Can TweetCharts replace your social media analyst?

Have you ever wished you could run a by-the-numbers social media analysis yourself? You know, without having to go to a company or individual who specialises in the field? Well, if social media scientist Dan Zarella is to be believed, that’s exactly what a new tool he’s developed lets you do.

The tool, called TweetCharts, reportedly allows you to enter “any word, phrase, hashtag, URL or username” into it. Zarella claims it will then return a “comprehensive report, including data on reply, retweet, and link percentages as well as the most common words, most mentioned users, [and] most used hashtags”.

The award-winning author says the idea for the tool came about after doing some pen and paper sketches during a plane flight.

There are already a number of social media analytics tools out there including paid ones such as Radian 6, Lithium, and Sysomos as well as free services such as Research.ly and Social Mention.

What seems to set TweetCharts apart from its competitors, particularly the free services, is the sheer volume of data it gives you access to. Ultimately though, having all the information in the world won’t help you if you don’t use it properly.

Update: Users may have to exercise patience if they want to use TweetCharts. Shortly after this story went live, the site went down. Zarella’s blog is yet to provide any explanation as to why this might be>