Top Ten Social Media Apps

Managing all of your social media networks can be a chore.  Posting to just one social network on a regular basis can be a time consuming task let alone multiple posting to multiple social media sites.  And with the every growing number of social sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Foursqure, Yelp etc. it could get very time consuming.  Thankfully there are Free and Paid Apps available to simplify the process of posting and managing social media accounts as well as analysis and reporting tools available.

Ten Social Media Apps for Businesses

1. Hootsuite is free for up to five social profiles and works across a variety of mobile platforms including iPhone, Android and Blackberry as well as the desktop for Mac or Windows working on multiple web browsers including Safari, Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer.  The Free version of Hootsuite manages up to five of any combination of the following social networks: Twitter, Facebook, Google+ Business, LinkedIn personal and LinkedIn Corporate accounts.  Hootsuite allows users to create a single individualized post per social network or a single message post across multiple social media networks.  The Hootesuite scheduling system allows users to specify time and date for their posts or allow Hootsuite’s algorithm to automatically make posts for optimal viewing time periods.  Hootsuite is the most integrated app to the largest number of social networks and the widest variety of both desktop and mobile devices.  There is a paid version for $9.99/month allows unlimited social profiles as well as access to additional features including reddit social news feed and StumbleUpon service, as well as basic reporting and analytics.  More integrated reporting and analysis is available on a monthly charge at a per report level or charges.
2. Tweetdeck is a free web application for Mac or Windows working on multiple web browsers including Safari, Chrome and Firefox.  Tweetdeck is also available for Android user’s through the Google Play store.  Tweetdeck is one of the earliest twitter management apps and can manage multiple Twitter and Facebook accounts at once allowing you to monitor your feeds and display search results continuously.  This allows you to respond quickly to mentions of your company, brand or products made at any time.  Tweetdeck also has scheduling abilities allowing posts across social networks to be made at pre-selected time and dates.  Since its acquisition by Twitter, developers have improved usability and added features to Tweetdeck’s capabilities.  However, unlike Hootsuite, Tweetdeck doesn’t integrate Facebook Pages for Business, Google+, LinkedIn or any other social media outlets.
3. Bizo Switchboard allows you to know who’s clicking on your shared links and the opportunity to engage them.  The Bizo Switchboard is a free web-based toolkit that enables shortening and published shared links that are trackable.  These trackable shortened links embeds a code in your shortened link that will aggregate data in the Bizo dashboard with standard metrics that will give you data on those who followed your links.  Find out the Geo location, referrers, total clicks, unique clicks and much more.  BizoSwitchboard also has a “brand bar” that will create branded shared links that you are sharing through social media channels, email, press releases, etc.
4. Klout’s social media scoring dashboard analyzes social influence and assigns a score.  Allowing you to check out the scores of your followers to see their score across social media including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and other account activities.  This dashboard score can be a great way to find top influencers and popular accounts.
5. Topsy is a real time search system for social media updates.  Allowing you to build and monitor social media campaigns and topics.  Topsy aggregates information allowing examination of the latest Tweets, Google+ posts, photos and videos.  You can set email alerts for important keywords in order to monitor for your business, brand, or vertical.
6. Birdsong is a desktop social media reconnaissance tool that gives you analysis and competitive insights into what brands are doing on social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest.  Birdsong provides information about when brands are active, who’s engaging with them and reports the activity and compares it to their competitors.  Birdsong helps you to identify opportunities for optimizing brands across social media channels.
7. SociaLink is so new it hasn’t been released yet but is due to reach the Apple App store by the first week of December 2012.  This app was created by a trio of University of Arizona students to narrow down online connecting.  Utilizing Smartphone Bluetooth capabilities two people with the app connect through their phones which communicate each other’s acceptances of connections and relevant friend and follow requests automatically across selected social media accounts.  Connecting to non app users is simplified by using the email that links their social media pages together.  This will make sharing and connecting via social media simpler and faster than ever before.  SociaLink will allow for instant connections supporting Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.  If the app succeeds in the App Store the next step will be to create an Android app.
8. SNOView makes maintaining multiple network sites simpler.  SNOView Lite is a clean and simple interface that allows users to integrate multiple social network accounts into one app to allow you to view news feeds automatically in one main screen.  Connecting your Facebook, Twitter and Google + news feeds simply and easily into a single app can make keeping up with your friends and followers much easier.  It is the perfect way to read all your news feeds from Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ but does not allow you to update your status or compose tweets.  Available through the Google Play Store for Android.
9. Pinspiration is filling the gap that Pinterest has caused by not having an official app yet.  Pinspiration is available for Android and Windows Phones and allows you to post and pin Pinterest posts as well as check out boards and posts from fellow Pinterest users.
10. AgoraPulse is a management tool for Facebook.  The AgoraPulse allows you to update your page and schedule updates as well as applications that will assist in growing your fan audience.  AgoraPulse collects data based on information related to your fan interactions that can be utilized for targeting specific offers to your fan base.  AgoraPulse also has detailed analytics that will give you an overview of how your page and posts are performing.  Different levels of service give you more statistics and information concerning your Facebook page but also competitors’ Facebook pages compared to yours is available.

Although there is no single App that works across all social media sites or has all the functionality you may need a combination of the above ten social media apps can streamline your social media marketing and management processes in order to make the most of your time.