Social Media Management Tools

Hootsuite’s purchase of Seesmic this past Sunday is a sure indication of the rapid maturation and consolidation of the social media management software market.

It was only a few months back that Seesmic fully subsumed Ping.fm into its operations, and indicates to me that businesses, including small business, will increasingly be incorporating these tools to remain competitive .

While Hootsuite may be considered leader of the pack by some, there are a number of other competitors offering strong product alternatives.

Seismac had positioned an attractive challenger over the past few months. Seesmic had a slick, simple and easy to use interface on screen, and importantly, on mobile. It also boast one of the widest breathes of social media outlets that it transmitted to. This plethora of outlets goes further back to the Ping.fm days.

Hootsuite, with its range of functionality , easy of use, pricing and more appears to remain the industry standard, and this acquisition should only improve the Hootsuite brand.

However, there are a number of other competitors in the field. First up, we have to look at TweetDeck . The dashboard is still the best in turn terms of color and graphics, and the look and feel (although you may need to turn the sound down).

TweetDeck was the leader in tracking people and posts (@’s or #’s respectively) on Twitter and now provides multiple news feeds from Facebook and LinkedIn, searchers, auto tweet shortener, auto post scheduling and more. It’s a solid products, that will only improve under Twitter ownership.

Tweetadder is another interesting tool, providing a number of auto functions, particularly its automatic friend adder function and follow. The program can automatically draft welcome and thank you messages to new followers. It also has some good automated tweet posting and direct messaging capabilities. However, Tennessee-based Tweetadder is currently working to resolve some legal issues with Twitter.

Then there’s Social Oomph, which is true to its word in its tag line – “to boost your productivity”. This tool provides a wide array of functionality that, depending on the business your in, may be the best optional available. Hailing from Canadian Maritime Provinces, Social Oomph really provides a powerful set of features for those managing a number of accounts.

Working from the other direction is Vertical Response which began basically as a corporate direct mail service in San Francisco ten years ago (think of Constant Contact)and is now providing a stout social media management dashboard, along with an extensive content services package. VR provides a robust auto scheduling and monitoring dashboard, and more.

Listening and monitoring tools provide companies, generally large ones, the ability to track what their customers are saying about them, and their competitors. These products, such as SocialEngage, which was formerly CoTweet, and Chicago-based Sprout Social, permit businesses to swiftly respond to comment, questions and new trends. They should also be considered for some mid-sized businesses.

What do the changes in this industry signify for businesses? Especially those businesses that are using few or no social media tools?

It means that these tools will be the new way that we do business. Slowly but surely these types of media management tools will be incorporated for businesses large and small.

What do you think about that? I’d love to discuss it with you. Give me a call!

In order to get a handle on the social media management sites, Liberteks will be developing a White Paper that discusses and compares these powerful business developers. Look for it at the end of September or call me to order your advanced copy.

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