By M.Christian

YNOT – Social media and social networking have become a critically important factor in generating interest in a product – any kind of product.

But how does a webmaster monitor the reach and impact of his or her social media marketing efforts? Digital marketing agency Web Liquid recently compared 40 monitoring tools and released a report enumerating its findings.

Ranking each tool on criteria including query, data quality, data quantity, data management, raw data output and usability/interface, Alterian, Brandwatch, MutualMind, Radian6 and Synthesio came out on top. Although a clear winner was difficult to determine, Synthesio edged slightly ahead of the other four based on query and data-quality scores.

Even so, Web Liquid was quick to advise marketing pros not to rely too heavily on any tool. Human data verification is essential for the best results, the study’s authors noted. No monitoring tool excelled across all criteria, and “the technologies they employ are not nearly sophisticated enough to be taken at face value.”

In data capture alone, huge differences in scope and methodology exist between Web Liquid’s top five tools. Brandwatch and Radian6 encompass a broader spectrum of data sources than the other contenders. Consequently, those two tools present statistics that are more susceptible to corruption by spam. In Web Liquid’s testing, the percentage of data attributable to spam mentions comprised 46 percent with Brandwatch and 40 percent for Radian6.

Synthesio, Alterian and MutualMind employ a much smaller “white list” for data capture, returning results that are not nearly as comprehensive but are nearly spam-free: only 3 percent of returns with those three products could be attributed to spam.

The Web Liquid report offers an in-depth evaluation of each of the top five products, including pros, cons and pricing. The report, which is free, may be downloaded here.