SocialFlow is a social media optimization

Social Media Optimization

Social media optimization is the methodization of social media activity with the intent of attracting unique visitors to website content. SMO is one of many online methods of website optimization...

 platform that helps companies increase their audience engagement on various social networks. The company uses the Twitter

Twitter

Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...

 firehose and access to click data from bitly, along with proprietary algorithms, to optimize the delivery of messages on social networks. The company believes that understanding and utilizing key metrics of engagement, such as clicks per Tweet and clicks per Follower, is central to growing a large and active social media following. Their analysis and data visualization of the way news filtered out around the death of Osama Bin Laden

Death of Osama bin Laden

Osama bin Laden, then head of the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda, was killed in Pakistan on May 2, 2011, shortly after 1 a.m. local time by a United States special forces military unit....

 via Twitter received international news coverage and led to questions about the role of Twitter in journalism.

History

SocialFlow was founded in early 2009 by Frank Speiser and Mike Perrone, who sought to apply a scientific approach to the task of building and sustaining engaged social media audiences at scale.

SocialFlow announced April 7, 2011 that they had raised $7 million in Series A funding. The Series A round was led by Softbank, with Softbank NY, RRE Ventures

RRE Ventures

RRE Ventures is a venture capital firm focused on investments across several disciplines, including software, internet, mobile, financial services, environmental, and other related technologies, primarily within the United States, and especially in and around New York...

, betaworks, Highline Venture Partners, AOL Venture Partners, SV Angel and a group of high profile angel investors participating.

The company announced June 7, 2011 that Peter Hershberg joined the company as President.

Product

SocialFlow is a web-based software interface aimed at brands, publishers and e-retailers. SocialFlow determines the best time to broadcast messages by analyzing the conversational topics and click activity among a company’s social media following. After linking their social media accounts, a company will input content and RSS feeds into the software. This content will be ranked and re-ranked based on its real-time resonance. After these optimized updates are published, their social media impact are demonstrated on an extensive analytics dashboard.

Research

SocialFlow gained considerable media attention when it published "Breaking Bin Laden: Visualizing the Power of a Single Tweet". The study demonstrated how Twitter had evolved into a primary news source, as the death of Osama Bin Laden broke on Twitter.

Their next study "Engaging News-Hungry Audiences Tweet by Tweet" looked at the Twitter audiences of Al-Jazeera English, BBC News

BBC News

BBC News is the department of the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online...

, CNN

CNN

Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...

, The Economist

The Economist

The Economist is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd. and edited in offices in the City of Westminster, London, England. Continuous publication began under founder James Wilson in September 1843...

, Fox News and New York Times and revealed the similarities and differences between each respective organization's audience, while simultaneously demonstrating the true value of audience engagement.