Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Listen first! is the first step in almost all advice on creating a social media strategy. To listen effectively you need to choose the right tool. There’s certainly no shortage of choice. Back in 2009 (and updated since) Smart Insights created a comparison of 36 of the best-known online reputation monitoring tools including free and paid.

It seems the choice now is even more bewildering. A November 2015 comparison of social media monitoring tools by Ideya Ltd shows that there are at least 242 tools now available. However, the number of new tools has decreased. Of these sevices, 187 are paid, with the remainder free or using a combined model....

The key to making the most of social media is listening to what your audience has to say about you, analysing the data and, finally, reaching social media business intelligence; using all these insights to know your customers better and improve your marketing strategy. If you are a social media rookie, this list of the Top 10 Free Social Media Monitoring Tools might come in handy.

When looking for a tool, it’s a good idea to try a couple of them and choose the one that suits your needs best. However, bear in mind that these tools are not an alternative to Enterprise-level tools, such as Brandwatch, which brought social media monitoring to a new level, offering a much higher variety of services and in-depth analysis. It all depends on your needs. That being said, let’s take a look at some of the best free monitoring tools...

Managing social media, making public WiFi secure, backing up Gmail - there's probably an app for that, or a cool web tool, and you'll probably find it here.

...There’s an app for that—or cool web tool. Find tools to do all of the above and much more in this collection of helpful business, online and social media tools, apps and reviews....

[Just a terrific resource from the awesome Tom Pick - JD]

Discover the hashtag tracking tools you need to make it easy to create, manage, track and report on social media hashtag campaigns.

Are you using hashtags in your social media campaigns?

Do you want to find tools to help manage your hashtags?

The right tools can help you launch, track and analyze hashtags across social networks.In this article, you’ll discover five tools that make it easy to track hashtags and their related conversations....

Social media provides the means and tools to find relevant influencers in your industry or niche. From them, you can learn, connect, utilize their communities.

You’re in social business. Among the many things on your busy agenda, you need to research relevant influencers in social media.
From them, you can learn, connect, utilize their communities, and engage in conversation. You are also expected to advocate your brand, through storytelling and the publication of your professional/niche knowledge. To make your efforts in influencer research and content creation worthwhile, you then have to distribute your ideas and content.

Unless you want to spend all day, every day consumed in social networks – here are seven tools to help you efficiently engage in the processes of social business....

[Seven fundamental tools for social media efficiency ~ Jeff]