is well suited for large media and advertising organizations.

Sysomos MAP is a fantastic intelligence gathering tool. At my previous employer, I frequently used this product for two reasons:
- Tracking success of a social media or PR campaign by looking at the growing number of mentions of a company name, hashtag or topic over time
- Doing new business research by discovering strengths and weaknesses of an organization based on social media chatter around their products or services or discovering trends in their industry
In both occasions, I found Sysomos MAP to be incredibly helpful. Being able to save searches and return to them over time was great, though I did wish for the ability to get a regular update mailed to me with new hits/data. The interface isn't the most user-friendly/visual in this space, but the quality of the data and speed of the product made that worthwhile for me. Their customer service is also top-notch: very helpful, friendly and quick to respond.

If you are an agency that is interested in gathering social media data about your clients then Sysomos MAP is a great product. If you're looking for more of a social management tool then this isn't for you, though Sysomos does offer a different product for that.

I am not using Expion at my current organization, but I was in the middle of evaluating it for purchase at my previous agency before I left, and had used daily it at the company prior to that.

At the company where I used it daily, I was the main user with our clients checking in weekly to make content approvals. It was incredibly helpful in organizing, publishing, and measuring the success of our social content across Facebook and Twitter. At this time, many of the features that are now available natively, such as content scheduling and post editing, were not available so this tool made it possible. However the most useful part to us was being able to measure our ROI across networks as well as compare against competitors and industry averages.

I have recommended Expion to several community manager acquaintances. Because it is expensive as well as very comprehensive, it is best for larger companies and agencies with large clients. It would perhaps be too much for any small businesses or freelancers to use. I would stress the value of the product to whoever is making the ultimate purchasing decision but be realistic when it comes to budget.

For those new to listening products and/or Boolean queries, it would be smart to ask what kind of service level they could expect. And also to get a certain number of hours or predetermined number of training sessions in writing as part of the contract. With all listening tools, there is a learning curve. If your business or agency doesn't have knowledgeable people in house, you'll want some training beyond what's available in the FAQs section.

There are some obvious restrictions in any social media tool, but Heartbeat was one of the best that is out there.