With all due respect to Carly Simon and her love life, the pain that I’m talking about is the fact that we’re all very busy and just the thought of managing accounts on multiple social networking sites causes a great deal of pain and anguish!
The good news is that there are tools to make this much easier. They’re called “social aggregators” and they’re a great resource. Many are web-based (so you can access them anywhere you have Internet access) and others are applications you download. The majority are free and those that aren’t have a fairly small fee.
Each one has different features, but all allow you to access multiple social networking platforms in just one location. They also make it easy to manage multiple accounts (for example, a Twitter business account and a Twitter personal account). The cool ones also allow you to schedule posts. Some even have mobile apps.
Scheduling posts is a great concept. I talked with a woman who wanted to use social networking for her business—personal organization—but she felt she didn’t have the time to do it successfully. I asked if she could write 10 organizing “tips” a week. I then told her to use a social aggregator to schedule her posts—take 30 minutes every weekend, enter all 10 for the week, scheduling distribution of two per day…at varying times. She was thrilled!
One important thing to note: scheduling does not mean that you schedule posts then ignore your accounts! You need to respond in a timely manner if someone asks a question, wants clarification and so forth. Ignoring a inquiry is just like ignoring an email…not a good way to do business.
My pick is Hootsuite, which is one of the free, web-based platforms. From it, you can aggregate Facebook, Facebook Fan pages, Twitter, LinkedIn, Ping.fm, WordPress, MySpace and Foursquare. Each one has a separate column—which you can rearrange—making it easier to read. When you write a post (whether real-time or scheduled), you can send it to one, some or all of your accounts. You can also customize URL’s in your posts—and track them. Hootsuite has tons of other features—and they frequently add more—but those are the highlights.
Other aggregators include Tweetdeck, Netvibes, Yoono, Flock, Profilactic, Socialite (Mac-specific), LaterBro, CoTweet, and twAitter. Find what works best for you, but remember that none are permanent and you can change!
Do you use one of these tools? How do you use them and what tips do you have to make them more useful?
Great points, Deb. People think online networking is different from in person networking. It really isn’t. You wouldn’t start a conversation with someone at a cocktail party, say your peace and walk away, would you? No, you’d want to engage them, ask questions, reply and see if it makes sense to get to know each other (and possibly do business together). That’s what we do online, too.
Lida
Sadly, I see far too many folks who post then ignore. Or worse, they ignore inquiries. I’ve gone to several FB Fan pages and posted questions which were never answered. Why bother having the page if you’re not going to respond? Just as bad is when someone ignores a personal query on LinkedIn, Twitter or a personal Facebook page. All it does is alienate someone…and they tell others about it!
I have never used any of these tools. I need to make time to try them out. Thanks for the info and the recommendation.
These tools really are great for people who are busy – and who have the ability to “know” what they want to say in advance! It’s also great to be able to see mutliple feeds all on one page. Check out Socialite as it’s developed just for Mac users.
This really solved my problem, thank you!
Glad to help. I’ve found that social media aggregators are a great tool.