15 Services to Manage Your Social Media Activity | Practical eCommerce

Social media can help ecommerce businesses. And although social media sites Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube are cost-free, they are not time-free. In fact, managing just a single social network business page can be a full-time job, not to mention managing three or four on multiple incompatible platforms which is what many businesses try to do.

Enter social-media-management software, applications that help your business manage multiple social network accounts simultaneously in one spot. They (a) provide a secure place to house your multiple passwords and usernames, (b) allow simultaneous posting across platforms, and (c) schedule and even automatically post to the platforms, if needed.

Look at some of these options and find the one that best suits your businesss needs.

Large-to-Medium Sized Businesses

Larger companies that have the budget will want to consider using some of these tools below. They are web apps that often offer mobile versions, too, and are subscription based. The cost is dependent on your company size, amount of social accounts to manage and user accounts needed.

1. CoTweet Enterprise. This is a web application that allows large-to-medium sized business users of Twitter and Facebook to manage all of their tweets and posts in one place. CoTweet is scalable for an unlimited amount of users so that everyone in your company who is tweeting or posting on Facebook on behalf of your brand will stay on message. CoTweet comes with a handy suite of analytics tools. It also includes a search function for any conversation about your brand in the Twitter and Facebook spheres, as well as unlimited saves of conversation histories. CoTweet has a mobile version, too.
2. HootSuite. Update Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and WordPress in a single app you can schedule posts and track visitor behavior across all social platforms. HootSuite is ideal for teams at larger companies. Assign tasks to multiple contributors, and share data and account access without sharing passwords.
3. SpredFast. This is an enterprise-class social management hub that works with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, YouTube, Foursquare, WordPress, Blogger, Drupal and many more. It functions as both an aggregator of all the social conversations about your brand, as well as a way to instantly interact with all of these conversations simultaneously. It offers unlimited conversation history, a full suite of analytics to measure visitor behavior in multiple ways, and its available as a web app or mobile app.
4. Syncapse. Social media management for big businesses build, monitor and measure your social media marketing efforts from one place. You get a single real-time view into all your social activity on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and WordPress.
5. Pluggio. Although it has limited compatibility it only works with Twitter you can manage up to 20 Twitter accounts simultaneously and schedule custom posts on all of them 24 hours a day, to get on with the rest of your business.

Small-Sized Businesses

These are more affordable options for the small business that wants to exploit the power of social, but for less cost.

6. TweetDeck. This is a free social network management app where you can update Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Google Buzz and Foursquare in one location. All your contacts from every profile on every social network are cross-accessible. You can schedule posts in a queue, or schedule simultaneous updates of all social accounts, and much more. Currently available as a desktop app, an integrated Chrome extension and an Android mobile app.
7. Seesmic. This is a great, free way to monitor, manage and post on close to 50 different social services. It offers desktop, mobile app and browser-integrated solutions.
8. Ping.fm. A free hub that can unify 30 major social networks, including the most popular Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr and Foursquare, in a single place. Schedule posts and update multiple social platforms simultaneously.
9. Yoono. Available as a browser extension, desktop app and mobile app, Yoono helps you to connect to your clients and customers via Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, YouTube and more. It gives you the power to have a single, consistent voice across all platforms with synced and simultaneous status updates.

Universal Profile Options

These solutions are digital storage bins for all of your social network profile pages. They act as quick-access portals into all of your social profiles and they are also publicly viewable, so you can use them as just a hub for yourself or as a place to direct clients to find you wherever you are on the web.

10. Retaggr. Retaggr is similar to the digital Profile Business Card from Google. Its a place to store all of your passwords, usernames and accounts and profiles for dozens of social networks including Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, LinkedIn, WordPress and many more, all consolidated on a single web page.
11. GizaPage. A single hub where you can manage and upload posts to Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, LinkedIn and Blogger. GizaPage offers analytics on visitors, top content and comments, most loyal fans and followers, and more.
12. DandyID. Collect all your online social profiles into one page so your clients and customers can be sure they are finding the verified version of your business online. Compatible with dozens of the top social networking platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Blogger.
13. AtomKeep. Build your online profile on one page with quick links to all of your online business pages from LinkedIn to Digg to Blogger to Facebook to Twitter and more.

Interactive Marketing-Driven Solutions

These are for the business that wants to employ social media not just as a forum to communicate with customers, but also a space to virally market sweepstakes, contests, giveaways and other incentive-based reward programs.

14. WildFire. A web application that helps your company create an interactive marketing campaign centered around a sweepstakes, user-generated video contests, coupons or product giveaways, and then easily distribute across your company website as well as through Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and more.
15.ObjectiveMarketer. Helps your company align your social interaction with your marketing strategy. It includes multi-pronged content distribution tools so you can distribute via text message, video, slide shows, contests and more, always staged to represent your brand in the best light. Then distribute the marketing campaign across Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or YouTube.

Source: http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/2688-15-Services-to-Manage-Your-Social-Media-Activity