Social Media Monitoring

I’ve been following social media updates on the OC Transpo transit strike (see previous post) through a variety of social media channels.  Thought I’d share my search approach here, and ask if anyone has suggestions for other channels to follow or tools to use.

Facebook – searching for groups, events, and pages; following discussion topics & wall posts

Twitter – search.twitter.com to find relevant keyword tweets

Blogs – blogsearch.google.com using keywords and sorted by date to get the most recent posts

Google Alerts – keyword alerts setup to send updates immediately

Youtube – daily keyword search for any new videos & discussions

Flickr – daily keyword search for any new photos & discussions

News Media Discussion forums – website discussions on local news sources (Ottawa Citizen; CBC Ottawa; National Post; etc)

I’ve had a quick look at MySpace & Ning but didn’t see anything relevant.

1. Are there other social media sites that I should be searching?
2. Are there any good tools that would help make it easier to follow a variety of social media sources?

Social Media buzz on OC Transpo Strike

Today is the first day of the transit strike in Ottawa – hopefully it’ll be a short one! I thought I’d do a scan to see where the issue is being discussed in social media circles, and the types of web 2.0 tools being employed to help people deal with the impact (carpooling mostly), and to connect and discuss the issue.

Twitter

Search for “Ottawa Transit” and “OC Transpo” on http://search.twitter.com brings up many posts by people commenting on the strike, including some useful tips such as “b/c of transit strike, on-street, unmetered parking is unlimited in 1, 2, and 3 hour spots. At meters you still have to pay.”; links to news twitter feeds from @cbcnews @macleans (the Magazine) @timesnews @nationalpost

Map Mashups

http://www.ridesnearme.com
http://www.carpoolworld.com/
https://www.ottawaridematch.com
Traffic Camera/Google Maps mashup http://alainthibodeau.com/cameras/

FaceBook Groups

• Ottawa Carpool
• OC Transpo Drivers are Greedy 
• OC Transpo Strike Discussion Group 
• I don’t need sex anymore because OC Transpo f*s me every day 
• Amalgamated Transit Union 279 (the official union facebook page)  ** group access closed as of Dec 11
• Against OC Transpo Strike Due Tonight at 12:00AM 
• Students Against the OC Transpo Strike 

Blogs

Search on http://www.blogpulse.com for blog posts:

• OC Transpo Strike | as of Dec 11 – 25 posts
• Ottawa Transit Strike | Dec 11 – 92 posts
• Ottawa Transit | Dec 11 – 1219 posts
• OC Transpo | Dec 11 – 276 posts

A search on Technorati and Google Blog Search results in quite a few different bloggers commenting on the strike – certainly a lot of negative sentiment towards OC Transpo:

• “Dr. Seuss to Mayor Larry: Mad not Sad” criticizing Larry O’Brien’s handling of the strike
• A Transit Strike?
• OC Transpo Strike appeals for OC Transpo to be considered an essential service, without the right to strike
• OC Transpo Community very active discussions ongoing with lots of OC Transpo drivers
• Red White 1867 features a couple of posts already about the strike – protesting vehemently
• Public Transit in Ottawa reporting public opposition to the strike

YouTube

The CTV Interview with OCTranspo Union leader http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lr9l8B-Z5Ms
Not a lot of other strike related videos – lots of OC Transpo videos both from riders, and from OCTranspo
Compilation of bus videos http://www.youtube.com/user/newflyer800

Media Website Discussion Spaces

CTV News Story closed their discussion space after 168 comments in just a few hours.
CBC News coverage with 208 comments as of 11AM Wed

Google Trends

Do you have any other examples that you’ve come across to share?