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Much of real-time marketing — especially newsjacking — requires insights into what people are talking about right now. There have been ways to assess what’s hot in social circles, including Twitter trending topics, but little has been available to help marketers and communicators grasp stories people are buzzing about in real time across the broad spectrum of social and digital media.

Enter News Ninja, a labor of love from Infegy, which provides intelligence from social media data. The free site collects data from Infegy’s database of online content and uses linguistics to determine the key topics and themes under discussion by major news outlets, influences, and the overall online population. The result is a list — updated every 10 minutes — of the top 45 stories driving online conversations.

In this FIR interview, Shel Holtz chats with Infegy Marketing Directory Rion Martin about the News Ninja, its origins, its future, and the uses to which communicators can put it.

About our Conversation Partner

Rion Martin is the marketing director of Infegy, provider of social media intelligence technology for marketing and research professionals. In this role, he is responsible for developing and leading Infegy’s global marketing program to boost brand awareness and market share, working closely with ad agencies, market researchers, and consumer insight teams. He also curates the Infegy blog and manages all content marketing initiatives.

Rion joined Infegy in 2013, bringing more than eight years of experience in technology and digital marketing consulting. Prior to joining Infegy, Rion worked as the program manager of marketing and instructional tools at his alma mater, the University of Missouri-Kansas City, where he focused on implementing technologies to provide high-quality client experiences.

Having started multiple services businesses throughout high school and college, Rion’s entrepreneurial spirit led him to start Audagy.fm, an online music streaming service for indie music. He also founded Osireon Digital in 2006, a digital marketing consulting agency focused on digital strategy, web development, system design and CRM systems.

Rion earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of Kansas and an MBA from the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Connect with Rion on Twitter at @RionMartin.

About Shel Holtz

Shel Holtz, ABC (Accredited Business Communicator), is director of Internal Communications at Webcor, a commercial general contractor headquartered in San Francisco. Before joining Webcor, Shel spent 21 years as principal of Holtz Communication + Technology. In addition to integrating technology into communications strategies, his expertise includes strategic communications planning, change management, organizational culture, business initiatives and communications research. Full bio