SocialRank now lets you analyze your Twitter followers based on location and keywords

Twitter analytics service SocialRank, which waslaunched in February by two ex-Dwolla staffers, has undergone a significant upgrade in order to help brands and companies get more value and insight from their social media.

The original version of the service helped brands — and, in fact, any user — scan all of their followers on Twitter and locate those who are most influential, engaged and a combination of the two.

Now, the service is expanding out to offer more options to evaluate the people who are following you on Twitter. Users can be segmented by location, keyword searches and a combination of the two, which is something that SocialRank co-founder Alex Taub tells TNW was much requested by the brands that use the service.

Enabling more personal Twitter outreach

Taub explains that with more than 5,000 brands as customers – including some big names like GoPro and Uber — the platform is already used for a range of activities. Some want to identify their most influential brand advocates, or just find real people who are fans and active on Twitter. Uber, for example, has run ‘surprise’ campaigns that offer benefits and deals to loyal fans on Twitter, and not just those with sizable influence either.

SocialRank 2.0 also removes the limitations on searches — which was capped at 10 for free users, and 100 for paying customers — which will give users even more options. Taub illustrate with an example:

“If the MLS is planning an exclusive event with US footballer Clint Dempsey in New York for 100 fans, SocialRank would enable it to drill down and find soccer fans in the area who are already following, or actively engage with, the MLS account on Twitter.”

Going beyond Twitter, and offering market intelligence

Taub says that the company intends to keep this new basic offering free, but it will expand to offer more services that are for paying customers only.

That will include a powerful market intelligence feature that lets customers simulate analytics for other Twitter accounts, perhaps for competitive analysis or just comparison. There are also plans to add analytics for Instagram, and later Pinterest and Facebook too.

Market intelligence is currently being used in beta by a handful of select SocialRank customers. Taub says the feature will cost more than a basic membership package because it is custom-built — Twitter doesn’t provide this information but SocialRank has managed to reverse-engineer it. The company hopes to make it a fully-fledged feature that is open to all (for a price) by the start of 2015.

Pushing out to cover other social networks is part of SocialRank’s ambition to be the platform for managing followers across all social accounts, with brands in mind in particular, Taub explains.

“We haven’t found an extensive or all-encompassing product that helps brands manage their followers across multiple networks that is also easy-to-use and affordable. Whereas a company like Hootsuite or Buffer has built a central location/dashboard to help manage posting across multiple networks, we are building a central location/dashboard to help manage followers across multiple networks. We are building the Hootsuite or Buffer for followers,” he writes in a company blog post.

SocialRank certainly has some unique data options that most other services don’t cater to and, with a number of established brands already aboard, the company looks to have an interesting future.

source: JON RUSSELL/http://thenextweb.com