Echosec, simply put, allows you to navigate to almost any location in the world and examine the social media activity around that vicinity. Currently Echosec Pro allows users to access at least the following social data feeds:
- Foursquare
- Panoramio
- AIS Shipping
- Sina Weibo
- Flickr
- YouTube
- VK
The Echosec platform provides enormous research potential as it is possible to select a specific geographical area and examine the social media activity around it.
Users can plot a rectangle, circle, or plot a custom shape almost anywhere in the world to display the social media activity around that area. Users can also use advance date filtering features to ensure only relevant posts are displayed.
Echnosec also has great potential in regards to business intelligence as it is possible to monitor chatter around a specific area. For instance, finding out that social media users in a particular area are complaining about the lack of particular store or product e.g., a coffee shop.
One of the biggest advantages of Echosec are that it is not based on a specific social media platform; it allows users to aggregate data from several popular social media networks.
In addition to location-based searching, it is also possible to search via keywords and examine where posts derive from. For instance, to find out whether users in certain geographical regions are mentioning a trending hashtag.
Echosec works by making use of location-based metadata to search for social media and other open source information. It relies mostly on a range of API requests directly to the social media networks (Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook etc), but also to third party information repositories.
Echosec is used by those within the Public Safety and Intelligence sector, the Corporate Security & Investigations sector, and within the Media and Journalism sector.
Used ethically and within the right hands, Echosec has great potential for public good. I also see it to have excellent potential for academic research projects.
Compared to some of the other social media analytics software out there, Echosec Pro is extremely affordable at only $89 per month annually. It’s definitely worth checking out. You can access the free version of Echosec here.
Disclaimer: No data was retrieved and/or analysed in the writing of this blog post.
Dr. Wasim Ahmed 