Paul Armstrong (@munkyfonkey)

I’ve been beta testing iPlatform’s Facebook moderation platform ‘Conversocial‘ (along with others including Social Media management company Tempero amongst others)  and management platform at Kindred for about six months now and to say I’ve been impressed would be an understatement. Coming out for the masses today Conversocial will certainly help to belay any remaining fears that Facebook is not manageable for any organization. The premise is simple: a dashboard/alert system that enables a real-time way of managing content as it comes in (this is important – see later).  It’s the best tool currently out there (other options include coTweet, Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, Context Optional, Socialite etc) to stem the tide of a busy fan page.  

Chatting with iPlatform CEO/Founder, Joshua March, it’s clear he’s been hearing companies whistle the same tune for a while: “…the real value for [companies] comes from the engagement that [apps/pages] create, in terms of customer interaction and feedback, which mostly takes place in the newsfeed. Companies who ignore this user interaction get far lower engagement – not just in terms of comments on their page, but also with promotions and applications they build. We want to help change that.”

The platform includes multiple neat features and insight/analysis tools (including a very right-on-the-money) ‘actual engagement’ focus. Along with the basic moderation flow it allows users (bulk action, delete, respond, update etc), the platform also enables a very sharp CRM system (assign, email, internal comments) that would warm the heart of anyone who’s felt the wrath of a disgruntled public. The simple to use user-interface (and I mean simple) is a testament to a dedicated/talented team looking to solve real problems that is obviously close their hearts (they work with the likes of McDonalds, Hed Kandi, Gumtree, Swatch amongst others I can’t disclose). The real genius is the work flow system – imagine someone googling your brand and they find a mention from a Facebook post a year ago – they comment but you don’t see that update on Facebook because it was a post a year ago unless you scrolled through pages and pages of posts/comments – on Conversocial it’s the latest update right there on top. Nice/the way it should be!

I’m gushing. Apart from the colour scheme there are only two things I can see as drawbacks 1) sentiment is unautomated – whilst this can be a bonus it could be a huge timesuck. Adding your own sentiment to a busy page (whilst made fast by the system) is laborious at best if the page is/gets busy. 2) currently the system tells you a lot about your group but it doesn’t enable really solid insight based on all parts of a users profile – i.e. The system cannot (yet) tell you that 69% of your people love Grey’s Anatomy but hate Zippy from Rainbow (who is currently your poster…doll?! In your national poster campaign) which could perhaps have business implications for advertising/marketing etc. or in other words right now it’s not affecting business objectives directly but the potential is huge. After all, you’ve got to know what is and what isn’t working for your community.

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That said, the system/tool does what it says on the tin and delivers said tin in spades with a lot more functionality promised over the coming months – there are also bespoke analysis services are available. What would you expect from the guys/gals who made the CEOP app for additional Facebook security? Nobody knows business securities… and insecurities like iPlatform.

So, now Facebook is scaleable, efficient, cheap and easy to moderate and manage the question is… what’s stopping you?

The news in brief:

WHAT: Conversocial (Facebook management platform) is launching from iPlatform
COVERS: Facebook Community Management/Moderation
COSTS: Starts at £50 (most clients currently on around £500 a month per Josh) – pricing is based on how much engagement your pages are getting (you can have multiple pages and users without additional cost)
EH?: Example – £50 covers 1,000 incoming messages, with additional messages over that at 10p per message. £500 is for 10,000 and 7p per message for additional, etc. People sign up to the basic minimum, and then can set an overflow limit to control their spending.  If you go over, you can still use the publishing and tracking tools, but can only accept the overflow posts, not any of the advanced features (flagging, replying in-line, assignment etc)
USPS: Moderation, engagement AND Measurement in one
PROS: Simple to use, efficient, robust, customisable, new metrics help you to be better content providers, fully downloadable analytics (.xls etc)
CONS: Influencer modeling in version two, analytics only on present/future content currently, sentiment is laborious as totally reliant on human procedure.
NEXT STEPS: Twitter integration, more analytics with active vs. passive focus analytics