Legal Marketing & PR

Get Business Intelligence from Social Media with Manzama

By Larry Bodine

The name Manzama is from Swahili, meaning "from many there is one" (E Pluribus Unum was already taken). It's online "listening platform" that searches through social media -- Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn -- plus RSS feeds, blogs, press releases, events and online news.

It just launched at the Marketing Partner Forum, and it empowers law firm marketers to track clients, industries, legal issues and competing law firms. What's amazing about Manzama is that it displays a line chart that shows emerging trends, and spikes of online activity about companies (see below) or your chosen search terms, based on your profile and personal interests.

Manzama, based in Bend, Oregon, lets you see at a glance which of your topics suddenly became hot online. You can click on the top of the spike to see exactly what discussions, tweets or news items were the source of the activity.

13 law firms have been beta-testing the platform, which runs in the cloud, and a handful have already licensed it including Perkins Coie. "The abundance of information that I need to monitor can be overwhelming," said Elizabeth Bevins, a Business Development Manager who is charged with overseeing client and competitive intelligence for the 700-lawyer firm. "We have so many clients and industry groups to watch over. There's no shortage of information from external resources."

She already uses Google alerts, OneSource, WestLaw, PACER, CourtLink and numerous periodicals. She recently used Manzama to track a new general counsel at a prospective client to find out his previous employers, litigation filed against one of his past employees and any news on the GC's new company.

"Where marketing and business development professionals once needed to go out and painstakingly track down important and relevant information, the information now finds them," said Peter Ozolin, CEO of Manzama.

Full post as published by Larry Bodine's LawMarketing Blog on January 30, 2011 (boomark / email).