I (@jimlast) spend a lot of time on Twitter, managing both my personal and business accounts. Running effective social media campaigns requires you to not be too far from contact at any time. The problem compounds as you manage more and more campaigns and companies. These are the tools that I use to keep everything in order.
1. Hootsuite – iPhone, iPad, Laptop
Hootsuite‘s ability to manage large numbers of accounts, searches, teamwork, etc. makes it the perfect primary tool for managing campaigns. Having the ability to organize accounts and searches into tabs makes a huge impact on productivity and visibility of individual accounts. You can spend a few minutes on each tab and be confident that you’ve checked in on everything you need to. The scheduling function is also a nice touch and lets you plan out your content distribution to maximize viewership.
2. Twitter for iPhone/iPad
The official Twitter app is my go-to method on mobile devices. I prefer the Twitter interface to Hootsuite for my personal messaging. The recent addition of notifications makes it even easier to be alerted on activity you need to pay attention to.
3. Tweetdeck – Desktop
Tweetdeck is still my favorite desktop app for managing Twitter interactions. The most recent update that turned on real-time updates is a game-changer. I now use Tweetdeck for most of my personal account activity, especially rapid fire conversations. It gets a little complicated when you add a lot of searches, so I try to keep it pretty minimal.
My toolset has evolved over the past year and I’m sure it will continue to do so. Any other apps out there you’ve seen that you think would be better? I’m always looking to simplify things and optimize my SMM efforts.