Here’s a light-weight two-step process for taking a dip in Twitter data.

I’ll start with the second step first (visualization), then describe one approach for finding who to visualize (metrics).

Visualize the Relationships Between Tweeters of Interest: Mentionmap

Click to open the Mentionmap web app, give it a moment to load, type in your favorite Twitter username and hit Start. They offer some examples. Robert Scoble or Padmasree (Cisco’s CTO) are good.

After it loads and adjusts, you’ll see a constellation map of connected Tweeters in realtime – tribes, influence groups, connections between groups. These folks pay attention to each other. As the instructions say, “Click on a node to explore its neighborhood,” and watch the constellation move around to reveal new connections. You can see the Tweeter’s id, name, location, and bio in the box at the left.

Find your fans and their friends, or your competitors and their customers, or just chase down the most active people connected to your interest topics. (The “#” in front of some names is called a “hashtag,” and it represents a group. Click on one of these and you’ll usually see a lot of connected and active people.)

Where Do I Find My Fans, Competitors, and Groups?

Among the many options, I like the analytics approach of ViralHeat.com. I’ll review others later. For now, hit the ViralHeat.com site, take a glance at their overall theme, and then go to the Social Trends tab at the top.

The Social Trends page offers 35 of the top user names across seven categories – glam stuff, not really biz. Better yet, write in the name of your company or a popular competitor. They don’t really show you much of the subscription capabilities here, but you’ll learn who the most active Tweeter in your category is, on this page. Then, take that username, plug it into Mentionmap above, and start clicking around. There’s lots to learn.

Now, for a specific dive on your tribe or company or competitors, the ViralHeat site doesn’t do itself justice. I subscribe to the $9.99 /month service to get email delivery updates on the day’s Tweet metrics and specifics every morning. It’s worth it to me to see these two page formats whenever I want to go hunting:

Viralheat | Profile dashboard for #Oraclesun_1265166953372

Viralheat | Twitter dashboard for #Oraclesun_1265167020194

Look at all the info here, especially on the second page.

That’s a good start, with lots of paths to explore.

More later. SocialMention.com comin’ up.