Social Media Made Easy - Integration and Monitoring

The world of social media is vast and your involvement can be time consuming. Each feature and platform is new to me and integrating each element is a key way in which I recognise I can save time. The tools are available so why not use them!

TweetDeck is a desktop application which allows you to readily update your different social media accounts via one platform as well as monitor the activities of your friends and networks across the various platforms within which you have a presence once the accounts have been linked in and verified.

TweetDeck offers an excellent reply capability. Unlike the Twitter web site, TweetDeck doesn't only show you replies that start with @yourusername—it shows you any tweet that contains @yourusername anywhere in the body. Similarly, it can show you a constantly updating search for a particular term, like a search for "Lifehacker." The more modules you add to TweetDeck, the wider it gets.

It’s easy to use, customised to your needs and can be minimised to allow you to concentrate on your work whilst supplying you with updates in the same fashion as your outlook account.

Hootsuite is another desktop application which is comparable to Tweetdeck.

Ping.fm is tool which can help you deal with social media updates. As with TweetDeck you can post one update at Ping.fm which can be spread across the various social media sites; contacting them simultaneously. Updates can be made from your browser via the ping.fm dashboard, email or via SMS or if you are using the Twitter iPhone App Tweetie you can also integrate ping.fm.

As you become involved in the various platforms you are sure to be interested in how it is supporting your company or brands presence across the web. How Sociable and Social Mention are sites which readily condense and assimilate all this information for you across the whole web.

How Sociable is a website which can be used to readily assess the visibility of your brand or company across the web. It only takes minutes, sometimes seconds to acquire the data and you can then drill down to see where you have been mentioned within which sites and in what context.

When you input the name of your brand or company you receive a visibility score once it’s processed. The score is calculated based on benchmark results which were acquired using one globally recognised brand which was given a score of 1000. To ensure that even small, local brands would be recognised they introduced a sliding scale.

Keep an eye on your progress by regularly checking your score.

Social Mention is a social media search and analysis platform that aggregates user generated content from across the universe into a single stream of information.
It allows you to easily track and measure what people are saying about you, your company, a new product, or any topic across the web's social media landscape in real-time. Social Mention monitors 100+ social media properties directly including: Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, YouTube, Digg, Google etc…

Make your life easier and monitor your progress!

Social Media Can Improve Productivity

There countless social media platforms now being presented to us and some companies are making every effort to become involved in what they see as being the key platforms. But really it’s not about the scale of our efforts, it’s about the way in which we are utilising the tools which are available, and the efficiency of our endeavors in this new and opportunistic discipline.

There is also the big question mark hovering somewhat like a storm cloud over whether businesses entering the world of social media is perhaps hampering productivity levels as employees become distracted and hours spent embracing and interacting the world of social media are considered to be immeasurable in terms of the impact on business.

This is true in as much as it is true for marketing as a whole. The rewards and benefits may not be immediately discernable but as with any activities being undergone within an organisation, if the objectives are determined from the outcome, however specific or broad, the ease by which the results and outcomes can be measured will be shaped.

Some managers believe this new work style which involves workers engaging in social media activities has resulted in a blur between personal and professional time. The question is whether the potential benefits of engagement outweigh the widely acknowledged and cited drawbacks.

There are few noted areas within which social media can potentially enrich productivity.

Scalable Networking

The majority of networking is today being carried out online which saves a hell of a lot of time and supports networking on a much larger scale than would be conceivable on a face to face basis.

Information Overload Can be Avoided

Some may argue the opposite, but if searches are refined and networks, forums, groups and platforms are selectively embraced then information becomes more distinguished and specifically tailored to meet the needs of the any particular business or business person.

Freedom to Collaborate

In a world where collaboration is most often supported by some type of software, social media can provide the functionality to make sure that everyone can be productive while using the tool that works best for them. That said it is something which does need to be monitored as the freedom which the world of social media bestows could potentially be abused.

I think the blur and potential for social media to be abused can and should be ideally overcome be developing or utilising the ethos which exists within an organisation. If everyone is on the same page, is committed to the organisation and its objectives and holds its values in high esteem the potential shortcomings of social media as identified by many managers should certainly be surmounted.

Social Media can evidently be a double edged sword and it is fundamentally down the organisation or individual user to identify what they want to achieve through their involvement, examine the way in which they are using the tools available and endeavor to make the most of them.