My Top Social Media Management Tools

Get organized with these social media management tools. Post to multiple platforms from a single dashboard.

Social media is an important part of building a strong online practice presence, but it can sometimes be a pain to manage.  You need to get fresh content out there on a regular basis, but it can be difficult to keep up. Thankfully, there are programs to help you schedule your posts, so you can get .  Here are my two favorites:

Hootsuite

Hootsuite is a management system that you connect to your Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Wordpress, and Instagram (and others) to schedule when your posts go live.  That means that you can plan ahead by writing your content beforehand, then use the system to schedule what date and time the messages will be posted. Hootsuite is free up to the first 3 social networks, then offers upgrade options if you want to include more.

Another great feature of Hootsuite that is often under-utilized is its analytics section. This allows you to see how well your social media is doing by tracking how many people are reading your posts.  Each upgraded version of Hootsuite offers progressively more detailed reports so you can measure your social outreach.

SocialOomph

Socialoomph is similar to Hootsuite in that it allows you to schedule posts and analyze your results, but it takes it a step further by giving you tools to interact with your social media followers.  With this system, you can automatically follow those who follow you. This is important because it demonstrates that you are engaging with your readers, which makes you more accessible and engaged with your online followers. Another way this system can help you is by shortening the URL (web address) of a link you may choose to include in your content. This cleans up the appearance of your status and also may be necessary if you use networks like Twitter, which only allows 140 characters.

The upgraded version of Socialoomph gives you even more features, such as an automatic analysis of key words and phrases that appear in your content that allows you to find other social media users with similar content.  This lets you connect with other experts in the field and also helps you find potential clients.

Another benefit of Socialoomph is the ability to schedule recurring tweets/post every few hours, days, weeks, etc. with up to 3 variations of rotating texts. This is helpful for automating Twitter posts. For example, I'll set a favorite inspirational quote to tweet every 12 weeks.

How do you stay on top of your social media?

Could these tools help you get organized?