In an article in this week's PR Week I discuss how public relations pros and marketers should be utilizing memetrackers in their workaday. Specifically, I talked about digg and memeorandum. I was interviewed before I began to get acquainted with Tailrank. The article is behind the firewall so I will summarize what I said and expand on it.
All of these sites are absolutely invaluable for marketers. They provide rich insights into how influential consumers think and share. The best way to work with memetrackers is to treat them like you would the hot springs at Yellowstone National Park. Stare at 'em, appreciate their beauty, smell 'em for as long as you can bear, but whatever you do, never ever touch.
Memetrackers, especially digg, can help you get a sense of what's top of mind among influential opinion leaders. It's my daily tech zeitgeist. As I told PR Week, memetrackers like digg are "a window into the geek psyche."
Your first stop in exploring the memetracking world should be to hit digg's search page. Set up a bunch of searches and subscribe to the feeds. Be sure to not only search for your company/brand names but also your URLs. Above all, check the option to "include buried stories." These RSS streams should have a home right next to your Technorati feeds. (Bloggers and journalists, this goes for you too. I found lots of my posts in digg that I didn't even know were there.)
Once you have these brand searches set up, I recommend following the memes of the day. Short of being a Jane Goodall and jumping in and blogging with the rest of us, memewatching is one of the best ways I can think of to understand how bloggers think and operate.
With this goal in mind, your best bet is to subscribe to the digg front page stories in RSS or to sit on the digg spy for a while. Better yet, if you're on OS X Tiger, download this widget. While you're at it, subscribe to the Tailrank, Topix and memeorandum feeds too. Each site is its own community with its own nuances. Above all, though, never underestimate the power of these memetracking sites to quickly spread ideas.
Technorati Tags:
memeorandum, Tailrank, memetrackers, digg
