Month: April 2013

Top Apps and Tools for Social Media Marketers

drjrogersLeave a comment


If you are a follower of this blog and the Social Media MBA series, you will recall we have discussed social media platforms and their potential uses for businesses and consumers. This month, I want you to be thinking about the technology that is enabling social media and how it drives new business.

Social media has changed the way people use the Internet and it has shaped the technology used to deliver it. It has created new ways to drive business and it has changed the way brands market products and services. While enabling social interaction and the creation of new communities for both businesses and consumers, social media has strengthened the connections between brands and consumers.

Social media has also shaped technology that can help drive business. For example, Apple’s iPhone has become THE digital device for nearly every task one needs to accomplish, and as a bonus – you can make phone calls with it! As mobile technology keeps advancing, new Apps are being developed daily and are simplifying everything from depositing your paycheck, to setting your DVR, to counting down the days until your summer vacation. You name it, there is an App for it. App developers are eager to provide the social consumer and the social media marketer with the tools to accomplish daily business and personal tasks. Let’s look at some popular Apps geared towards the marketer.

Top Apps for Social Media Marketers:

Analytics App gives you mobile access to your Google Analytics data. For every social media effort, we want to be able to measure our successes, or ‘near’ successes. Focus: Measurement

Facebook allows you access to your Facebook account on your smart phone. Facebook allows brands to engage with consumer via posting photos, videos, sending direct messages, and posting on ‘timelines’.
Focus: Engagement

Hootsuite is a web-based dashboard that can manage multiple Twitter accounts, allow multiple users to access an account, and manage multiple social networks (LinkedIn, FaceBook, Twitter, WordPress). Additionally, Hootsuite allows you to schedule messages on different days and different times. This is an exceptional time management tool! Hootsuite also enables the user to track links and click-throughs. The HootSuite App complements a HootSuite web account. Focus: Engagement and Measurement

LinkedIn allows you access to your LinkedIn account on your smart phone. LinkedIn is a business oriented social network that allows you to post a photo, career history, education, and skills while offering a search function to network with existing colleagues and the opportunity to establish more connections.
Focus: Connecting and Collaborating

Spout provides a steady stream of news, tweets, messages, comments from your Facebook, and other RSS feeds. What is enticing about this app is the presentation of the media and visuals. It is quite pleasing to the eye. You may like Feed.ly as well. I have recently started using Triberr, check it out!
Focus: Engagement, Connecting, Learning and more.

Tweetdeck is a desktop and mobile application similar to Hootsuite in that it helps manage your social media accounts. However, it does not offer the analytics that Hootsuite does. The Tweetdeck App compliments the Tweetdeck dashboard.
Focus: Engagement

Read the entire article at WindmillNetworking.

photo credit: Robert Scoble via photo pin cc

Social Media landscape and its application to the Marketing industry

drjrogersLeave a comment

As I write this blog post, I am wrapping up another term of teaching Social Media MBA courses. I am reminded why I love teaching social media while viewing students final papers, wiki projects, and blog projects. These students have passion, they enjoy learning about these effective new ‘tools’ we have for the marketing industry, and they cannot wait to start the next social media course! This first course of three (Social Media Marketing), is a real eye-opener for some who know little or nothing about social media and what it has done, and can do, for marketers. Others know quite a bit about the various platforms but have not yet worked hands on with the tools with marketing and/or personal branding in mind. This first course always yields rave reviews at the end of the term, citing how it is helping the student personally and professionally. These are the emails every instructor loves to read!

Examining the Social Media landscape and its application to the Marketing industry (within the context of this course) reveals it can help drive efficiencies while also presenting various opportunities to engage with consumers. Consider how many times a day you actually use some form of social media? I guarantee you use more than you think. Social media is not confined to Facebook and Twitter. Social media applies to technical help boards, review sites, online support groups, personal and corporate blogs, Apps — basically anywhere communication becomes interactive can be considered a form of social media. Perhaps you check your Facebook in the morning to catch up with friends and notice your neighbor has sent you a message that she wants to start jogging in the morning with you. You then decide to purchase new running shoes on Amazon.com for your morning runs. You browse the reviews on Amazon to help solidify your decision to purchase. Then you “like” the running shoe brand on Facebook to see if they have any promotions or fitness information for you. You immediately get a response from the brand with a coupon for a running App for your iPhone. Social media has made communication direct and in real time. This is HUGE! Organizations have the opportunity to learn first hand about their customers and build relationships through relevant communication..

Read the entire article at WindMillNetworking.

Image: smarnad / FreeDigitalPhotos.net