Spredfast's 'Spark' helps marketers figure out what customers are talking about and when to speak up

Social marketing startup Spredfast debuted a new service today that should help businesses connect with the collective conversation customers are having via Twitter.

The service, called Spark, is actually a pretty powerful tool if you have no idea how to approach social marketing. Spark scans various social networks for a brand’s followers/fans, then invites you to check out a whole dashboard of metrics showing what people are talking about in real time.

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But that’s sort of just scratching the surface. Spark also assigns values to each of the trending topics a brand’s customers/followers are talking about. You can see when the topic was trending, how active the discussion is, and who else (other brands, perhaps even competitors) is participating. All this data can help you figure out when to jump into a conversation you could add something to, and how likely it is that you’ll be successful.

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For example, after a topic has been trending for 12 hours, your comments are unlikely to have much impact. But a topic that’s only just started trending may be a good jumping in point to start interacting with customers.

This kind of tool could be very useful in keeping a brand top-of-mind to customers without making them feel annoyed or ignored.

Spredfast told me Spark is one of many “modules” the company plans to offer its customers, with each focusing on a certain aspect of social media marketing or promotion. It’s also the product of several months of collaboration with Mass Relevance, which Spredfast merged with back in April.

Founded in 2008, the Austin, Texas-based startup has raised a total of $64.1 million in funding to date. For a closer look at Spark, check out the screenshots below.