Well, to be honest… most people will probably not see the fun in this – but my blog, my voice:-)

I am constantly amazed by the many tools that the kind people Google dazzle us with. A couple of weeks ago another one was released – or actually it is a combination of existing tools. The Real-time insights finder:

Great tool to use when wanting inputs to defining your webstrategy and making an intelligent research and project plan for it. This is not actually what amazes me – at the same time I couldn’t help but digging in to some of the other free tools provided, and the possibilities and data entrances are almost endless – you just need to make a clear strategy as to, what you want to use and why you want to use it. There are value to gain from almost all the available tools, but a massive data overload will threaten to take the life of even the best intentions.

So therefor; set time of to browse around the various possibilities out there, if possible get some insights from people in your network, that has some experience with some of the tools. After having done some initial testing make a document, where you make it absolutely clear to yourself why you want to use a certain tool and what you want to gain from it.

Now start by setting up one tool at the time, make sure to make automations where possible and plan how you want to follow up on your efforts – your measurements are worth squat if you can’t transform the in to actual actions. So make sure that you have planned how to convert your data in to actions and do not get overambitious. Almost all new things are smart and interesting in the beginning, but if you do not have the resources to do the actual follow and put actions behind your findings – don’t bother setting it up – it will only frustrate you. As said be clear what you want to gain and why you are setting up the tools – this will make it easier to allocate the right resources and cut down to the “need to haves”.

It is not only Google that makes a lot of free tools, but it is a great place to start and setting up a Google account, using spreadsheets and digging in to their tools will provide great value for most marketeers. To get you started you might want to browse around the tools here: http://www.google.com/think/tools/real-time-insights.html (especially try the tools under real time insight tools).

If that’s not the start of a fun weekend  – i don’t know what is – cheers to all of you.

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