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Wonder what the world is saying about Hurricane Harvey and the havoc it’s wreaking on the Houston area and elsewhere?

There have been more than 470,000 social media mentions of #HoustonStrong since Monday, and you can check out the chatter on the displays in the Adam Brown Social Media Command Center, Communications Building Room 460.

“Our goal is to have visualizations of trending issues and topics up on the big screen on a daily basis this semester,” said Courtney Childers, associate professor and director of the center.

The center provides College of Communication and Information faculty, staff, and students access to the same leading technology that Fortune 100 companies worldwide use to publish, engage, and analyze their social media marketing activities. Salesforce Social Studio maintains a data set of public social media posts dating back to 2008, including content from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr, Google+, LinkedIn, blogs, mainstream media outlets, and more.

“More and more CCI faculty and students are using Salesforce Social Studio technology in related coursework and research. Ongoing projects include analyzing current news stories, political campaigns, Super Bowl advertising, crisis communication efforts, and social media engagement of topics vital to local businesses and organizations. We welcome anyone to stop by so we can show off this sophisticated social listening tool.”

On Tuesdays and Wednesdays this semester, the Adam Brown Social Media Command Center will offer drop-in “office hours” for demonstrations open to anyone in the UT community.

Social listening is vital for disciplines outside of CCI. “Across campus, we encourage faculty, staff, and students to engage in social listening and see how it can supplement their research and teaching,” Childers said. “We are open to cross-campus experiences—both in the classroom and with research projects—and are happy to work with those outside of CCI to produce customized profiles on an array of topics and issues during the office hours.”

Learn more by following the center, @utccismcc on Instagram and Twitter.