FOLLOWING THE FLOCK: Five Programs That Help You Manage Your Social Media

Twitter followers and followees are as unique as they come. Some tweet every time they eat and some only tweet when breaking news explodes; some tweet strictly in stream of consciousness mode, and some tweet strategically, attempting with every word, link and hash tag to maximize the sales potential of Twitter’s 140 characters. Every Twitter participant, whether celebrity, business or average Joe has their own passions, agendas and incentives. From a business strategy perspective, Tweeting benefits your company [2] because it allows you to keep track of your prospects, customers, fans and partners. The question is; how can you unify your Twitter analytics efforts?

Stay on trend in five tools or less

Here are five tools that bring together Twitter and other social media platforms:

1. TweetDeck – TweetDeck [3], a company recently bought by Twitter, organize tweets into separate, customizable topic columns. This way, you can keep better track of the affiliates, fans and competitors you follow. The easy to read column structure auto-populates with tweets, messages and mentions.
2. Seesmic – Seesmic [4]’s benefit is the same as TweetDeck’s, with one key advantage: it allows users to manage social accounts on both Twitter and Facebook. Seesmic makes it easier to track multiple accounts, posts and tweets.
3. CoTweet – CoTweet [5] helps everyone in your business or organization, whether they work in marketing, IT, customer service or HR, manage and track conversations about your brand on Twitter and Facebook. It keeps everyone on the same page and up to date on the latest market pulse when interacting with clients.
4. Skimmer – Skimmer [6] allows users to track followers’ updates on their favorite social sites: Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and Blogger. A fun fact: Skimmer gives users the ability to customize their pages for a more unique user experience.
5. Mapmyfollowers – Mapmyfollowers [7] allows you to see where in the world your followers are. This tool brings additional insight to what markets you’ve already successfully tapped and which ones are still on the need-to-conquer list.

#trendy

Take advantage of these innovative social media tools to stay on trend. Don’t fall behind and risk missing something in the social media world. The way you present yourself with social media and the Internet essentially defines your company and your marketing strategy [8], for better or for worse.