In early September I saw a post by Mari Smith about a social analytics website called Twentyfeet.com. In typical Mari fashion she described why she liked the site and her list included the fact that Giraffe’s are among her favorite animals. When you first visit twentyfeet.com you will see how the Giraffe branding works, it’s very creative and revolves around the measuring of your web activity, primarily new media sites like Twitter, Facebook and Youtube. Since the Giraffe is the tallest land animal on the planet reaching as high as “Twenty Feet” in height, see where they are going with that? I immediately signed up and thought from the onset that this was going to be a useful site for me, but I had much to learn about the real value of the site. That of course takes time but I think this article will help you cut through that learning curve a little.

So you have a Cool Mascot and Branding, what else is so great about Twentyfeet?

1. Free and low cost analytics.
2. Dashboard including charts that clearly show trends.
3. Notifications only of activities outside the norm.
4. Engaging and personable social media presence.

Free and low cost analytics

Twenty Feet provides 1 Facebook and 1 Twitter account free of charge. They also support Youtube and bit.ly and have plans to add many more services. Currently they accept suggestions and allow you to vote via their UserVoice account. Currently Google Analytics is in the lead as the next supported service and I think it will be a natural fit especially after you read about Notifications later in this article. In addition to the free service you can add any additional supported account for $2.49 per year. This is a very fair price for the quality of the tool in my view. I have no problem paying that personally. Of course you can take advantage of the free product regardless.

The Dashboard and Getting Started with Twentyfeet

No analytics app would be complete without a dashboard to configure, view and review metrics. The dashboard with Twenty Feet is very easy to use. The first thing you do is add your accounts so that the system can start collecting and crunching the data. I am not sure what it is like today adding a new account but when I added mine things were a little bogged down and slow to update, the simple answer to this of course would be to add your accounts one day then come back to analyze the data the next. Your results may vary, I started very early. If you need help setting up your dashboard visit the Twentyfeet Wiki page just for the Service dashboard.

The dashboard itself is very useful, you can setup favorites of the items you wish to come back and monitor in a favorites list. Here is a sample of one of the graphs, in this case the “Key Performance Indicators” for Youtube:

As you can see the charts are very high quality and provide a really good historic view of whatever indicator you happen to be monitoring. While I think the Dashboard is essential I will share later in this article the most useful feature the notifications system:

The Notifications System – The most useful aspect of Twentyfeet

I didn’t even know about the notification system when I started using Twentyfeet. While it may seem obvious looking at it, it took me a while to appreciate the power of the capabilities. The notification system actually keeps tabs on what the “normal” range is for activity in all of your different accounts and sends you a digest of activity that falls outside the norm. This is exceptionally useful to me because I don’t really have time to go look at the dashboard every day nor do I want to get all the activity and try to figure out what was really outside of the norm. Here is an example of one of the notification Emails:

As you can see this format displays only irregular activity, there is no reason to know that activity fell within the normal range. You can also share the changes if you feel so inclined via Twitter, Email or via any other method with a link that is provided. The “share” pages also have Facebook Social Connection enabled so people could comment, like and event post the comments to their own profile.

Engaging and personable

The Twentyfeet crew definitely get social media. They are hands on and among the first to respond to anything you write about Twentyfeet in a very authentic and positive way. I had the opportunity to interview Martin Siebert of Twentyfeet recently via Skype, here is the interview on Youtube:

Summary
The “Egotracking Service” Twentyfeet is definitely a must have for anyone who cares about their social media footprint and effectiveness. It provides you with a tool that will help inform you when your activity falls outside of the norm, you can immediately relate that to your activity on the networks and get a feel for how your message is resonating and whether it is resonating. If you don’t care about your social media footprint, then Twentyfeet is probably not going to keep your interest for long. Personally I have found it to be valuable in keeping tabs on the effectiveness of my new media activity.

With the big shift to personal branding is egotracking the next big thing?