Social media marketing is not simply about broadcasting your own updates. Nor it is about growing your follower base and counting likes or tweets.
You build your social media influence by actively engaging in social media conversations with strangers who become your friends and fans, thanks to those interactions.
However, the most obvious problem with interacting on social media is it's a huge productivity hustle. Social media conversations are great unless they prevent you from being productive at work. Plus, interacting on social media works only if you interact consistently and continuously.
I'd like to share the tools I'm using to help me stay organized and efficient, while allowing me to stay engaged on social media.
Note: The order of the tools below is not random. I am sorting the list by how often I use each tool. Routine is highly important for productivity. If you keep pinging the same tool again and again, it will end up being counter-productive no matter how useful/exciting the data it provides.You need strict rules for each tool to keep yourself organized. My routine for each tool is described below.
1. Calendar app
- How often I use it: Once set up, it runs on its own
- Social network I use it for: All
- Cost: Free (may depend on which one you are using)
I am sure you have your favorite calendar app (mine is iPhone Calendar). Start using it to scale your regular social media tasks. I have daily tasks set up on my iPhone with push notifications and reminders (which come to my Macbook, too).
My daily reminders are as follows:
- Morning and evening reminders to check my social media notifications. (I wrote about social media notifications in more details here: Google Plus, Pinterest, Facebook.)
- Twitter chats I don't want to miss
2. Tweetdeck
- How often I use it: All day long
- Social network I use it for: Twitter
- Cost: Free
With so many Twitter management apps, my preferred choice is still Tweetdeck. And the main reason is it sends important Twitter notifications (and you can set what's important to you) right to my desktop, which is hugely helpful for multi-tasking.
I don't multi-task with any other social media networks, but with Twitter being there in real-time, it is a must.
I have my mentions set up so that Tweetdeck sends me desktop alerts the moment anyone mentions me on Twitter. I can then take a moment and reply (or interact in any other way) to that tweet without breaking my work routine.
3. Hootsuite
- How often I use it: Once a day
- Social network I use it for: Facebook business pages
- Cost: From $8.99/month
I have lots of big and small brands I manage, and all of them have separate business Facebook accounts. Keeping track of who interacts with those pages on a daily basis would be impossible without Hootsuite.
I've set up a separate dashboard connecting to all of my Facebook pages and selected "Inbound posts" for each column. This let's me keep an eye on everyone who's posting to my pages.
Obviously, while I am there, I use Hootsuite to schedule my page updates. Gary Dek lists some good scheduling tricks here.
4. Cyfe
- How often I use it: Once a day
- Social network I use it for: All
- Cost: $19/month
Cyfe is my hashtag tracking and archiving platform, used for monitoring all my important keywords on Twitter and Google Plus. Cyfe's dashboard gives me a nice bird's eye view of everything that's been going on in my niche during the work day.
Cyfe archives everything, too. So in case you fell behind, it's easy to go back in time.
Cyfe is also awesome for tracking your social media stats across many networks. I also have dashboards that track my Pinterest, Slideshare, Twitter and Youtube accounts.
5. Viral Content Buzz interactions tab
- How often I use it: Once a day
- Social network I use it for: Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, StumbleUpon
- Cost: Free
Viral Content Buzz [Disclaimer: I am the co-founder] is the social media sharing platform that generates real social media shares to content you import to your account. Whenever users share your content, that share is registered within your Interactions tab for you to be able to connect to your promoter.
I have a rule to check the tab daily to thank and follow users promoting my content. That's one of the most effective ways to build meaningful interactions because those social media users tend to be happy to connect back!
6. TwChat
- How often I use it: Twice a week
- Social network I use it for: To keep up with my Twitter chat interactions
- Cost: Free
Participating in and hosting niche Twitter chats is my primary form of social media interaction. While I am using the calendar app to send me reminders of each, TwChat helps me participate more efficiently without getting lost.
I add hosts to a separate column, which allows me to follow the discussions easier. There are many conversations happening at the same time, so it's easy to get lost unless you keep an eye on what the host is saying or asking.
7. Commun.it
- How often I use it: A couple of times a month
- Social network I use it for: Twitter
- Cost: Freemium, with $29.99 per month upgrade
I have separate Twitter accounts for different brands I manage. While I make sure to keep an eye on my main personal account, I can't afford to monitor interactions on all of my accounts.
That's where Commun.it comes into play, allowing me to check all recent interactions or thank and/or follow anyone who's shared my content or mentioned me. I use it a few times a month to follow up on everything I may have missed.
8. Circloscope
- How often I use it: Once a month
- Social network I use it for: Google Plus (available on Google Chrome only)
- Cost: $47 a year
Circloscope is the only tool I am aware of that helps you grow your Google Plus connections based on recent interactions with your personal profile or event. I love using the tool to make sure I add to circles all people who interact with me and visit my Google Plus events.
9. StayFocused
- How often I use it: Continuously
- Social network I use it for: Any (available on Google Chrome only)
- Cost: Free
No matter how organized you are, monitoring social media can still leave you frazzled. The biggest offender is Facebook, with its infinite scroll. Once I am there, I instantly forget what I was going to do, start scrolling, and lose track of time.
StayFocused allows me to limit my time on the websites that tend to distract me. It's a great productivity tool. The only reason I list it closer to the bottom of this list is that it's only available for Google Chrome, and I am a multi-browser user.
10. Topsy
- How often I use it: Once in a while, when I have a major article go live
- Social network I use it for: Twitter
- Cost: Free
Topsy is probably the oldest tool in my arsenal. It's a great way to find people who interact with my content. Since I guest post a lot, tracking tweets of all my articles can be difficult. With Topsy, I simply drop my URL into its search box to see the most significant tweets mentioning my article.
Topsy's Trackbacks bookmarklet lets you access Topsy search easier. (To install, simply drag it to your browser bookmarks toolbar.) Click it when you are reading the page you want to analyze, and you’ll be taken to Topsy results. Now scroll through results until you see "Influential" or "Highly Influential" flags.
A note on tracking content interactions
While my process is quite defined, I'm far from perfect when it comes to engaging with readers on social media regarding the content I've written.
I've tried using Social plugin, which pulls social media shares from Facebook, Google Plus, and Twitter, and shows them as the comments. It works well for pulling up interactions, but makes the comment section too cluttered.
Here's an example:
There are other platforms that do a better job with this task. For example, Sitegeek, which pulls in Tweets as hosting reviews, could be an option.
Oktopost has a social inbox feature that collects social media feedback based on your URLs, but it was created with B2B in mind.
I'd love to hear from you regarding the best options for keeping an eye on social comments for articles published online. Please share your favorite tools in the comments.
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