Five Tools to Manage Social Media Accounts

Maintaining social media accounts can be cumbersome for business owners. That’s why most of them hire social media managers and marketers to update these accounts regularly.
“92% of respondents use or plan to use social media for recruiting, an increase of almost ten percent from the 83% using social recruiting in 2010,” according to Job Vite’s recent study entitled, “Social Job Seeker 2012.”
“Because of the speed in which social media enables communication, word of mouth now becomes world of mouth,” said Erik Qualman, Socialnomics.
Whether business owners hire a social media manager or not, these five tools will help those in charge keep track of multiple accounts.

HOOTSUITE
Hootsuite is highly recommended for small and medium-sized business. You can avail the free or pro account to boost marketing efforts and engage customers on a more personal level.
Business owners can hire one or two dedicated social media managers to actively manage real-time updates and scheduled tweets. The free version allows you to add five networks and supports, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Foursquare, Myspace PingFM and WordPress.
The pro subscription costs $9.99 a month.
BUFFER
Buffer is a Twitter app that allows social media managers and users to add tweets on an automated schedule. Buffer will consider the best time to tweet and send it at that time for you. Another Buffer benefit is that you can install its browser extension for Safari or Google Chrome so you can add the tweets you find interesting across the Web.
Buffer allows you to have a free account and manage one Twitter, Facebook (page and profile) and LinkedIn with the scheduler.
The pro subscription costs $10 a month which includes a buffer of unlimited posts, 12 social profiles and two dedicated team members.
TWEETDECK
TweetDeck is offered as a desktop client, Google Chrome extension and mobile clients (iOS and Android). All versions of TweetDeck offer the same features. This tool allows users to arrange the feeds with customizable columns, scheduled tweets, monitor and manage accounts for free.
Tweetdeck’s notification options top others in the same space. With the ability to receive notification sounds and/or desktop pop-ups for specific columns (including specific mentions, searches, accounts, etc.).
SOCIAL BRO
Social Bro is offered as a Google Chrome extension and a desktop client. It is a great way to manage those with whom you follow and who follow you. It allows users to view Twitter accounts and maximize its capabilities – keyword searches, filters, monitor hashtags, analyze competitors, Twitter statistics and much more.
Business owners can take advantage of its “best time to tweet” feature.
“Find out when your best time to tweet is and take advantage of every tweet you send. Get the best tweet-time from a custom sample of users and learn when your audience is online,” said Social Bro.