Time management is something that most of us struggled with long before social media. As we become more involved in the world of social media and the see the importance of building personal business relationships, managing your time both inside the social media space and outside as a business professional and human being becomes ever more important.
Once a month I host a free teleseminar where I discuss a topic related to social media. This month, I discussed “How to Manage Your Social Media in 30 Min. a Day.” A very important topic for those of us who have too much to do and not enough time to do it. The session went extremely well. If you are interested in listening to the playback of the entire session, you are free to call (712) 432-1085.
Please note that all these tools with the exception of a special feature within SocialOomph which I have noted, are all free of charge. While there are millions of social media management tools out there and will continue to be, here are 6 social media time management tools that have my attention.
- Tweetdeck. This is my favorite third party application. I can now see Youtube videos, Flickr, in additon to viewing my FaceBook and Twitter accounts. I spend a great deal of time categorizing those that I am following so that I do not miss a tweet from my closest friends while also staying up to date on local happenings. My Tweetdeck is divided into columns including HR Peeps, Oklahoma, and hash tags that #HRHappyHour or #TRULondon. I can stay up to date on events very quickly engaging others in real time.
- Ping.fm. An old favorite. This allows me to ping multiple social media accounts and transmit the same data or message. I also have the ability to control which accounts I wish my message to be sent to. Seesmic just recently purchased Ping and I’m eager with anticipation to see how this acquisition will improve both applications.
- SocialOomph. SocialOomph was formerly TweetLater. I am able to schedule messages on both Twitter and FaceBook Fan pages allowing me to target my message to a specific audience while saving time and stress. This is especially handy when I am promoting an event or making an announcement. The Twitter scheduling feature is free while the FaceBook scheduling costs $29.95 a month and might be a wise investment for someone who is time conscious. Another fantastic new option is an Opt-Out Auto DM feature. You can log on to SocialOomph and opt out of spammy auto DMs like a Do Not Call List for Twitter Spam. (I like it!)
- Gist. This is a new tool I’ve been playing with. It’s currently in beta and seeks to intergrate and upload all your contacts to one location from Salesforce, Twitter, FaceBook, LinkedIn, and your email. I’m excited to dive into this tool and give it a thorough test drive.
- Tungle. My friend, Chris Hoyt turned me on to this new tool that allows my friends to view my calendar and schedule meetings. I control the settings and who can view my calendar. It uploads your Outlook contacts and auto updates from Outlook to Tungle as well. So, Tungle me and let’s connect!
- NutshellMail. Once again another tool that I am just experimenting with. This allows you to receive one email updating you on multiple social media accounts–FaceBook and Twitter saving you the time and stress of clogging up your email box. I see this as a good tool for someone who wants to stay connected but isn’t a power user.
Photo Credit The Studio Blog.
I have been using Hootsuite and find that it can do 1-3 above and all for free. I would highly recommend checking it out.
Just wanted to thank you for the Tungle love. Much appreciated.
Jonathan Levitt
VP Marketing, Tungle
You should also try Silentale, a tool that can really help multi-connected professionals to stay in control of all the information related to their contacts and conversations.
Silentale consolidates the different profiles of your contacts across emails, twitter, linkedin, facebook, etc, and automatically indicates how many messages you’ve exchanged with them, whatever the channel you used.
Not only you get a constantly updated 360° view of your network, but you’re able to immediately see if you’ve already communicated with someone and in the latter case, explore your multi-channel communication thread, search for keywords, retrieve attachments, etc.
Silentale is a Saas service and is available via a web interface and a series of extensions (eg. Firefox and soon the iPhone).
It is in private beta and still available for free to testers. If you or one of your readers is interested in trying out Silentale, just send us a tweet @silentale and request an invitation code.
I have concerns about “upload all your contacts to one location”. Contact information should be treated with more respect than to mindlessly dump into 2nd & 3rd party data handlers. I wouldn’t put your phone number up on a bathroom wall or share it with anyone without your consent. Why would anyone think it’s okay to upload my contact information into a cloud data base without my permission?
Rick,
Understandable. Gist seems to be gaining some momentum. Personally, I’m sick of going from FB to Twitter to LI looking for contacts and would prefer them in one place. I recommend that you read the legalese on the Gist website to determine if you own the data. Gist I do not know but on FB you do not. Personally, I have put phone numbers and fliers on bathroom walls and stalls and have used this method to successfully to hire candidates. I have their undivided attention for 5-15 minutes and there is at least a 95% read or open rate (much greater than email or direct mail marketing). Besides, my phone number is all over this website. Is that really any different?
Thanks for the comments,
Jessica
@blogging4jobs