We are regular users of particular social media tools that help us to manage our social media
activity, helping to save time, and to give us information that helps us to Tweet / Post / Update more
effectively.
This is a list of the tools we use and have found to be especially easy and helpful. They are all
currently free to use, although this could change in the future, and some also offer a paid-for version which provides a more extensive range of benefits.
Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a management tool that allows you to manage multiple Social Media accounts in one
place. It supports Facebook, Google+, Twitter and LinkedIn and provides a choice of what is
displayed in each ‘stream’.
The basic free version allows you to have up to 5 social networks streams and two RSS feeds per
Hootsuite account, although if you have more than one email address you can create more than one Hootsuite account.
HootSuite is great for scheduling posts, allowing you to include a photo and automatically shortening any links. You can choose to share the post in one or more networks and you can share the post immediately or at a scheduled date and time.
TweetDeck
An alternative Twitter-only management tool that has the advantage of no limit to the number of
Twitter accounts you can include. The facility to schedule Tweets is included, as is adding an image.
TweetDeck does not automatically shorten link URLs; this would have to be done using a link
shortener tool such as Bit.ly.
Social Mention is a real time search engine tracking tool that allows you to monitor yourself, your
company or other topics on social networks, blogs, bookmarks and comments.
It also provides a snapshot overview of the Sentiment Score: how positive, neutral or negative your search term scores. You are given a list of Top Keywords associated with your search brand or term, who the Top Users are and also Top Hashtags.
Tweriod
Timing is everything and Tweriod helps you make the most of Twitter by letting you know the best
time to tweet, by tracking when your Followers are active on Twitter. The reports produced are easy
to understand and can really help to make a difference to getting seen on Twitter.
Simply Measured
Simply Measured does a great job of pulling data on owned channels for both your brand and its
competitors. It is also one of the few tools able to report on multiple social channels, including
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram. Try a free report before signing up to the 14-day free
trial or a paid account.
If you'd like to find out more, sign up to one of our bite-size seminars and workshops on social media topics. Social Media workshops
