1. Follow the Leaders
“There’s no such thing as the ultimate Social Media Strategist
because someone will always be better.”
There are industry experts in every field. Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, why not relay quality content from those that came before you? All while being transparent and yourself. There are many leaders in the Social Media Industry, but here are the top 25 most influential.
2. Google Reader
Those social media influencers that I mentioned… have blogs where they share articles and relevant information on social media. Below is a list of the top 20 social media blogs that you should be following. You may be thinking “That’s WAY too many pages to check daily!”, but don’t fret. GOOGLE READER (or any other RSS reader) is your answer. Simply add these top 20 blogs into your reader and you’ll be one informed social media manager!
1. Mashable
3. Chris Brogan
7. Brian Solis
8. Kikolani
9. Scott Monty
10. Michael Brito
11. Twitip
13. Convince & Convert
14. Altitude
15. CopyBlogger
16. Brand Builder
17. Diva Marketing
18. Future Buzz
19. Mari Smith
20. HubSpot
14. Altitude
15. CopyBlogger
16. Brand Builder
17. Diva Marketing
18. Future Buzz
19. Mari Smith
20. HubSpot
3. Twitter Management
Once you gain somewhat of a following, Twitter can become overwhelming. There are numerous software programs to help relieve the pain. Twitter management apps such as sprout social, tweet deck, twhirl, cotweet, tweetie, twibble, twitterscan, qwitter, mr. tweet, friend or follow, twinfluence, twitpic, twitalks, tweet cloud, tweet later, twitterfeed, twitter grader, tweetstats, tweetgraph… YOU GET THE POINT!??
Personally I’ve tried TweetDeck, Tweet Adder 3.0, TweetBig, and HootSuite. Of those, Hootsuite is probably my favorite. But it’s completely up to the user and their industry or target audience. It also depends if you’re looking for a free management system or are willing to pay. Me, not willing to pay, not yet anyways.
Check out these lists of top Twitter tools:
4. Facebook Landing Page
You’ve all seen it- Companies with fancy facebook “welcome” pages that urge you to “Like” their page to see certain freebies or important info. Facebook has enabled <FBML> <HTML> pages.
To me, it’s a foreign language. If you’re fluent, more power to you- but for those of you that are with me… There’s an app for that! Pagemodo, mashlab, faceit, and lujure are great apps that allow you to create landing pages without learning the language.
I used Lujure for my page & it was very user friendly & they’re very engaged in customer service & helping lost users like myself. They even complemented me on my page!
5. Slideshare
Slideshare is a great way to display presentations that you’ve given that demonstrate your area of expertise. It is also a great way to display more detailed information about your company or personal attributes. Personally, I have a Slideshare app on my LinkedIn profile that is about Social Media. That alone has driven more traffic to my account than anything else.
6. Webinars
To be a social media manager- or involved in social media for that matter, you must share value with others. One of the best ways to share value is to teach your users to utilize and optimize social media. Share your expertise. One of the best ways of doing that is by hosting a webinar. There are many providers out there including slideshare’s zipcast, go to meeting, megameeting, and fuze meeting. I’ve polled many social media managers, and Go To Meeting seems to be the favorite.
For a FREE trial & $10 off discount on GoToMeeting
7. Engagement
“No matter how busy you are, you must follow up. If you don’t follow up, you don’t know what you’re missing out on. “
To be involved in social media. You must be just that- INVOLVED. When someone on twitter @mentions you or RT’s you- acknowledge that. When someone sends you a DM- reply! If someone shares or mentions your information, why not RT them directly to your wall? Share quality content and engage your users.
8. GoToLunch
Finally, you must take social media to the next level. GoToLunch.com is an online community connecting professionals that don’t know each other over lunch. In a world where it’s not always about what you know, but who you know, Go Grab Lunch helps professionals to broaden their network and create meaningful business connections.
View an exclusive interview with GoGrabLunch founder Jonathan Patrick at http://bit.ly/eN7EDe
There you have it- 8 Social media tools I can't live without. What tools do you use to help manage social media? Which ones are your favorite?
Thanks for the article! A nice review of some excellent services in the social media realm.
ReplyDeleteAre you specifically covering free services, or do you dable in paid services as well? If so, you should check out EvoApp.
EvoApp's software is a centralized portal that does volumetric and sentiment analysis for all forms of communications including, but not limited to, emails, phone calls and social media posts such as twitter, blogs, social feeds etc. You can use the social media module to look at before and after marketing campaigns and do competitive analysis, etc.
Basic packages start out with 20 keywords of the clients choice, with unlimited customized dashboards and analytics available.
You can use the direct communications module which archives and rates the polarity (positive to neutral to negative) of your customer’s communications to the company by tying into the email, phone, etc. This module I.D.’s problematic discussions quickly and allows you to pre-emptively rectify customer issues. EvoApp in a nutshell: an interactive, integrated communications hub for visualizing, analyzing and interacting with the entire communications heartbeat of an enterprise.
Let me know if you have any questions or comments!
Cheers,
Sergei Dolukhanov
@sdolukhanov
Director of Marketing, EvoApp