Radian6 vs. SM2 Death Match: Ease of Use

I have to confess that I started using Radian6 back in the summer of 2008 before I even heard of Techrigy. While I enjoyed using Radian6 because it enabled me to track what was being said about the brands I care about, at the time I felt that their interface was cluttered and it was easy to get lost while performing searches. The uncluttered feel of Techrigy and their claims to automate sentimentality convinced me to switch to them.

What a difference a year makes! Radian6 has added useful dashboards that enable you to segment out which social media you want to view. For instance, if you only want to see tweets, set up a dashboard just for tracking micromedia. Want to view videos and still images? Configure a dashboard for multimedia. Navigating just to the content you want to see is as simple as clicking a mouse. If this sounds like an advertisement for Apple (…there’s an app for that) it’s no coincidence. Radian6 has the ease of use you’ve come to expect from a company like Apple, although they are not related.

Techrigy has the feel of a Microsoft product, so someone comfortable with Excel spreadsheets would perhaps like it better. But setting up new searches can be problematic. For example, while you can theoretically search Twitter using SM2, I’ve found that getting the RSS feed for a search from search.twitter.com and importing that into their system is more effective at getting results. But I didn’t know that until I’d been using their system exclusively for months (and missing results).

Workflow with Radian6 is superior, because you can easily assign your team tasks and categorize content so you can find it later while sifting through the data. SM2 can do this as well, but an assigned task is not visible right beside the result itself, ensuring that it will probably be missed (although you can also set it up as an email-able alert). With no query scratch pad function, you may quickly forget what you were looking for in the SM2 Labyrinth.

Overall, Radian6 feels like it was designed by someone who actually has to perform social media marketing Ju Jutsu – pulling content from blogs and multimedia sites and seeding it on micro-blogs and social networks. Since we’re content curators and choreographers today, Radian6 is useful for discovering the relevant, timely content you need to quickly send content through your social channels. Viewing videos and still images, as well as the tweets and blog posts right inside the system, without having to open new windows, is a blessing.

Techrigy opens up new browser tabs each time you click to see more detailed results, and it’s easy to get lost when you have many tabs open at once (or get a coffee and return to your computer unclear of which tab was which). Simply put: Techrigy tabs can’t compete with Radian6 dashboards.

WINNER for Ease of Use: Radian6

Continue to the price and conclusion here.