Top 20 Tools To Help Social Media User Engagement and ROI Tracking

Social media is cool.

But, it’s not really great if all you’re doing is pushing buttons and nothing is happening. Your content (assuming you’re working on this several times a week) needs to be seen, and you and users should engage, communicate together. It’s a two-way deal. And, when I say ‘content’, don’t think “mine, mine, mine” – but share content and information that is useful to your audience from a variety of sources.

When you do that – just like you would while sharing and listening to others at a business cocktail party, people tend to like you more. Social media is no different.

Keeping track of this communication, and using some levels of social media automation can work well for you.

Here is the top 20 social media tools list you should consider for your business social media listening, sharing and brand building.

This list will not make you a celebrity overnight, and it doesn’t guarantee success. Without a proper plan with goals and objectives, it’s just another shiny object list. But, it will help you track and see, and engage the rivers of news and information. It will assist you in providing actionable intelligence, i.e. help you decide on what things work, and what doesn’t.

This list is not necessarily in order of priority, but tools that I use in my business, currently testing, and that others find useful as well.  Note: Pick a few tools and make them work for you. Ok to test of course, but don’t get too (brain) scattered.

#1 SocialOomph

Tweetlater is the old name for it. This social media marketing solution has come a long way, and can schedule tweets and talk to a variety of networks.

#2 Nutshellmail

This creates an incoming email (straight to your inbox) stream, with activity from within your network.

#3 Seesmic

Great desktop app for Twitter and network interaction

#4 Cotweet

Multiple account structure for several members of your team to “tweet” from the same app.

#5 Ping.fm

Distribution of your messages across a wide network (must set up those ‘other’ accounts first). Free.

#6 Flowtown

Many swear by this tool, have only tested this in a limited fashion. Note: The service of turning an email address into social network information (a.k.a. “social discovery”) has been turned off as of January 1, 2011. To better understand why they’ve made this decision please see Ethan’s blog post

#7 Radian6

The ultimate top dog of social media monitoring and tracking. Somewhat expense for a small business, but you can scale up to it. Start with Google Alerts (free).

#8 Sproutsocial

Cool tool to help inform of activities in your network. Set up daily emails, so you don’t have to hunt for the information. Help to optimize your social reach.

#9 Shoutlet

Social presence development from one simple dashboard. Retail, franchise networks, agencies and more. Request a free demo.

#10 Vitrue

Social relationship management platform. Get a free facebook page evaluation. Ford, AT&T and other big name brands.

#11 Tweetdeck

Power platform for social media communcation. My favorite.

#12 Gist

Gist plugin for Chrome and Firefox. Must install, free. All your contacts across all your inboxes, social networks, and lists assembled in one place for easy access and use – no invites to send or friends to request.

#13 Hootsuite

Another favorite, install it today, and manage your social media campaigns with ease. Free and paid models.

#14 WildfireApp

Get your “viral” on. Instead of developing social media campaigns the hard, manual way – consider using WildfireApp. Contests, Surveys, Sweepstakes and more.

#15 Lithium

Turn shoppers into buyers and brand advocates. The Lithium Social Customer Suite powers the conversation.

#16 Alterian

A customer engagement platform. Alterian manages the people, processes and applications within marketing.

#17 BuddyMedia

The top brands trust Buddy Media for Facebook & Social Media Marketing.  Grow your Facebook fan page and drive them to your website.

#18 Pluck

Integrated social media solutions. Companies like Best Buy, Target, Crayola, BF Goodrich, Microsoft and Citigroup underscore the unique suitability of Pluck for brand-centric communities.

#19 Buzzlogic

The conversation is happening, where are you? BuzzLogic is a media company with a data-driven ad platform built to optimize advertising across the largest pool of trusted blog content on the web.

#20 Trackur

From Andy Beal, a cool system for tracking conversation and brand mentions online.

That’s it for the roundup.

What tools have you used?

What else should be on this list in your mind?

P.S.

Klout.com is a great “reputation checker” and influence monitor for Twitter. I thought I’d add that one.

P.P.S.

Don’t forget that all ‘network’ activity is trackable inside your web analytics. Do you have it installed on all your website properties?

Related articles

• 10 Helpful Social Media Management Tools (entrepreneur.com)
• Picking Twitter Tools for Your Business (bruceclay.com)
• Monitor Your Social Race With Wildfire (appreaders.com)

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