Review: SocialEars from HRmarketer

HRmarketer has recently announced the BETA release of SocialEars, a social listening and media analytics software platform for the HR marketplace, which does so much more than just listen.

ANYONE can build a web technology that can listen to the noise given off by the world of social media, blogs, press releases and RSS feeds in real time.  The real genius behind HRmarketer’s SocialEars is HOW it listens, categorizes, tracks and communicates the information to you, the SocialEars subscriber.

[box type=”info” size=”large”]UPDATE: SocialEars is offering a 7-day free trial. Give it a go or keep reading.[/box]

The platform allows users to identify WHAT people are talking about (right now);  WHO these people are;  and HOW you can get in touch with the real influencers (many are relatively unknown).  Marketing and PR are a changin’ and SocialEars is designed to spearhead that change, but does it succeed?  Let’s dig in.

This NOT an Ad — It’s a Review…

I know we named our blog, Shameless News, but it really is more commentary than advertising.  So, as with all our solution reviews, here is our unbiased review of SocialEars BETA.

The GUI is easy to use, tabular and branded very much  in-line with HRmarketer’s new website.

If you’re new to social media or you’ve been living under a rock since 1994, the social terminology (i.e. Tag Clouds, Hashtags, Klout score, retweet, etc.) could get a little overwhelming.

Everybody else will find the GUI and the terminology about as mainstream as Google.

Using and weighting Tags (or Topics) in a 2D Tag Cloud is probably my favorite feature of SocialEars.  It’s funny how powerful these have become as a way of communicating complex ideas and drawing relationships.  I sometimes find myself thinking in Tag Clouds.  JDM’s About and Services pages now sport tag clouds rather than lengthy unordered lists.

So conveying not just what is trending, but what isn’t, lets users cut through the noise (pun intended) and get to the real wisdom.

Finally, we’re big fans of how results are shows in tables.  We’re a little unclear about how Klout scores are supposed to be used in this laser-focused context, however.  Klout scores don’t necessarily measure your HR influence rank.  You could just be an HR professional who’s REALLY popular within your fantasy football league.

To tell you the truth, we’re hard-pressed to find much wrong with SocialEars.  There is, of course, room for new features, integrations, etc., but this is one hell of a BETA release.

What does 2012 hold for SocialEars?  We have it on good authority that the API will be open for license sometime this year and will allow you to scrape, analyze and report on your OWN data from your CMS, Twitter account, etc..

This part is more of an Ad…

JDM doesn’t really focus our services toward the HR marketplace, but we absolutely agree with how Mark Willaman puts it:

[quote]The question of what’s trending and who is participating in and driving those trends is of paramount importance in today’s social landscape.[/quote]

If you’re interested in a SocialEars demo or some trending research, contact HRmarketer.  Afterwards, comment your unbiased review here.