Top 10 Web Apps To Help You Manage Social Media Campaign

When large corporations like General Motors, eBay, and others shift their marketing efforts toward social media to increase their ROI, there's a lesson for every social media marketer here. 2013 is shaping up to be like nothing we've seen before, and a big part of it stems from an explosion in social media marketing.

It's clear that social media engagement is the key to a sustained following, interest, and greater ROI. Social media is an extension of a person's life; creating engagement at this level is the easiest way to market your idea, product, service, or website.

Managing Social Media Efforts

Like most aspects of online marketing, from search engine optimization to proper web hosting and pay-per-click marketing, social media marketing demands its own discipline. Without proper metrics to guide you, targets to be achieved, or measurements that provide valuable insights, any social media effort can easily become a negative-ROI initiative.

We've come a long way since the time when "social media marketing" meant simply having a Facebook and Twitter account and occasionally posting links to your own blog content. These channels remain the largest sources of engagement, but the possibilities have expanded considerably with services like Google+, App.net, Quora, etc. Social media management is now a scientific process where you should be as much concerned about the metrics as you are about the quality of engagement.

With the Right Tools...

To help media marketers manage multiple social profiles, engagement, relationship building, and other efforts, there are myriad tools to consolidate all your social profiles into a single dashboard. This makes your job easier by eliminating the need to worry about switching between multiple tabs and windows every time you need to post a link, reply to someone, retweet something, or perform any other social activity.

There's a huge and growing number of web services that do will do this, but not all of them are great. I put together the following list of services based on a few key features that are vital:

• Scheduling so you don't have to worry about the timing of your posts
• Metrics to assess followers, retweets, and click-throughs
• The ability to interact/comment/mention/reply, which creates engagement
• The ability to find trends in social channels from within the app, which saves time

1. SproutSocial

• Excellent interface for social media managers
• Covers all three networks: Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, along with blogs through feeds and others
• Pretty decent discovery tool that tracks real-time discussions on a given set of keywords/your company
• Schedules posts

Has a neat mobile interface, too

2. Sendible

• A thorough and comprehensive social media manager
• Can also track email campaigns
• Emphasis on monitoring, analytics, scheduling, and discovery of trends and discussions
• Mobile-specific features to enable social media marketing/management through mobile platforms/devices
• Monitors and engages in multiple social channels

3. Gremln

• Relatively new social media management app
• Covers all three major social channels: Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn
• Can schedule posts
• Team management built right into the system
• A solid level of stats, with enough metrics to measure your social reach
  
  

4. Buffer

• Covers Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and App.net
• A simplified interface
• Built-in team management makes it easy for social media teams to use this app
• Comes with two options: free or a $10/month plan; no hassles here
• Focuses on insight metrics so you know where you're going

5. Dlvr.it

• Covers Facebook, LinkedIn, App.net, Twitter, and more
• Provides Push updates; this means you can manage other things while Dlvr.it monitors your social sphere and prompts you when there's an opportunity for engagement
• Schedules posts to social channels
• Basically about posting to your social channels whenever you update your blog/website through a post

6. MarketMeSuite

• Has an email-like approach to social media engagement
• Focus is largely on social lead generation
• Geo-targeting forms a crucial part of the entire app
• Real-time tracking, discovery, and engagement
• Team management and scheduling features available

7. Socialoomph

• Provides a hassle-free service with unlimited accounts, even in free version
• The usual features of monitoring, posting to, and measuring social media campaigns
• One of the oldest services; consequently, one of the least developed in recent months

8. Yoono

• Desktop app, browser plugins, and mobile app
• Focuses more on posting to social networks than on engagement
• Covers several social channels under one roof; full-featured
• Schedulers, teams, several social profiles, and a cool interface

9. Bottlenose

• Arguably one of the finest interfaces amongst social media management apps
• Completely real-time, interactive social media monitoring
• Focus is on a great presentation of data to enable easier monitoring
• Media-specific searches and monitoring (includes Images, Videos, Feeds, etc.)
• Powerful search feature lets you figure out what's trending

10. Socialmotus

• Connects to Facebook and Twitter
• Focus is on Engagement and Relationship through social channels
• A great interface that allows for seamless monitoring and ROI measurement through effective tracking
• Think of it as the Google Analytics for social media management

Apps like Simplify360 and Socialite are desktop-based clients that work natively instead of through browsers. Jetpack.me is a Wordpress plugin which lets you control your posts to social media from within your Wordpress account.

This is only the tip of the iceberg. As the emphasis on social media marketing increases, more startups built around social media management and measurement are sure to crop up. For now, the competition is robust, offering social media marketers and managers plenty of options.

Google Doesn’t Care About Your Website

It’s a harsh reality that a lot of businesses and site owners struggle to come to grips with. After all, we pour our hearts (and budgets) into our websites; writing content, building a social presence, focusing on the user experience and tweaking, updating, and optimizing every last detail all to make our sites more appealing in the eyes of Google. But guess what—Google wasn’t created to help your business succeed. Google was created, just like any other company ever created, to sell something. In Google’s case, they happen to be selling the organization and presentation of relevant information. Your website is a means to their end.
Here’s what SEO expert John E. Lincoln had to say about Google and the SEO industry;
Google does not make decisions with much regard for the SEO industry. Their goal is to provide users with the most relevant “natural” results possible.  SEO’s by nature are trying to manipulate the results in algorithms which can put them in conflict with Google’s goals. With good reason Google does not want SEO’s gaming the system…It’s not that Google doesn’t care about SEO and websites that are optimized properly with really great content, but rather they don’t care about the SEO industry or necessarily giving you the proper insight on how to improve your rankings.
The reason why site owners invest in SEO is to help prove to Google that their website gives user those more relevant results possible. If your website can give Google users exactly the kind of information they need when they need it and do it the “right” way (which is still open to debate on what exactly the “right” way is) then it will appear in the search results. As a side-effect of helping Google do their job better, your website gets to benefit from increased brand exposure, more organic traffic, and (hopefully) more business.
But Google really doesn’t care if your business fails or succeeds—they want to make sure their business succeeds no matter what. So if your SEO initiatives can show that your website delivers the kind of information their searchers are looking for they will happily let your business come along for the ride. But if your website can’t give users the kind of experience Google is looking for there is no rule that says they have to help you succeed.
I know that, as a site owner myself, it can be very frustrating at times to try and play by Google’s rules. As John mentions in his interview, “Google has always been guarded and cryptic about the information it makes public concerning its algorithm.” The search giant doles out snippets of information and general guidelines designed to help site owners do a good job with their SEO (which helps Google clean up the search results) but doesn’t give so much information away that the spammers know exactly where the loopholes are. Sometimes though, Google’s guidelines leave site owners searching for more information and struggling to define the fine lines between was is and what isn’t good SEO.
My advice to site owners has always been to play by the rules as best you can. Yes, you are bound to make a few mistakes along the way but for the most part those mistakes shouldn’t sink your website. Just like Google puts the searchers first, so you should too! In my experience, whenever a site puts human visitors before the search engines their SEO is usually in pretty good shape and heading in the right direction.
- See more at: http://www.brickmarketing.com/blog/google-doesnt-care.htm#sthash.TWyzS9PS.dpuf

It’s a harsh reality that a lot of businesses and site owners struggle to come to grips with. After all, we pour our hearts (and budgets) into our websites; writing content, building a social presence, focusing on the user experience and tweaking, updating, and optimizing every last detail all to make our sites more appealing in the eyes of Google. But guess what—Google wasn’t created to help your business succeed. Google was created, just like any other company ever created, to sell something. In Google’s case, they happen to be selling the organization and presentation of relevant information. Your website is a means to their end.
Here’s what SEO expert John E. Lincoln had to say about Google and the SEO industry;
Google does not make decisions with much regard for the SEO industry. Their goal is to provide users with the most relevant “natural” results possible.  SEO’s by nature are trying to manipulate the results in algorithms which can put them in conflict with Google’s goals. With good reason Google does not want SEO’s gaming the system…It’s not that Google doesn’t care about SEO and websites that are optimized properly with really great content, but rather they don’t care about the SEO industry or necessarily giving you the proper insight on how to improve your rankings.
The reason why site owners invest in SEO is to help prove to Google that their website gives user those more relevant results possible. If your website can give Google users exactly the kind of information they need when they need it and do it the “right” way (which is still open to debate on what exactly the “right” way is) then it will appear in the search results. As a side-effect of helping Google do their job better, your website gets to benefit from increased brand exposure, more organic traffic, and (hopefully) more business.
But Google really doesn’t care if your business fails or succeeds—they want to make sure their business succeeds no matter what. So if your SEO initiatives can show that your website delivers the kind of information their searchers are looking for they will happily let your business come along for the ride. But if your website can’t give users the kind of experience Google is looking for there is no rule that says they have to help you succeed.
I know that, as a site owner myself, it can be very frustrating at times to try and play by Google’s rules. As John mentions in his interview, “Google has always been guarded and cryptic about the information it makes public concerning its algorithm.” The search giant doles out snippets of information and general guidelines designed to help site owners do a good job with their SEO (which helps Google clean up the search results) but doesn’t give so much information away that the spammers know exactly where the loopholes are. Sometimes though, Google’s guidelines leave site owners searching for more information and struggling to define the fine lines between was is and what isn’t good SEO.
My advice to site owners has always been to play by the rules as best you can. Yes, you are bound to make a few mistakes along the way but for the most part those mistakes shouldn’t sink your website. Just like Google puts the searchers first, so you should too! In my experience, whenever a site puts human visitors before the search engines their SEO is usually in pretty good shape and heading in the right direction.
- See more at: http://www.brickmarketing.com/blog/google-doesnt-care.htm#sthash.TWyzS9PS.dpuf

It’s a harsh reality that a lot of businesses and site owners struggle to come to grips with. After all, we pour our hearts (and budgets) into our websites; writing content, building a social presence, focusing on the user experience and tweaking, updating, and optimizing every last detail all to make our sites more appealing in the eyes of Google. But guess what—Google wasn’t created to help your business succeed. Google was created, just like any other company ever created, to sell something. In Google’s case, they happen to be selling the organization and presentation of relevant information. Your website is a means to their end.
Here’s what SEO expert John E. Lincoln had to say about Google and the SEO industry;
Google does not make decisions with much regard for the SEO industry. Their goal is to provide users with the most relevant “natural” results possible.  SEO’s by nature are trying to manipulate the results in algorithms which can put them in conflict with Google’s goals. With good reason Google does not want SEO’s gaming the system…It’s not that Google doesn’t care about SEO and websites that are optimized properly with really great content, but rather they don’t care about the SEO industry or necessarily giving you the proper insight on how to improve your rankings.
The reason why site owners invest in SEO is to help prove to Google that their website gives user those more relevant results possible. If your website can give Google users exactly the kind of information they need when they need it and do it the “right” way (which is still open to debate on what exactly the “right” way is) then it will appear in the search results. As a side-effect of helping Google do their job better, your website gets to benefit from increased brand exposure, more organic traffic, and (hopefully) more business.
But Google really doesn’t care if your business fails or succeeds—they want to make sure their business succeeds no matter what. So if your SEO initiatives can show that your website delivers the kind of information their searchers are looking for they will happily let your business come along for the ride. But if your website can’t give users the kind of experience Google is looking for there is no rule that says they have to help you succeed.
I know that, as a site owner myself, it can be very frustrating at times to try and play by Google’s rules. As John mentions in his interview, “Google has always been guarded and cryptic about the information it makes public concerning its algorithm.” The search giant doles out snippets of information and general guidelines designed to help site owners do a good job with their SEO (which helps Google clean up the search results) but doesn’t give so much information away that the spammers know exactly where the loopholes are. Sometimes though, Google’s guidelines leave site owners searching for more information and struggling to define the fine lines between was is and what isn’t good SEO.
My advice to site owners has always been to play by the rules as best you can. Yes, you are bound to make a few mistakes along the way but for the most part those mistakes shouldn’t sink your website. Just like Google puts the searchers first, so you should too! In my experience, whenever a site puts human visitors before the search engines their SEO is usually in pretty good shape and heading in the right direction.
- See more at: http://www.brickmarketing.com/blog/google-doesnt-care.htm#sthash.TWyzS9PS.dpuf

It’s a harsh reality that a lot of businesses and site owners struggle to come to grips with. After all, we pour our hearts (and budgets) into our websites; writing content, building a social presence, focusing on the user experience and tweaking, updating, and optimizing every last detail all to make our sites more appealing in the eyes of Google. But guess what—Google wasn’t created to help your business succeed. Google was created, just like any other company ever created, to sell something. In Google’s case, they happen to be selling the organization and presentation of relevant information. Your website is a means to their end.
Here’s what SEO expert John E. Lincoln had to say about Google and the SEO industry;
Google does not make decisions with much regard for the SEO industry. Their goal is to provide users with the most relevant “natural” results possible.  SEO’s by nature are trying to manipulate the results in algorithms which can put them in conflict with Google’s goals. With good reason Google does not want SEO’s gaming the system…It’s not that Google doesn’t care about SEO and websites that are optimized properly with really great content, but rather they don’t care about the SEO industry or necessarily giving you the proper insight on how to improve your rankings.
The reason why site owners invest in SEO is to help prove to Google that their website gives user those more relevant results possible. If your website can give Google users exactly the kind of information they need when they need it and do it the “right” way (which is still open to debate on what exactly the “right” way is) then it will appear in the search results. As a side-effect of helping Google do their job better, your website gets to benefit from increased brand exposure, more organic traffic, and (hopefully) more business.
But Google really doesn’t care if your business fails or succeeds—they want to make sure their business succeeds no matter what. So if your SEO initiatives can show that your website delivers the kind of information their searchers are looking for they will happily let your business come along for the ride. But if your website can’t give users the kind of experience Google is looking for there is no rule that says they have to help you succeed.
I know that, as a site owner myself, it can be very frustrating at times to try and play by Google’s rules. As John mentions in his interview, “Google has always been guarded and cryptic about the information it makes public concerning its algorithm.” The search giant doles out snippets of information and general guidelines designed to help site owners do a good job with their SEO (which helps Google clean up the search results) but doesn’t give so much information away that the spammers know exactly where the loopholes are. Sometimes though, Google’s guidelines leave site owners searching for more information and struggling to define the fine lines between was is and what isn’t good SEO.
My advice to site owners has always been to play by the rules as best you can. Yes, you are bound to make a few mistakes along the way but for the most part those mistakes shouldn’t sink your website. Just like Google puts the searchers first, so you should too! In my experience, whenever a site puts human visitors before the search engines their SEO is usually in pretty good shape and heading in the right direction.
- See more at: http://www.brickmarketing.com/blog/google-doesnt-care.htm#sthash.TWyzS9PS.dpuf

It’s a harsh reality that a lot of businesses and site owners struggle to come to grips with. After all, we pour our hearts (and budgets) into our websites; writing content, building a social presence, focusing on the user experience and tweaking, updating, and optimizing every last detail all to make our sites more appealing in the eyes of Google. But guess what—Google wasn’t created to help your business succeed. Google was created, just like any other company ever created, to sell something. In Google’s case, they happen to be selling the organization and presentation of relevant information. Your website is a means to their end.
Here’s what SEO expert John E. Lincoln had to say about Google and the SEO industry;
Google does not make decisions with much regard for the SEO industry. Their goal is to provide users with the most relevant “natural” results possible.  SEO’s by nature are trying to manipulate the results in algorithms which can put them in conflict with Google’s goals. With good reason Google does not want SEO’s gaming the system…It’s not that Google doesn’t care about SEO and websites that are optimized properly with really great content, but rather they don’t care about the SEO industry or necessarily giving you the proper insight on how to improve your rankings.
The reason why site owners invest in SEO is to help prove to Google that their website gives user those more relevant results possible. If your website can give Google users exactly the kind of information they need when they need it and do it the “right” way (which is still open to debate on what exactly the “right” way is) then it will appear in the search results. As a side-effect of helping Google do their job better, your website gets to benefit from increased brand exposure, more organic traffic, and (hopefully) more business.
But Google really doesn’t care if your business fails or succeeds—they want to make sure their business succeeds no matter what. So if your SEO initiatives can show that your website delivers the kind of information their searchers are looking for they will happily let your business come along for the ride. But if your website can’t give users the kind of experience Google is looking for there is no rule that says they have to help you succeed.
I know that, as a site owner myself, it can be very frustrating at times to try and play by Google’s rules. As John mentions in his interview, “Google has always been guarded and cryptic about the information it makes public concerning its algorithm.” The search giant doles out snippets of information and general guidelines designed to help site owners do a good job with their SEO (which helps Google clean up the search results) but doesn’t give so much information away that the spammers know exactly where the loopholes are. Sometimes though, Google’s guidelines leave site owners searching for more information and struggling to define the fine lines between was is and what isn’t good SEO.
My advice to site owners has always been to play by the rules as best you can. Yes, you are bound to make a few mistakes along the way but for the most part those mistakes shouldn’t sink your website. Just like Google puts the searchers first, so you should too! In my experience, whenever a site puts human visitors before the search engines their SEO is usually in pretty good shape and heading in the right direction.
- See more at: http://www.brickmarketing.com/blog/google-doesnt-care.htm#sthash.TWyzS9PS.dpuf