Archive for buffer

Buffer for Twitter and Facebook Gets Better

One of the truly killer apps for social media management is called Buffer. If you're not familiar, the idea is that, using Buffer, you connect your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts, and set schedules for each account. You can then add links to pages or stories, or craft status updates, and allow Buffer to publish those updates according to your predetermined schedule.

The Content Curator’s Toolbox

A content curator's job can be streamlined with the right combination of tools to aggregate content, organize it, easily share it, and then measure impact.

Buffer and Feedly: Two New Tools for News-Sharing

Businesses that want to be successful with social media and blogging must be mindful of news topics and trends within their industry. Breaking news and important industry stories are ripe for great blog posts. In order to monitor potential sources of information for sharing or blogging, business owners need to invest some time into a few tools.

Build a Better Buffer for Your Tweets

One of my social media secret weapons that saves me time making and sharing articles on Twitter is called Buffer App. This app lets me schedule my tweets so that they come out at predetermined times throughout the day.

6 Twitter Analytics Tools to Improve Your Marketing

social media toolsDo you know if your Twitter marketing is working?

Monitoring and analyzing your Twitter projects can be challenging.

With the right metrics, you can improve and tailor your Twitter campaigns for better results.

Luckily, third-party Twitter tools provide these metrics, but there are MANY tools to choose from out there.

So here I’ll share some of the best Twitter analytics tools to help you improve your Twitter marketing.

#1: SocialBro: Explore Your Community

I consider SocialBro one of the top three most effective marketing tools for businesses.

SocialBro comes with excellent analytics that give great insights not only about your marketing campaign, but also about your Twitter account and followers.

Here are the analytics tools available with SocialBro.

Real-time Analytics

Real-time Analytics gives you details of the people who are active users and have tweeted in the last 10 minutes in real time. This helps you determine the specific hour of the day when people are active.

It’s a quick way to know when you should be tweeting. This is more relevant than depending on studies done by others, because it’s tailored specifically for you and your Twitter community.

socialbro real time analytics

SocialBro's Real-time Analytics allows you to find the number of active users at a particular time.

Insights About Your Account

You’re able to get insights about your own Twitter account, as well as your followers.

You can see:

  • Number of followers you have
  • Number of followers who have not followed you back
  • Number of people you haven’t followed back
  • In which language your followers are tweeting
  • Time zone of your followers
  • Where your followers are from
  • Number of followers your followers have
  • How frequently your followers go online
  • Number of tweets your followers have sent
socialbro insights

SocialBro analytics give you insights about your Twitter account.

You can use this additional data to improve your Twitter marketing. You’ll have better insights about your followers, which means you can tailor your Twitter content to be more relevant to your community.

For example, if you find that your followers are mostly from the Asia-Pacific region, you should design your campaign to broadcast according to their time zone.

socialbro time zone

By using SocialBro analytics, you'll be able to get insights about your followers such as their time zones.

#2: TweetReach: Determine How Far Your Tweets Travel

TweetReach helps you determine the reach of your tweets. All you have to do is insert the URL of your blog or any post and you’ll get information regarding the post.

Here’s an example of a search for one of my recent articles on Social Media Examiner.

tweetreach report

TweetReach analyzes a URL and gives you detailed data of the URL.

This is the data you get:

  • The tweet’s or URL’s reach
  • How much exposure the URL received
  • How many times it was retweeted on a particular day
  • Top contributors who shared a particular URL
  • User with the most retweets
  • A list of 50 contributors of a particular URL
tweetreach top contributor

TweetReach's data of the top contributors or the most retweets.

With the last three data points, not only do you get insights about influential users who have shared your article, but you also get a list of the top 50 people who shared your post or tweet.

tweetreach top 50

List of the top contributors who shared a particular URL or tweet.

You can do a variety of things with this information, such as add these influential users to a list and continue to build relationships with them, and thank them for sharing your tweets and more. TweetReach gives you the data you need to build a targeted network of people who share the same interests as you.

Alternatively, if you’re looking to build relationships with users or customers, you can do a little bit more research and use this tool to find relevant and targeted users.

#3: Buffer: Schedule Your Content

Not only is Buffer the best way to schedule your tweets without spending much time, but it also comes with a simple, straightforward analytics tool to help you determine how effective your tweets are.

Buffer provides you data such as:

  • The number of clicks you receive
  • How many people retweet your tweet
  • How many people favorite your tweet
  • A list of people who retweet and favorite your tweet with their username and the number of followers they have
buffer analytics

Buffer's platform comes with built-in analytics that can help you improve your Twitter marketing.

This helps you to find out how effective your tweets are and the best time you should be tweeting. Additionally, you can quickly thank your followers from Buffer’s platform.

#4: TwentyFeet: Track Your Social Media Stats

TwentyFeet is a simple, straightforward tool to use. It doesn’t require any time beyond signing up to get some insights into your Twitter account. Once you have registered on the site, it provides you with metrics such as:

  • Twitter account’s follower growth
  • Amount of mentions you received
  • Amount of retweets you received
  • Amount of tweets in a day
  • Retweets given in a day
  • Replies given in a day

My favorite insight from this tool is the influence indicator, where you can get insights on the number of mentions and retweets you have in a particular day.

twentyfeet metrics

TwentyFeet's metrics on mentions and retweets received in a particular week.

As you can see here, the number of retweets I received on November 26 was higher compared to other days. With this data, it’s easy to look back and find out what I was doing on that particular day and try to repeat that success.

#5: Goo.gl URL Shortener

Every business needs to use at least one URL shortener service. There are Goo.gl, bit.ly and many more out there. Some social media management tools like HootSuite or Social Engage come with their own URL shorteners for you to track how effective your tweets are through their platform.

My favorite is Google’s URL shortener, Goo.gl. I love the simple design and how easy it is to use.

Goo.gl is a great tool that lets you track:

  • The number of people who are clicking on your links
  • The types of browser people use to read your article
  • The countries where they’re from
  • The device or platform they use (this gives you insights into the number of mobile or computer device users)
goo.gl

Goo.gl gives you metrics about people clicking your links.

This gives you insights not only about how effective your tweet is, but also about the demographics of your followers or people who are clicking your links.

#6: Klout: How You Influence the World

With regards to Twitter analytics, Klout helps you do two things. The first is improve your content to tweet more about things that your followers are interested in, and the second is maintain relationships with influential users.

Although the measurement of influence is not perfect, you can get some great insights that help you improve your marketing on Twitter. Klout provides a variety of data and insights including:

Klout Moments

This allows you to see your influential tweets in the last 90 days. Here you can get insights about the type and topics of tweets your followers are interested in.

klout moments

Klout moments allow you to find tweets that generated "actions" by your followers.

Influencers

Who are the influential users who have spent time engaging with you? Klout gives you a list of users who have previously engaged with you arranged according to their Klout scores. This is one way to identify and target influential users who may add more value to your networking.

klout influencers

Klout Influencers will show you a list of influencers arranged according to their Klout scores.

Summary

There are many useful Twitter analytics tools out there, but these are some of my favorites. I’ve constantly used them to cover all of my marketing bases.

What do you think? Are there any other tools that you would like included in the list? Join the conversation below and let me hear your thoughts!

Social Media Newsfeed: Instagram ‘Monetization’ | Yahoo Email

 Click here to receive the Morning Social Media Newsfeed via email.

InstagramAds Likely Coming to Instagram (SocialTimes)
Facebook is looking to monetize Instagram, said the company’s vice president of global marketing solutions, Carolyn Everson, in an interview with Business Insider. Monetization, in all likelihood, means ads and other forms of sponsored content. BetaBeat Only, Facebook didn’t confirm that ads are coming, so much as the fact that yes, the service eventually needs to start contributing to the bottom line. Click through to read the exchange with Everson. Business Insider Thus far, the photo-sharing app has been ad-free. But ever since Facebook acquired the company, speculation has been rife that the service’s big, broad, relatively uncluttered palette is ripe for sponsored pics and posts. The Next Web Instagram may in fact feature ad spots someday, as Facebook does now, and promoted posts could also be on the way, but there’s something much more likely already in the works. Now that Instagram’s user data is readily available to Facebook, the company can access entirely new data points which tackle a problem it had long struggled with: location.

Yahoo Rolls Out New Email Service (SocialTimes)
CEO Marissa Mayer took to the Yahoo blog Wednesday to announce a substantial update to Yahoo’s popular email service. The update focuses on eliminating “distractions” and allowing users to get through their email workflows faster. USA Today The new version of Yahoo’s webmail rolls out over the next couple of days. Yahoo also updated its email for Windows 8, and perhaps more critically, its Android and iPhone/iPod Touch email apps, since so many of us frequently check our mail on mobile phones and tablets first, and for that matter more often than on any other platform. Boston.com/AP The email overhaul is part of Mayer’s crusade to give people more reasons to visit the company’s online services and stick around longer. In doing so, Mayer hopes to sell more advertising and accelerate Yahoo’s revenue growth after years of financial malaise.

Flickr Launches Photo Filters Using Same SDK Provider as Twitter (SocialTimes)
Aviary, the company that powers Twitter’s newly released photo filters also powers Flickr’s, which Yahoo launched on Wednesday. “Now, all Flickr users, on web and mobile, can make their photos look amazing with Aviary’s tools, filters and effects,” Aviary boasted on its blog.

Here’s What People Were Tweeting About TV in 2012 (LostRemote)
Among the most tweeted about events of 2012 were the Summer Olympics in London. Twitter partnered with NBC during the games, and while it ensured that the games were at the top of everyone’s feeds, it was not all positive. Other events included the 2012 presidential election (and the TV coverage of the election) as well as the 2012 MTV Video Music Awards.

Foursquare Rolls Out Smarter Venue Pages in Android Update (SocialTimes)
Foursquare released an Android update Wednesday that serves up different versions of a venue’s landing page depending on how the user navigates to the page. The app will come to iPhone “soon,” Foursquare said.

Facebook Aids FBI in Bringing Down International Cyber-Crime Ring (AllFacebook)
Facebook played a part in an operation led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation that resulted in 10 arrests related to an international cyber-criminal network that was believed to have infected some 11 million computers and caused more than $850 million in total losses. Reuters reported that the FBI worked with several international law enforcement agencies and Facebook to bring down “Yahos,” which used the “Butterfly Botnet” to inflict computer users with malware between 2010 and this past October. This enabled the group to steal credit card information, banking information, and other personal data.

Buffer Update Offers New Ways to Maximize Your Tweets (AllTwitter)
The best part about the Buffer update is the analytics, including “top posts.” So beyond seeing how many clicks, retweets, likes and such, you can also see which posts (that you’ve shared via Buffer) are the most popular.

Infographic: Twitter Boosts Fundraising Efforts Nearly 10-Fold (SocialTimes)
Two-thousand-and-twelve was a very good year for social giving, and MDG Advertising has the stats to prove it. In a new infographic, the company takes a look at how social media is transforming the way we give, including gifts, groups and givers engaged in digital donations.

Watch Out Netflix: RedBox Instant Streaming Service is Coming Soon (SocialTimes)
As if there weren’t already enough streaming options out there, between Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Vudu, HBO Go and even Toys R Us, RedBox has partnered with Verizon to launch a streaming service of its own. Redbox Instant, which has been rumored to be in the works for some time now, is now finally getting under way.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

3 Twitter Tools to Enhance Your Marketing

social media toolsAre you looking for tools to help better manage your Twitter presence?

Managing your Twitter presence along with your other online networks can be difficult if you have limited resources.

In this article, you’ll discover 3 tools to make your basic Twitter marketing tasks easier.

#1: Manage and Analyze Your Community with SocialBro

Every business needs at least one management tool to manage its Twitter presence, and there are many excellent Twitter management tools to choose from.

SocialBro is one of my favorites, thanks to the excellent features it offers.

socialbro features

SocialBro offers many features to manage your Twitter account.

SocialBro allows you to not only manage your Twitter account, but it also provides you with useful information you can use for your social media strategy.

Here are some examples of how to use this cool Twitter tool.

Target your business niche

When you start to build a community, you’ll want to make sure you follow the right people. SocialBro helps you find your target audience through a function called Discover Twitter Users.

This feature works with filters and search options to give you the data you need to find your relevant audience.

socialbro filters

SocialBro's filters allow you to find your relevant target demographic.

You can filter your search based on time zone, language, verified/non-verified users, public/private profiles, profiles with or without URL and profiles with or without customized avatar.

After that, you can arrange the searches by doing a second filter based on influencer score, followers, number of followers, following, lists they are in, followers/friends ratio and more.

This helps narrow your search results to find relevant Twitter users to follow. And this is beneficial as you can often create a more dynamic community when you use more specific targeting.

You’ll want to use these results to create lists to keep track of the people you’re interested in. For example, you can create Twitter lists for clients, influencers, industry thought leaders and competitors to follow their conversations easily.

Another way to find relevant followers is to use the Monitor a Hashtag feature. It’s a great way to keep tabs on people relevant to your business and follow their conversations on Twitter.

Here’s an example of a search on #blogchat, a Twitter community that actively discusses topics on blogging every week.

socialbro monitor hashtag

When you monitor hashtags, you can find relevant Twitter users who use them.

With the Monitor a Hashtag feature, you’re able to see who has used the hashtag, users who have followed you, users who have not followed you and users whom you’re following and aren’t following you back.

You can choose to engage with the people who aren’t following you. And when you get to know them, they’re more likely to follow you back. This is a great way to build your Twitter community with people who share similar interests.

Twitter is all about social commentary, so listen to conversations to define the community your business needs on Twitter.

Analyze your competitors

SocialBro allows you to analyze any account you’re interested in. This function is ideal to:

  • Keep an eye on a competitor’s Twitter account and compare it with yours.
  • Analyze its evolution to see who they recently followed, common followers, who you have not followed and more.
  • Keep up with their social media strategy and it may highlight areas where you could modify your strategy.
socialbro competitors

Results of competitors' analysis.

Your business most likely targets the same audience as your competitors. With SocialBro, you’re able to use the filters mentioned above to zoom into your competitors’ followers, quickly analyze their followers and determine whether they’re relevant to your community.

You can decide to follow your competitors’ followers or simply create a Twitter list of their followers and engage with them in the future.

Find your best time to tweet

It’s important to maximize your time on Twitter. SocialBro has a feature that lets you know when your followers are online and find the optimal times to engage with them.

socialbro best time to tweet

Best time to tweet based on SocialBro's analysis.

SocialBro is a great tool to help you engage with your community. It gives you the ability to search both within your community and throughout the entire Twitter platform using a variety of search criteria.

Another benefit of using SocialBro is that it can be integrated with Buffer, the next tool I discuss.

Other alternatives to SocialBro for Twitter management are SocialEngage, Sprout Social, HootSuite and TweetDeck.

#2: Make it Easy to Schedule With Buffer

In addition to a Twitter management tool, every business needs a scheduling tool. Although many Twitter management tools come with scheduling features, none of them can compare with one of the simplest Twitter scheduling tools available, Buffer.

Buffer makes it easy to schedule your tweets. All you have to do is pre-set the date and time of your posting schedule ONCE and you’re done. You’re able to space out your tweets to avoid spamming your followers.

bufferapp timing

Schedule the times you'd like to tweet in your Buffer dashboard.

Need to figure out the best time to schedule your tweets on Buffer? I recommend you use Tweriod or SocialBro for this. Once you’ve set your timing, the hard work is done.

To add a post or a tweet to your account is simple—you can either use their Google Chrome extension, their iPhone app or even the Buffer share button installed on many sites.

buffer button

When a website has a Buffer button, just click it and you've buffered a post.

Here’s how to Buffer an article

After you find an article to share and click on the Buffer button, a pop-up like the one below appears.

add post to buffer

You can either use the same text or change the text you want to tweet and click the green Add to Buffer button and you're done.

All you have to do is select the account you want to use, change the text if you want to and click Add to Buffer.

You’re done! Your Buffer is now set to tweet based on the times you set earlier.

Buffer also offers analytics to find out if you’re getting the best out of your tweets.

buffer analytics

Analytics from Buffer showing you how your tweet performs.

You can get statistics based on the number of clicks, retweets, mentions and favorites all from their website or on their iPhone app.

Tip: It increases your visibility to thank people for their retweets. Even if you have little time to do this, try to thank those with a large number of followers. It’s easy to do this from Buffer’s website.

With Buffer’s free account, you can have one Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn account and schedule a maximum of 10 posts per day.

If your business has an active community, you may need to upgrade to the paid pro plan to schedule more than 10 posts per day.

Buffer is a great tool for small business owners who want to optimize their tweets and save time.

And Buffer has partnered with many other tools such as SocialBro to improve your social media marketing experience.

#3: Manage Your Twitter Account With Tweepi

Tweepi is a great additional tool for small businesses. You can use Tweepi to manage and grow your Twitter followers.

Tweepi is quite straightforward. It allows you to unfollow inactive users, add new followers and easily follow back the people following you on Twitter.

You can sort Twitter users based on followers, tweets, last tweet and Klout score. This information is presented in an easy-to-read format.

It’s easy to identify inactive followers and unfollow them. This is important to keep your Twitter community relevant to your goals.

tweepi features

Tweepi helps you manage your followers.

One of the features that I like to use is the Follow Followers function. As the name suggests, you can easily follow the followers of any account you choose. For example, this means you can follow the people who are following your competitors on Twitter.

How to use the Follow Followers function on Tweepi

All you have to do is insert the Twitter account you wish to follow. You can choose the Twitter account for any of your competitors, influential users or highly active accounts. Then simply click Start Following.

tweepi follow

The Follow Followers feature allows you to follow users who are following any Twitter account.

Next, Tweepi gives you a list of 20 users who recently followed the account and you can choose from there.

tweepi following

This list shows the most recent followers.

I like to sort the results on this list by Last Tweet and follow those who have a real photo of a person in their profile. You’ll want to be careful to avoid following businesses that use Twitter for the sole purpose of promoting their products.

Once you’ve selected the people you want to follow, simply click Follow and you’re done.

Tip: Follow a small number of people. I suggest you follow fewer than 100 per hour and never more than 500 in a day.

Tweepi applies Twitter’s rules of only considering a certain number of follows at a time as legitimate. If the number of people you follow is too high, you’ll be considered a spammer. So you’ll want to use this tool wisely and with moderation to get the most out of building the community you want on Twitter.

Another alternative to manage your Twitter community is ManageFlitter.

Choose Your Twitter Tools

There are many useful Twitter tools, but these three are a great place to start your Twitter marketing. As you move forward, choose additional tools that best fit your social media goals.

What do you think? Are these all the tools you need? Are there any other tools that you would like include? Join the conversation below and let me hear your thoughts.

24 Must-Have Social Media Marketing Tools

social media toolsAre you looking for ways to enhance your social media marketing?

Do you want new tools to simplify your job?

We asked a group of social media pros for the hottest social media tools they use today.

Check them out to see if these social media tools are a good fit for you!

#1: Unlock to Share Plugin

My favorite social marketing tool of all time is the unlock to share plugin. What is it? It’s a simple plugin that “unlocks” additional content when your web visitors share your stuff on Facebook, Twitter or Google+.

viral lock code canyon

Make your site go viral by requiring the user to share your link to unlock content.

Why is this so valuable? Well, today everyone has a Like button on their site. But if you want your audience to share your stuff, you need to give them a little incentive! That’s exactly what this plugin does.

In my most recent experiment, I had 452 people land on a page where they had access to royalty-free music they could use in their videos. If you shared the post, I gave you an additional five music tracks. Out of those 452 visitors, 379 shared to unlock those five extra songs!  That’s 84%!

These unlock to share plugins are everywhere. The one I used was found over on CodeCanyon.

James Wedmore, co-founder of Video Traffic Academy and founder of Video Sales Magic and Video Copy Pro.

#2: SlideShare

This isn’t a “new” tool, but I’m amazed by the number of marketers who still don’t use SlideShare as a main staple in their social media distribution.  According to the latest research from Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs, just 23% of B2B marketers and only 7% of B2C marketers leverage SlideShare (which now sees approximately 60 million users per month).

SlideShare is a great tool to use as part of your company's storytelling process.

We continue to integrate SlideShare into our visual storytelling, and it’s now a key part of our lead generation process.  It’s a true sleeping giant.

Joe Pulizzifounder of the Content Marketing Institute and author of Managing Content Marketing and co-author of Get Content, Get Customers. 

#3: Commun.it

I use Commun.it to help build and nurture relationships with supporters, influencers and potential customers on Twitter.

The basic service, which is free, keeps track of your most valuable followers and interactions, rolling up the data into an action-driven dashboard. One glance and you’ll know whom to follow, whom to thank and to whom you need to respond—all of which you can do directly within the tool.

Another big plus: You can quickly spot your most active conversation buddies. Commun.it tallies up the number of exchanges between you and other Tweeters, indicating whether or not you’re following each other.

communit

Commun.it rolls up your data into an action-driven dashboard.

In addition to the dashboard, Commun.it has reporting functionality. I love the way it lists hard-to-find stats in one handy place, including new followers, the handles of who stopped following you, RTs of your content, direct messages and total reach.

Commun.it also records this social activity for your Twitter handle, so you can keep tabs on your own contributions and connections in the Twitterverse.

Shelly Lucas, senior marketing manager and leader of social media at Dun & Bradstreet.

#4: YouTube’s Audience Retention Report

You’ve probably read that YouTube search is now optimized for time watched. Effective YouTube marketing demands that we understand (and create better videos based on) how our videos are watched, at least as much as we “optimize” them for SEO, etc.  Those “gurus” who tell you to buy thousands of 5-second views to bump up your view count … yes, that does the search damage you always knew it would.

This is why audience retention is the new view count.

The new Audience Retention Report in YouTube is, without a doubt, the most important social media marketing tool to come around in a long time.  You can now see what kind of retention you’re getting from your videos and how it compares to everyone else’s.  Want to get to the top of the results?  Study this Audience Retention Report like a hawk and update your video making strategies accordingly.

The following video walks you through a couple of reports and offers some insights on how to respond.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nA8oqIbP7Dk

Paul Colligan, education czar for Traffic Geyser Inc. and CEO of Colligan.com. 

#5: Cyfe

While there are a number of enterprise-level listening and monitoring tools available to assist brands, a new tool that I’ve been a fan of is Cyfe. It provides visibility into social channel and search metrics that typically only admins of those channels/tools have access to.

all in one business dashboard cyfe

Cyfe is an all-in-one dashboard that helps you monitor and analyze data scattered across all of your online services.

For example, we’re able to set up a visual real-time dashboard for GoToMeeting, which provides brand-specific Facebook Insights data, YouTube Analytics, Twitter and Twitter Search information, SEOMoz, Google Trends, Google Analytics and a number of other social or search data points.

As a social media team, we’re often asked for such information from team members who are curious about the community, channel interactions and other related questions. Cyfe has enabled to us to make that data easily accessible to our team members.

Going one step beyond social and search, Cyfe also enables you to bring in your CRM, email marketing and blog data, with new integrations shipping on a regular basis.

Justin Levystrategic advisor on all social media activities at Citrix Online and editor-in-chief of Workshifting.com.

#6: Cloze

The newest tool that I’m most excited about is Cloze, recommended to me by Jascha Kaykas-Wolff of Mindjet.

Imagine an aggregation and curation system for your social network and that’s what Cloze provides. I’m able to view the activity of people by date in my network and then check them off, respond to them, like them or retweet them directly from the Cloze interface.

cloze

Cloze helps you increase your interaction with those most important to you.

It’s absolutely genius and is already saving me tons of time, increasing my interaction with those most important to me and reducing the clutter and wasted time of having five channels open that I’m constantly trying to stay abreast of. This is the inbox of the future! Cloze is currently in beta.

Douglas Karr, founder and chief blogger at the Marketing Technology Blog, founder of DK New Media (an inbound marketing agency) and author of Corporate Blogging for Dummies.

#7: AgoraPulse

There is no shortage of social media marketing tools these days, that’s for sure. But despite the overwhelming number of tools out there, it’s still very difficult to find the ones that will really deliver while remaining accessible for a small-business budget.

When it comes to managing our Facebook Page, I’ve been very impressed with AgoraPulse. It focuses on Facebook (at least for now), but provides everything your Facebook Page will ever need.

In addition to contest and promotion applications that are a “must-have” for every Facebook Page, AgoraPulse offers unique features that really make a difference, such as:

  • Detailed benchmark with competitors

    agorapulse

    AgoraPulse shows you a detailed benchmark with your competitors.

  • Fan ranking and qualification

    agorapulse

    The fan management feature shows you fan ranking and qualification.

  • Advanced statistics and personalized content recommendations

    agorapulse

    You can also track average users reached by day of week.

They also offer a ton of other great features such as advanced statistics, automated moderation and even admin rights and workflow management. These are the kind of features that used to be only available in expensive enterprise-level solutions. Getting access to such advanced and useful features for a price that every small businesses can afford does make a big difference.

Aaron Kahlow, CEO of Online Marketing Connect and chairman and founder of the Online Marketing Summit and its related educational arm, the Online Marketing Institute.

#8: GaggleAMP

One application that I’ve recently been exposed to and am excited about is GaggleAMP. I talk to many marketers who say, “If only our sales and business development team would share our social media postings, it would help us reach a greater—and more relevant—audience in social media.”

This is especially relevant in B2B companies where you traditionally have a large sales force compared to a small number of people in marketing. That sales force represents a potential army of internal brand advocates who can help make a company’s social media marketing efforts much more effective.

googleamp

Leverage employees, partners, customers and fans to share your company's social media messages on your behalf.

With the emergence of GaggleAMP, social media and marketing directors can now utilize the reach of their internal staff to help spread their message in social media, and internal employees have complete control in deciding exactly which messages they would like to share on which platforms and how frequently.

Companies simply sign up to GaggleAMP, create a “Gaggle” (a group revolving around their content), and then request that interested employees join the Gaggle. Employees then authorize their social networks and decide which content they would like to share with their network.

GaggleAMP can send notifications when new content is available to be posted, and there is even a “point” system to gamify social sharing and reward those internal employees who are good sharers.

googleamp member

GaggleAMP tracks activity, allowing you to report on the impact and ROI for every message and campaign.

B2B companies are sitting on a goldmine of brand advocates who work at their company. By using GaggleAMP, they can organize and leverage their internal tribe while ensuring control over social media messages that are sent out externally.

For employees, it’s internal content curation served up on a platter to give them more timely and relevant content to share with their networks and maintain mindshare on whichever social networks the company’s customers or clients are on.

I expect to hear about more companies adopting GaggleAMP in the months to come!

Neal Schaffer, founder of Windmills Marketing, is a leading social media strategist and teaches social media marketing at Rutgers University.

#9: SproutSocial

I’ve been enjoying the statistics and tools available on SproutSocial, and am using it to get good Twitter and Facebook overviews of my accounts and for some of my clients’ statistics.

You can also do some Twitter account comparisons, schedule content, bring in your Google Reader to watch for content and share accounts with others.

sproutsocial

Deliver beautiful detailed reports to your organization or customers.

If you manage many accounts, you can easily create nice-looking reports that give a good overview of activity and growth and SproutSocial is reasonably priced.

Andrea Vahl, social media coach, speaker and strategist and Facebook community manager for Social Media Examiner.

#10: Reachli

Reachli (formerly known as Pinerly) is the hottest new Pinterest analytics tool. Similar to Facebook and Twitter apps such as Buffer and HootSuite, Reachli allows users to pre-schedule pins and view feedback data such as click-through rates and number of repins. Creating social campaigns on Reachli is easy with its clean and simplified design.

Although the site is optimal for Pinterest analytics, it also allows users to post on any social platform and benefit from similar analyses. Boasting comprehensive capabilities, Reachli is an ideal page-management tool for any brand or community manager.

pinerly analytics

Reachli helps you understand what works and what doesn't to help you optimize your posts.

Social media analytics are essential in providing users with optimal content, as well as discovering hard data to support social initiatives. Offering real-time analytics and best practices data, Reachli helps you optimize your Pinterest content based on the analysis of click-through rates and repin feedback. This beneficial information can result in more effective scheduling and more engaging content.

For a low cost, brands can also employ Reachli advertising, a service that uses a unique algorithm to match content with its most relevant online audience across the social sphere. As Pinterest grows in popularity, brands will find the capabilities of Reachli to be extremely beneficial in most effectively leveraging the social platform.

Dave Kerpen, cofounder and CEO of Likeable, author of Likeable Social Media and the forthcoming Likeable Business.

#11: Instagram

For the team here at Sony, one of the new platforms we are most excited about is Instagram. When we launched our brand channel (@sony) 4 months ago, we couldn’t have imagined the wealth of beautiful, funny and creative content we would find. We’ve seen everything from the cutest pups and kitties with Sony products to gorgeous, artistic shots taken by professional Sony photographers.

But the best thing about all of this content is that the community has been more than willing to let us share their work (crediting them, of course).

We’ve asked hundreds of Instagrammers if we could share one of their Sony-related photos and have never once been declined. The result is that we get access to authentic and cool content while honoring this community of artists.

sony instagram

Instagrammers share their photos with Sony.

We’re also exploring holding contests on the platform and have just recently launched our very first #SonyX contest. Although we’re only two days in, we’ve already received a lot of enthusiasm from the community and are building awareness for our new X headphones via the photo entries and the use of the hashtag.

Callan Green, senior social media specialist for Sony Electronics.

#12: Buffer

Buffer is to social media marketers like what a wand is to Harry Potter—it’s one of the coolest and most useful social media tools I’ve ever used.

As you know, in order to benefit from social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, you have to actively be posting things—an account with no life is not going to be very interesting to those who follow it. With Buffer, you can schedule your tweets and posts ahead of time and create a consistent social media presence on your accounts.

Often, I’ll schedule a week’s worth of tweets, which will automatically drive traffic back to my site or keep my audience engaged throughout the week, without lifting a finger.

Of course, it’s best practice to follow up with those who reply and you may have specific time-sensitive tweets to share in between your scheduled posts, but anything that allows me to be more efficient in my business and ensure that I am posting stuff when I might not have the time otherwise is gold in my opinion.

bufferapp

With Buffer App, you can schedule your tweets and posts ahead of time and create a consistent social media presence on your accounts.

In addition, the team behind Buffer is always friendly, responsive and looking to improve, which speaks highly about the tool and what kind of company created it, and where it’s headed in the future.

Pat Flynn, founder of the Smart Passive Income Blog.

#13: SocialToaster

I’m excited to see some of the advancements in using social media to increase brand advocacy. SocialToaster is making great strides in combining gamification for sharing brand-related content with superfans to drive reach and engagement.

Brands like QuickenLoans, JustFab and the Baltimore Ravens are leveraging these tools to connect with fans in an authentic and mutually beneficial way to increase brand loyalty and advocacy. It’s exciting to see social media used in a way that drives and enhances brand passion.

step by step social toaster

You can use SocialToaster to amplify your message.

Nichole Kelly, president of SME Digital, a division of Social Media Explorer and author of How to Measure Social Media: A Step-By-Step Guide to Developing and Assessing Social Media ROI.

#14: Pop-Ups

In the past, pop-ups were hated by many marketers, and rightfully so due to their unprofessional look and feel, plus the fact they were so disruptive to readers each time they came onto the site.

But if you look around today, some of the most professional websites—like Social Media Examiner, Content Marketing Institute and others are using pop-ups for lead capture.

The main reason for this shift and “acceptance” is as follows:

  1. Pop-ups today can be set on delays and scheduled. In other words, you can set a pop-up so that once a viewer closes it out, it does not reappear on their screen again for whatever amount of time you’d like—be it a week, a month or forever.
  2. Now pop-ups look much more professional than in the past. Great visuals can be added, they can fade in and fade out depending on how long someone has been on the site, and their custom options are plentiful.

I added a pop-up feature to The Sales Lion a few months ago and the results have been exceptional. Instead of getting 15-25 signups a day for people downloading my eBook and subscribing to the newsletter, I’m now getting 25-40 a day, which is a huge increase.

At the same time, I haven’t had any long-time readers complain that they had to see a pop-up one time, which was a fear I initially had.

the sales lion pop up

The Sales Lion saw a huge increase in opt-ins from the use of this pop-up.

If you’re looking at adding a pop-up lead capture to your blog, you may want to consider Pippity, PopUp Domination or others.

Marcus Sheridan, co-owner of River Pools and Spas, founder of PoolSchool.us and founder of the popular sales/marketing blog The Sales Lion.

#15: LinkedIn’s Skills and Expertise Page

What if there was a social media tool that could tell you:

  • The best keywords to use in your social profiles?
  • Who the key influencers are and how to get in touch with them?
  • The exact companies you should be targeting with your particular skill set? What kinds of groups you should join for optimal relationship-building?
  • What companies you should work for and who you know at those companies?

Of course by now you’ve probably guessed that I’m talking about LinkedIn. But the tool I’m talking about in particular is LinkedIn’s Skills and Expertise page. After entering “Facebook Marketing” in the search box there, this is what came up:

linked in skills

The LinkedIn Skills and Expertise page helps you find experts in different fields.

Keywords: “Related Skills” show up on the left-hand side of the Skills page when you search for a skill to add to your LinkedIn profile. Think of them as relevant keywords. LinkedIn will also show you the popularity of those particular keywords (the higher the number, the more people are using that skill) Hint: Use the less popular skills too!

Influencers: LinkedIn will show you the influencers in your particular skill set by name, picture and title. It will show you how you’re connected to them. If they are a first-degree connection, send them a message. For a second-degree connection, ask for an introduction. Outside of your immediate network? You can still reach them through InMail or a shared group. What a powerful way to build your network and find mentors or advisers!

Companies, Groups and Jobs: The Skills page will also highlight the companies, jobs and groups that are recognized by LinkedIn as being relevant to your skill set. This can save you an enormous amount of time when you’re looking for companies to offer your services to, for groups to engage with to build your strategic relationships or jobs that will suit you. And of course, because this is LinkedIn, you’ll see who is already in your network and can give you access to that company, group or job!

Skills is truly a doorway into stronger connections and better business.

Viveka von Rosen, known internationally as the “LinkedIn Expert” and author of LinkedIn Marketing: An Hour a Day.

#16: Scoop.it

I originally thought Scoop.it was just another curation tool, a platform that allows users to gather together great content that they’ve discovered online. A Scoop.it button on the browser window can now rest besides those for List.ly and Pinterest, so that as you go around the Internet and find great content, you can simply click and share.

scoopit

Scoop.it is a powerful curation tool.

When you “scoop” a tweet, a blog post, or any other content, you’re creating a post that is added to a category, or a “topic.” You can easily create new topics that others can follow. In turn, you can follow the topics of others.

At any point, a post can be re-shared through a number of other social platforms. People can add comments to a post, or give it a thumbs-up. Combined, these features make for a robust content curation tool that allow you to build community around topics, and to nurture relationships with influencers by sharing and discussing their content.

When you create topics, Scoop.it suggests content for you to add. You can manage how Scoop.it recommends content based on keywords or the feeds of particular users. Those feeds can include their blogs, Twitter feeds, Twitter lists, hashtags, and Facebook.

In this way, Scoop.it becomes a powerful social discovery tool and if focused on an individual, can even act as an influencer outreach management tool.

If you’re a HootSuite user, you can now integrate your topics right into HootSuite. With or without HootSuite, though, Scoop.it can act as a central hub to discover great content, build community around that content, and nurture relationships with influencers.

Ric Dragon, CEO and co-founder of the digital marketing agency DragonSearch and author of Social Marketology.

#17: Pocket

The hottest social media marketing tool I’ve discovered in the last 6 months is Pocket (formerly known as Read it Later).  At first glance you may think that Pocket is simply a private online bookmarking tool, but it’s actually much more than that. Pocket is a centralized mobile content curation and social media sharing control center!

pocket

Put articles, videos or pretty much anything into Pocket for later.

You can save and tag content from anywhere (your smartphone, tablet or computer) to your Pocket account. You can even save content to Pocket from Google Reader and Twitter using the browser extensions.

pocket browser extensions

Save content to Pocket from Google Reader and Twitter using the browser extensions.

The real power of Pocket, however, is that it integrates with over 300 web and mobile apps. This means that you can collect the best content you discover on any device and share it whenever and wherever you wish through Pocket.

Pocket drives my entire social and mobile content curation and social sharing system, whether I’m sitting at my desk or on the go.

pocket 300 apps integration

Pocket integrates with over 300 web and mobile apps.

Here are three tips for using Pocket:

  1. Download the Pocket app to your mobile device and/or tablet and install the bookmarklet to your web browser. If you have a Mac, be sure to install the Mac application. (You can now share content to your social networks directly from the new Pocket Mac Application.)
  2. Save the content that you want to share with your social networks to Pocket from your computer, mobile phone or tablet. Be sure to add the tag “Share” to the particular articles you save that you later want to share with your social connections (you can add as many tags as you like).
  3. Each day, login to Pocket on your smartphone or tablet and push the articles tagged with “Share” to Buffer (my personal favorite), or literally to almost any social network of your choice. Don’t forget to insert your own insights or comments when you share!

Note: Typically I share from Pocket to Buffer because it integrates with Bit.ly and enables me to track the links I’ve shared. Buffer also distributes my social shares at optimal times so that they can be more visible with my network connections.

Pocket is a smart content collection and distribution tool that allows you to become a master social curator!

Stephanie Sammons, founder and CEO of Wired Advisor, a digital strategy and marketing agency for financial advisers, business professionals and professional services firms.

#18: Crowdbooster

What if you had a system that informed you exactly when your best times to tweet are in order to reach the maximum audience, based on how your followers respond? And what if the system showed you the Klout scores of new influential followers so you can follow up? And how about spotlighting @mentions that you hadn’t responded to yet?

Look no further than Crowdbooster!

crowdbooster

Crowdbooster always shows your best times to tweet at the top of the dashboard. The times are adjusted as your followers respond.

But this awesome tool doesn’t just analyze Twitter. You can also dig into your Facebook Fan Page metrics to analyze your top posts, number of impressions, fan growth, top fans and more. You can even schedule posts via Crowdbooster for both Twitter and Facebook.

crowdbooster

Crowdbooster displays colorful "bubbles" showing how well your tweets (and Facebook posts) are doing. Hover over any bubble for more information as shown in the black box.

You get one Twitter account and one Facebook Page for free. Upgrade levels include up to 10 or 30 total social accounts (currently only Twitter and Facebook Pages) for a reasonable fee. Give it a try and see what you think.

crowdbooster

See at-a-glance metrics for follower growth, influential followers, retweets and more.

The nice thing about Crowdbooster is the team is super helpful, friendly and approachable… and they’re always iterating, so stay tuned for even more awesome features in the pipeline!

Mari Smith, leading social media strategist and premier Facebook marketing expert. Co-author of Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day and author of The New Relationship Marketing.

#19: Lithium

We use Lithium for our new community platform. Its phenomenal capabilities allow for a lean team to rally users, influencers and our own associates to participate. From an organic growing knowledge base through the ability to reward frequent contribution, it is state of the art with WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) functionality and a truly object-oriented environment that makes it easy for a layman to customize.

lithium

Lithium helps companies unlock the passions of their customers to build brand advocacy, drive sales, reduce service costs and accelerate innovation.

Lithium also has the capability to do private moderation areas so we can all learn what FAQs need answers, solution creation both by us and by users to populate the knowledge base with good content and the ability to co-create content with guest bloggers.

Kat Smith, director of social media and commerce at Petco.

#20: Tweetbot

Tweetbot is a Twitter app that allows you to do everything you can do on any other Twitter app with an extra killer feature: the ability to filter out tweets.

tweetbot

Tweetbot allows you to filter out tweets.

This app allows you to focus on the tweets that matter in your Twitter stream. It’s available at the Apple App Store.

Michael Stelzner, founder and CEO of Social Media Examiner.

#21: PostAcumen

Facebook is one of our brand’s primary social channels. Our goal with that channel is to deliver content that begs to be engaged with. We’ve had tools to measure how well our own content performs, but we also wanted to know how well we performed relative to the competition.

Thanks to a brand-new tool called PostAcumen, developed by the same folks who made EdgeRank, we’re now able to perform extensive competitive analysis on Facebook posts. We can see how our content resonates with our fans and how those metrics stack up against our competitors for Likes, Comments, Shares, etc.

post acumen

With PostAcumen you can see how your brand compares against direct competitors, or even industry leaders.

There is a nominal cost for the service, but so far it’s provided great insights, is easy to use and understand and helps us get better at delivering engaging content to fans.

Liz Phillips, social media manager at TaylorMade-Adidas Golf, where she manages social media for TaylorMade, Adidas Golf, and Ashworth brands.

#22: Facebook Pages Manager App

My favorite social media tool is the Facebook Pages Manager App. This tool allows me to manage multiple pages while on the go. Not only can I post, comment and engage with my fans on multiple pages, but this app does so much more. I’m also able to create Facebook Offers directly from the app, which allows me to promote my programs and services anytime, anywhere.

In addition, I can instantly get a greater reach for my most important posts by buying Promoted Posts on-the-go directly from my mobile phone.

facebook pages manager app

This is what it looks like to buy Promoted Posts via a mobile phone using the Facebook Pages Manager app.

With these features, I can make real-time decisions for my pages based on my fans activity and my current marketing goals. If you’re like me and often on the move, this app is one you don’t want to go without!

Amy Porterfield, co-author of Facebook Marketing All-in-One for Dummies and a social media strategist.

#23: Vocus

One of my favorite social media tools is Vocus. Vocus is a suite that helps manage your social media profiles, monitor what is happening in real time and other key functions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdRf0OlH0Gs

One of the key elements that makes it different than other services is that it incorporates the very popular Help A Reporter Out (HARO) website. HARO is a site where reporters can post their requests for information and interviews anonymously, and where you can respond. If it’s a good fit, the reporter contacts you. It’s a great way to get additional free PR. Combined with the rest of Vocus’s platform capabilities, this provides a powerful one-two punch.

Michael Crossonfounder and publisher of SocialMediopolis.com and founder of the fourth-largest LinkedIn group, “The Social Media Marketing Group.” 

#24: Quozio

Can’t find an image to pin on Pinterest? No problem! I recently came across a simple, slick tool that allows you to take some text, like an inspirational quote or a particularly helpful blurb from a blog post, and turn it into a beautiful, pinnable image. The tool is called Quozio.

You can use Quozio to create cool quotation pins for Pinterest, but it also solves a common problem.

When you find a great article, or blog post, you want to pin it to one of your pinboards. But sometimes when you use your Pin It bookmarklet to try to pin it, the bookmarklet can’t find a pinnable image on the page. This is where Quozio can come to the rescue.

All you need to do is highlight a snippet of text from the blog post you want to pin, copy it, then use Quozio to create a pinnable image from that text. You can pin your new image directly from the Quozio interface.

To make sure your new Quozio pin links back to the original blog post you want to share, you just need to edit your pin after you’ve posted it. You can click on the “edit” button in the corner of any of your pins to edit that pin’s settings and add the URL of the original blog post.

quozio

When editing your pin, make sure you add the URL of the original blog post.

Then just click on “Save Pin” and viola! You’ve got a beautiful pin that links back to an awesome blog post.

Beth Hayden, author of Pinfluence: The Complete Guide to Marketing Your Business with Pinterest.

Who are these social media pros?

The 24 social media pros who contributed to this article are all speaking at Social Media Marketing World–Social Media Examiner’s mega-conference.

It takes place at the waterfront San Diego Marriott Marquis & Marina in San Diego, California on April 7-9, 2013.

Social Media Examiner recruited the biggest and best names in the world of social media marketing for this conference. Only the best for you!

All of the experts you’ve come to respect and admire will be in one place. Be sure to check it out.

Why Attend Social Media Marketing World?

Join 1,000 fellow marketers at the mega-conference designed to inspire and empower you with social media marketing ideas—brought to you by Social Media Examiner.

This is a historic opportunity for you to connect face-to-face with the top social media marketing experts while breaking bread with like-minded peers from around the globe.

You’ll pick from 49 expert-led sessions covering social media tactics to content creation to social strategy.  Plus, hear from brands such as Sony Electronics, Ebay, Cisco, Zappos.com, Sharpie, Petco, Dell, AT&T, Whole Foods, SAP, Citrix, Dun & Bradstreet, Taylormade and San Diego Zoo.

This is just a sampling of what’s in store for you at Social Media Marketing World in San Diego on April 7, 8 and 9, 2013.

Want to save some money? Reserve your spot now, before prices go up! Click here for details.


What do you think? What’s your favorite? Have you found any useful social media tools recently?
Please share yours in the comment section below.

Social Media Newsfeed: Obama Tweet | Facebook Gifts | Google Search

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Obama Wins New Term as Electoral Advantage Holds (The New York Times)
Barack Hussein Obama was re-elected president of the United States on Tuesday, overcoming powerful economic headwinds, a lock-step resistance to his agenda by Republicans in Congress and an unprecedented torrent of advertising as a divided nation voted to give him more time. Reuters Around 11:15 pm EST, just as the networks were beginning to call the race in his favor, Obama took to Twitter to proclaim himself the winner over Republican candidate Mitt Romney. That the president would take his message to Twitter before taking the stage in Chicago underscored the tremendous role social media platforms like Twitter played in the 2012 election. Mashable Obama’s celebratory tweet surpassed 500,000 retweets, making it the most retweeted post of all time, according to reports. The tweet, which simply says, “Four more years,” accompanies a photo of Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama embracing. The Huffington Post Maybe it’s fitting that the last campaign stop ever for Obama — a candidate who in 2008 was lauded for his ability to mobilize supporters online — is Reddit, the sprawling Internet community that hosted a real-time Q&A session the sitting commander-in-chief in August. “I’m checking in because polls will start closing in this election in just a few hours, and I need you to vote,” Obama wrote on Reddit in a note posted around 6 p.m. ET on Tuesday. Politico Romney gave a quick concession speech, shorter than six minutes, in which he acknowledged the nation had chosen a different leader and called on the president – and citizens – to reach across the aisle. “I pray that the president will be successful in guiding our nation,” he said, adding, “I want to thank Paul Ryan for all that he has done for our campaign. And for our country. Besides my wife Ann, Paul is the best choice I’ve ever made.” Deseret News Romney may not have won the presidential election, but he won praise on Twitter after his concession speech, while pundits on both sides of the aisle took to the social media platform to express their post-election emotions. Romney’s website live-streamed Obama’s victory speech — an action met with additional praise on Twitter, where NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik called it a “total class move.” VentureBeat New Jersey’s decision to let citizens displaced by Hurricane Sandy vote by email and fax appears to have backfired, with the state now extending the deadline to return those ballots to 8 p.m. Eastern on Friday. Some voters in Jersey did not receive their email and fax ballots Tuesday after repeatedly requesting them.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.