Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Convert personal FB to Biz profiles http://amplify.com/u/bx7zu

Convert personal FB to Biz profiles

Facebook Now Allows Personal Profiles To Be Converted Into Business Pages

Amplify’d from www.insidefacebook.com

For the first time, Facebook now allows personal user profiles to be converted into official business Pages, turning all their friends into fans. The “Profile To Business Page Migration” tool will help people who either created a personal profile for a business before Pages existed, or accidentally started accumulating fans as friends instead of Likes.

The migration tool should come as exciting news to business owners struggling with the decision of whether to continue a profile with its limited capabilities, or start a Page from scratch with zero fans. Facebook has not formally announced the tool, but it appears to be available worldwide.

Facebook has added a new Help Center article on converting profiles to Pages with details about the migration process. Any user with a verified account can use the migration tool. Their profile photo will be transferred, and all their friends will be converted into users who Like their Page.

All other profile content, including additional photos and wall posts will disappear and all Like connections to other Pages will be severed. Therefore, anyone using the migration tool should consider using Facebook’s Download Your Information tool first to back up their content. It appears that uers can rename their new Page during the migration process giving them a chance at rebranding.

Converted Pages don’t appear in the interests section of users who were previously friends with the profile and were migrated, limiting the potential for the tool to be used for bait-and-switch. Also, users are not notified if one of their friendships has been converted to a Like.

Migration will be especially useful for users who initially planned to use their profile to promote a small business, such as an event promotion company or consultancy, but eventually hit Facebook’s 5000 friend limit. It will also allow those promoting a business with a personal profile to begin using third-party Page applications that allow them to set up a Like-gated landing page, run contests, collect email addresses, and recreate functionality from websites.

compliance, as representing a business or other non-human entity with a profil

The tool also allows Facebook to gracefully shift users towards terms of service compliance, as representing a business or other non-human entity with a profile instead of a Page is prohibited.

There is no way to convert a Page to a user profile, so users should be sure they want to migrate before doing so. They won’t be able to write on the walls of friends or see their updates in the news feed once they become a Page. Facebook could do more to warn users of this during the migration process, but overall, the option is a huge win for would-be Page admins.

Read more at www.insidefacebook.com
 

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

3/29/11 9:00am EST -- New FB restriction http://bit.ly/eNOkMn

3/29/11 9:00am EST -- New FB restriction

Amplify’d from www.facebook.com

3/29/11 9:00am EST -- New FB restrictions severely impact fanpage administrators.

FB continues relentlessly to push business/fanpage administrators to improve the quality of their pages. FB also has continued to add new restrictions on page administrator’s ability to promote their business/fanpages by severely limiting their ability to communicate directly with their fans.

To this end we have seen:

1.  The new functions that are now available with the *new* page layout.  Automatic notifications, 'use FB as page' are the most notable of these significant improvements.   And iFrames clearly offer advanced coding capabilities especially for higher lever, interactive content.  However, it is still too early to see widespread positive results utilizing these new capabilities.

2.  At the same time, neither the ‘suggest to friends’ function nor 'updates' are working.  In addition, changes in the way the News Feed is *managed*, have significantly reduced the power of "posts by page". 

When post impressions were first introduced last fall, our ratio of impressions to fans averaged 100-150% depending on the *quality* and *timeliness* of the post.  Now our ratio of impressions to fans is averaging near 50% of fans.  In other words, the same posts have one third of the *impact* today, they had three months ago.  We have received multiple reports from all across the FB platform of similar numbers.

We do not anticipate the full restoration of these functions by FB.

So we all find ourselves in the same position.  While, on the one hand, we have more to offer our visitors and fans; on the other hand, we are even more severely restricted in our ability to communicate directly with fans.

A classic case of two steps forward and one step backward, or maybe one step forward and two steps backward.

The dominant challenge for most all business/fanpage administrators today is clearly "how to promote your FB page with the tools remaining in the FB toolbox and on your desktop."

__________

Some ground rules for the future:

1.  Our definition of "success' is a process that starts with a clearly stated and fundamental business problem and that leads to a 'business solution" using some key parts of the FB platform.

2.  FB will continue to emphasize quality over quantity.   We believe that the fundamental reason that suggestions, invites and updates have all been either restricted or eliminated is to reduce what FB considers as 'spam'.    One FB engineer was recently quoted in a recent interview that "FB had taken steps to eliminate *95%* of spam.  While we may think that this is classic case of 'the baby getting thrown out with the bathwater', we also know that most days, it does not matter what we think.

3.  FB ads are the not the magic solution.  The average cost per new fan, we believe, is too high and the ability for most pages to effectively target, time and control the ads is weak to non-existent, especially when compared to other marketing alternatives.

4.  FB will continue to introduce more new functions and opportunities at a rate that is indigestible for most business/fanpage administrators.  These too will be subject to rule #1 above.  They will not in any way replace 'posts by page', 'updates' or 'suggestions/invites' as a means of communicating directly with visitors and fans.  The most recent of these are FB Deals and FB Questions which were introduced last week.

5.  The importance of integrating external marketing methods with the FB page will become even more self-apparent.   There are two reasons for this.  First, there are some important marketing and sales functions that business pages require that FB will never provide.  Second, the paradigm shift may well be to move people to the page by externally marketing the page as opposed to the old concept of letting FB drive traffic to the page and then moving people from the page to your website.

6.  As always, page administrators will continue to deal with what we call the "FB quirks" such as temporary platform instability which appears on 'launch' day, poor documentation of upgrades, unannounced platform changes and non-existent inside-FB customer service.  Not the least of these are the inherent conflicts between FB corporate goals and those of the individual businesses represented by business/fanpages.

7.  Understanding the unique dynamics of the FB culture, which is radically different from that for external websites, will become even more important to business/fanpage administrators.

8.  The overall stakes of the game have been raised considerably.  The costs of building, maintaining and promoting a successful business/fanpage will increase.  The old days of 'build it and they will come' using the basic (free) FB toolbox, may well be over.  Pages that prosper in the future will be pages that:

1.  Invest regularly in content that is on the cutting edge:  compelling, focused and fresh.

2.  Find creative and affordable ways to get their visitors and fans to interact with the business/fanpage in more ways than just a click on the 'like' button or 'suggest to friends'.

3. At the same time, the specific business purposes of the page must also be achieved.

4. Develop new benchmarks for measuring page performance, including realistic expectations based on a sound market analysis of potential.

5. Aggressive test, measure and fine tune content on an ongoing basis.  The biggest mistakes we consistently see are 'poorly managed' pages.

For those pages that  move to the next level, this is good news as there should be less clutter and less noise to overcome.  For those that don't, their pages will quickly become obsolete, simply ineffective or 'more trouble than they are worth'.

At the Custom Fanpage Help Center, we believe that the investment and effort in FB business/fanpages can pay off exponentially.  To that end, we have and will continue to develop and implement strategies for successful business/fanpages.

We have had the opportunity to visit thousands of pages and meet with hundreds of administrators to resolve issues and problems at multiple levels.  We see what has worked and we see what doesn't work in ways that single page administrators will never have the opportunity to see.  We also see the "FB rules" changing as they change.   Clearly what worked months ago may become obsolete overnight?  On the other hand, some principles and techniques that have always worked will continue work well into the future.

That said, there is no 'secret sauce'.  Nor will there be.

The reason is simple.  Each business that has a FB business/fanpage is truly unique, with its own market dynamics, its own culture, its own "rules of the road" and its own financial requirements and restrictions.

However, there are common characteristics of "successful" pages and there are common characteristics of "underperforming" pages and those commonalities are the fundamental ingredients in the "recipe for success".   The 'recipe' only becomes "secret sauce" when the unique characteristics and requirements of the underlying business the business/fanpage represents are added.

Nobody, including us, makes "secret sauce" in their first attempt.  Anybody who makes that claim, we would suggest putting that in the "too good to be true" category and walking away.  "Secret sauce" requires ongoing testing, patience, commitment and, yes, a small amount of *luck*.  Most importantly, it requires understanding how your business works and how FB works.

 

We do believe our experience in business and on the FB platform positions us well ahead in the learning curve.

Read more at www.facebook.com
 

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

15 Online Background Generators http://jbmedia.biz/hYx1pz

15 Online Background Generators

Amplify’d from singlefunction.com

15 Online Background Generators

I think we all agree that backgrounds, whether viewed on a website, a mobile phone, or a desktop, act as a key visual element that could render the viewing experience from pleasant to utterly disturbing. Of course what we are interested in is to have a great looking background, and there are many simple ways to achieve that.

This roundup is just about that. The list includes online generators that will easily create patterns, stripes, gradients and even tartans, all you have to do is download, tile, and impress!

PatternCooler.com
BgPatterns.com
Patterns by ColourLovers.com
StripeGenerator.com
StripeMania.com
StripedBgs.com
StripeDesigner.com
TartanMaker.com
Dotter by PixelKnete.de
Gradient Image Maker by DynamicDrive.com
Ogim - Online Gradient Image Maker
Gradient-Maker by SecretGeek.net
Background Image Maker by Rails2u.com
TileMachine.com
bgMaker by Ventdaval.com
See more at singlefunction.com
 

Finally, a free and truly simple CMS http://jbmedia.biz/gtDzZB

Finally, a free and truly simple CMS

Amplify’d from www.cushycms.com




Finally, a free and truly simple CMS


Web Designers:



  • Allow clients to safely edit content
  • No software to install, no programming required
  • Takes just a few minutes to setup
  • Define exactly which parts of the page can be changed
  • Produces standards compliant, search engine friendly content

Content Editors:



  • Super. Easy. To. Use.
















Read more at www.cushycms.com
 

facebook iframe connect plugin


Monday, March 7, 2011

How Many Fans Are Hiding Your Content? http://jbmedia.biz/icQO7D

How Many Fans Are Hiding Your Content?

How Many Fans Are Hiding Your Content From Their Newsfeed?

Amplify’d from blog.hubze.com

In this video we'll show you how to check the number of fans that are hiding your content from their Newsfeed.

(This video is best viewed in Full Screen 720p HD)

Why would fans do this?

Two reasons come quickly to mind.  You have either acquired these fans under false pretenses (ex. spamming), or you are not posting relevant content about your business.

The best way to keep your "hide" number low is to keep your fans engaged by posting relevant information about your business that keep users entertained and engaged.

We're interested to learn more about you and your fan page.  Please comment with the number of fans and the number of "hides" your fan page currently has.

Read more at blog.hubze.com
 

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Top 20 Sites to Improve Your Twitter Exp

Amplify’d from www.readability.com

Top 20 Sites to Improve Your Twitter Experience

Twitter Graph Image“140-character status updates to a network of followers.” That makes Twitter1 sound simple. But in fact, the social information platform has grown to be much more complex than its 140 character-limit suggests. The site not only connects people, but has also become an intricate information resource for everything from news to shopping deals.

Yet in many ways, the site’s actual functionality hasn’t exactly kept up with user interactions. Twitter’s interface has remained simple, which is why a lot of tweets take place through third-party sites and applications that make the experience more useful.

We’ve compiled a list of the top 20 third-party websites for making your Twitter experience more useful and easier to manage. Although this does not include the many desktop or mobile applications that are available for Twitter, we hope that it will make your browsing experience more enjoyable as you dive into the Twittersphere. Also, as a one-stop shop for Twitter apps, check out OneForty2. We’d love to hear what’s missing from this list, including sites that you find useful in the comments.

Web Applications: HootSuite and Brizzly

by Vadim Lavrusik




 • 







Read Later







Twitter Graph Image“140-character status updates to a network of followers.” That makes Twitter1 sound simple. But in fact, the social information platform has grown to be much more complex than its 140 character-limit suggests. The site not only connects people, but has also become an intricate information resource for everything from news to shopping deals.

Yet in many ways, the site’s actual functionality hasn’t exactly kept up with user interactions. Twitter’s interface has remained simple, which is why a lot of tweets take place through third-party sites and applications that make the experience more useful.

We’ve compiled a list of the top 20 third-party websites for making your Twitter experience more useful and easier to manage. Although this does not include the many desktop or mobile applications that are available for Twitter, we hope that it will make your browsing experience more enjoyable as you dive into the Twittersphere. Also, as a one-stop shop for Twitter apps, check out OneForty2. We’d love to hear what’s missing from this list, including sites that you find useful in the comments.

Web Applications: HootSuite and Brizzly

With its recent update and HTML5 support3, social media dashboard HootSuite4 has become one of the most useful Twitter web applications not only for individual users, but teams managing several accounts. In some ways, HootSuite has the look and feel of TweetDeck5 with the big differentiator of it being a web-based application, not requiring any downloads.

HootSuite enables you to update to multiple accounts at once, and supports Twitter, Facebook6 profiles and pages, LinkedIn, Ping.fm, WordPress7, MySpace8 and Foursquare9. Similar to TweetDeck, these features make the application useful for maintaining your overall social presence. Moreover, you can allow other users to jointly update an account, integrate Google Analytics for your stats and schedule tweets and updates ahead of time.

The HTML5 interface enables you to easily include an image or file with your update by simply dragging it from the desktop into the message box, which will automatically upload the file with an “Ow.ly” shortener for sharing. The fast loading of the dashboard is perhaps one of the most notable improvements, making the site more usable for users who manage dozens of accounts. If you don’t like Hootsuite, you should also check out Seesmic10, which has a lot of similar features, but a different interface.

Brizzly11 has a different functionality from Hootsuite, but may be more appealing because of its simple interface. Brizzly is specifically focused on Twitter and no other networks, which makes the experience somewhat less distracting. It also includes subtle, but worthy features like automatically expanded URLs, which shows you exactly where you are going if you click, and displays replies and direct messages in a threaded form, making it easier to follow the conversation.

Filtering Through the Noise: TwitterTimes and Paper.li

After you log in with your Twitter username, The Twitter Tim.es12 creates a page that displays stories by filtering through what the people you follow have tweeted the most in a more presentable stream that is updated regularly. Though the design of the interface isn’t the best, The Twitter Times is effective in showing you who has tweeted the story along with the story headline and blurb to give you an idea of what it’s about. In some cases, the site shows you the full text of the post. It also gives you options to view popular stories on Twitter from media sources and Twitter Lists.

The site helps you filter through the noise and keep up with what is trending among the people you follow. If you’ve been off the grid for a couple hours, you can get a sense of what people are sharing and the news that is important among your Twitter community at any given moment.

Paper.li13 has similar functions but a different presentation. Users can create their own “newspaper” based on who they follow. Users can also create newspapers based on a Twitter hash tag or a Twitter list. Instead of a stream, Paper.li presents content by creating a custom homepage that separates content based on popularity and topics. The site does a great job of making the content visually appealing by including thumbnails, YouTube videos and blurbs.

Trends: TweetMeme and Trendistic

TweetMeme14 is best recognized for its bright green buttons on websites (like this one), enabling users to easily tweet the article they’re reading. All of the information is collected at TweetMeme from across the web, giving a good sense as to what is trending on Twitter. The site enables you to filter by categories and topics (entertainment, gaming, etc.) and to showcase the most retweeted links. You also get a brief blurb from the link being shared and are able to filter by news articles, images and videos.

Trendistic15 also works well, but specifically for bigger Twitter trends and how they have performed over time. The site gives you an idea of current trends and presents them in a graphic format, showing you the percentage that the trends account for at any give time. For example, on July 8, “heat” accounted for 1.8%16 of all tweets at 9 p.m. during LeBron James’ big announcement17 that he would be joining the Miami Heat. You can also sort the trend based on timeframe, and get a code to embed the chart on your site.

Twitter Lists: Tlists and PubliTweet

Tlists18 is a Twitter Lists directory where you can search by list topic, view popular lists, and create your own lists. Users can also apply to join a list, and the creator is then notified and can approve them to join the list depending on whether they are a good fit. Lists are a great curating tool in rounding up like-minded tweeters in one place. It functions not only as a directory, but also as a stream of useful information around a specific subject. But after you have that list, how can you make it more presentable?

PubliTweet19 takes your Twitter Lists and makes them a lot more useful. It does this by providing a nice embed code that presents the lists in a handy stream that includes the text of the tweet, headline, thumbnail and blurb of the article they are sharing. You can take the code and plant the list anywhere on your site. Not only does PubliTweet make your Twitter Lists more useful visually, the tweets are also more shareable through convenient Twitter, Facebook and e-mail share buttons.

Hashtag Stats: TwapperKeeper

TwapperKeeper20 and Trendistic are great tools for getting some basic stats on how much a specific hashtag on Twitter is performing. Though there are several other sites that give you more options (often for a price), these two sites are simple to use in getting a general overview. TwapperKeeper lets you create an archive for tracking a specific hashtag, keyword, or username and collects the data and the number of mentions. If you’re interested in getting a sense for how many times a specific hashtag was tweeted, it gives you a total number, along with the ability to search precisely through the archive that you created, listing the recent tweets that have been tracked. The beautiful part is that you can also export the data and analyze it to your liking.

Embedding Tweets: QuoteURL

Though Twitter released a script21 that allows interactive tweet embedding, the code has had some issues and isn’t always ideal. QuoteURL22 seems to be the best option for creating embedable tweets. The app enables you to add multiple tweet URLs and embed them into a post. You can also embed an individual one, but if you want to get a stream of tweets to embed, this is the tool to use.

The application gives you a nice, clean embed such that users can see the text of the tweet, but it also preserves the interactivity of being able to reply, click on the username, or any links within the tweet. Essentially, it mirrors the experience a user has engaging with individual tweets on Twitter. This makes your tweets a bit more useful than just a screenshot, however, many sites and blogs have yet to adopt it because the embed doesn’t show up in blogger’s RSS feeds.

Location: MapMash.in and Monitter

Though Twitter has launched its own location feature with Twitter Places23, which will likely be expanded in the future, there are several other sites that showcase location-based tweets. Local Twitter Trends24 displays trends in major cities and allows you to click on the keywords to see what people are talking about. It’s very simple and to the point, giving you an easy way to track the conversation in a specific place.

However, if you want to track news on specific topics, monitter25 might be the better choice. This site allows you to not only search for a specific location, it also lets you track three specific searches within that area — in real time — and displays the results in an easy-to-view, three-column format. You can also adjust the radius of the area that you’re searching.

Discovery: WeFollow and Twellow

WeFollow26 is a Twitter directory from Kevin Rose27, the founder of Digg, that emphasizes topics that users associate themselves with. Anyone can easily add themselves to the directory by simply tweeting out the hashtags that will make their usernames searchable in the directory. The site is great for discovering new users that you might share common interests with. It also enables you to view the top users in each category.

Twellow’s28 tagline is the “Twitter Yellow Pages,” and aims to be the directory to search for Twitter users based on industries and topics like biotechnology, food, home and garden, etc. In a lot of ways it is the ultimate directory for Twitter, also enabling you to search for users based on area. It also offers a very useful search engine.

Influence: Klout and TwitterCounter

Type a username into Klout and you can get a sense for how influential that user is on Twitter and their behavior. Klout29 gives you a score out of 100 based on reach, amplification and network after being compiled from numbers like the total retweets, message reach, unique mentions, retweeters, and more. The cool feature is the influence matrix, which defines the user and gives you a brief description of their behavior on Twitter. Klout also tells you who the user influences and is influenced by, as well as a topic summary of their tweets.

TwitterCounter30 tracks the top accounts and lists on Twitter based on how many followers they have and gives you some more basic numbers of influence based on growth and rank of the user’s account. The site provides some basic graphs tracking the number of the follower, following, and tweet growth over time, even setting a predicting number for where you will be in the future based on your average growth. It also enables you to easily compare several accounts at once, and build a handy widget for your site that tracks and displays recent Twitter visitors to your site.

Photos and Videos: TwitPic and yfrog

Among the first sites to make sharing photos on Twitter easy and popular, Twitpic31 is still one of the best. It’s also useful to browse through the public timeline of photos uploaded, and now you can even tie location to the photos you upload32. It also lets you group photos into events, which is great for organization.

Yfrog33 lets you not only upload photos, but videos as well. The site is also extremely useful and easy to navigate. One simple Yfrog feature that Twitpic fails to include is a site search. Yfrog allows you to sort videos and pictures based on popularity, and showcases top search trends on the site. You can also easily share the photos across platforms and get an embed code for the image. Here’s an example of Glee star Mark Salling’s34 Yfrog post about a recent big catch:

Polls: PollDaddy and TwtPoll

PollDaddy35 has an easy integration for creating a quick poll that can be easily distributed on Twitter. The setup is easy. You create a poll question, select the answers (multiple choice, etc.) and the order you want them to appear, enter your username and post it to Twitter. The site sends a nice clean tweet with a link to the poll where users can vote. After setting the poll up, it is also quite easy to embed the poll into a post. It’s also worth mentioning PollDaddy has a great WordPress plugin that enables you to easily create polls within the content management system.

TwtPoll36 is similar to PollDaddy but has a different interface and allows users to answer questions through different formats, such as text, images or videos, Twitter handles or addresses.

See more at www.readability.com
 

Top 20 Sites to Improve Your Twitter Exp http://amplify.com/u/bt9rn
12 Social Media Monitoring Tools Reviewe http://amplify.com/u/bt9kk

12 Social Media Monitoring Tools Reviewe

Amplify’d from sixrevisions.com
12 Social Media Monitoring Tools Reviewed

After several months of researching, testing, and using various tools for social media monitoring and response, I thought it might be helpful to share some of my findings. It was fun to dive into these tools, but I hope the information in this article will save you time and help you quickly find the tool that’s right for your needs.

Why Bother Monitoring Social Media?

Even if you or your clients have "decided" not to actively participate in social media, it’s really not a choice. Nature abhors a vacuum, and so does social media. Either you can fill the vacuum with your perspective, or your customers and competitors will fill it for you. The choice is clear.

Monitoring helps with branding and marketing and can help identify quality control or customer care problems that may have gone unnoticed.

Monitoring is only one piece of the puzzle, however. It’s important to find out who is saying what, and where the conversation is happening so you can respond appropriately.

Terminology

There are few terms you’ll need to be familiar with before we talk about the tools, so let’s take a moment to cover them before we jump into the details.

Influence

If you find there are customers who have a strong opinion of your brand, it’s important to understand the influence of those customers.

  • How many followers do they have?
  • Do they get retweets?
  • How many external links point to their blog?
  • How many comments do their blog posts attract?

Several of the free tools listed below include this measurement to assist in your monitoring and response efforts. All of the paid options include it.

Sentiment

Are the comments positive or negative? Most current tools attempt to assign sentiment to a post automatically. While this is helpful for brands with tons of mentions, it’s only about 70% accurate in most cases[1], so manual verification and spot-checking is encouraged across the board before making any decisions based on influence data.

Volume

This is simply the amount of "buzz" that exists. Many monitoring tools give the ability to chart volume for specific keywords over time. This gives you a great way to measure the impact of your marketing efforts and social media campaigns, especially when combined with sentiment. A lot can be learned about your brand and your customers by investigating spikes in social media volumes.

Workflow

Workflow is the process of assigning, tracking and responding to social media, typically in a team environment. An effective workflow can prevent double responses and missed opportunities.

Now that we have an understanding of the purpose and the terminology surrounding social media monitoring, let’s take a look at some tools that can help you monitor your presence.

Google Alerts

An oldie but a goodie! Google Alerts allows you to set up keyword searches for the name of your company or competitors, for example, and receive updates in your email inbox or through an RSS feed.

When combined with iGoogle, you can create a pretty nice consolidated page that contains the latest findings for your selected keywords. When it comes to monitoring social media, this is the least you should be doing; it’s free and an absolute snap to set up.

Twitter Advanced Search

By using the advanced features in Twitter’s search tool, you can use simple Boolean logic (true or false conditions) to perform some pretty powerful searches.

Once you set up your search, you can save the query as an RSS feed so you can keep up to date on the latest news.

Icerocket

Used by many, Icerocket helps you keep watch over Twitter, blogs, web, news, images and more. Features include a topic cloud and basic listing of mentions. This social media monitoring tool also offers the ability to bookmark your search results for later reference.

Although helpful, some users might find the interface and the style of the search results pages a little archaic compared to the other options.

Addict-o-matic

This tool is a consolidated page with search matches across blogs, Twitter, Digg, Flickr and more. Featuring an appealing interface and one-page dashboard, Addict-o-matic is one of the best free tools available for summarizing all your "buzz" in one place.

Boardtracker

Boardtracker focuses on grabbing "buzz" from message boards and forums. Features include a topic cloud and influencer list. There are ads mixed in with your search results which may turn off some users. A premium version is offered. If your target customers are more active on message boards than other channels, this could be the right tool for you.

Twazzup

Of the Twitter-focused monitoring tools I’ve come across, Twazzup does a great job of getting everything on one page. Sentiment, top links, and influencers are available.

The ranking of influencers, however, seems a little mysterious. A quick check of Klout scores on profiles for a few key topics didn’t reflect a high level of influence, so Twazzup must be using a different calculation.

Social Mention

This social media monitoring tool features an interesting combination of easy-to-read metrics including reach, sentiment, passion, and strength (volume/day). Social Mention tracks blogs, blog comments, Twitter, mainstream news, images, video, and audio. Searches can be saved as an RSS feed so you can easily stay up-to-date.

HootSuite

HootSuite is a popular tool that can be used to manage multiple accounts across Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, WordPress, Foursquare and LinkedIn. Although HootSuite could be categorized as an account management tool rather than a monitoring tool, I believe it deserves mention here because of its large user base and powerful functionality.

You can push updates to one or more profiles, track click-through, deploy timed updates, monitor your social media buzz across multiple web services, and assign tasks among team members based on roles. If you use HootSuite, you’ll want to use an additional tool to supplement monitoring of forums and blogs. HootSuite apps for both iPhone and Android are available.

Seesmic

If you try HootSuite, you’ll find the interface of Seesmic fairly familiar. The similarity doesn’t end there. They also share the capability to manage multiple accounts across all the popular social media outlets. Seesmic gives up some ground to HootSuite, however, on the team collaboration and workflow front.

TweetDeck

Another account management tool, TweetDeck is available as an application for Mac, Windows, Linux, iPhone and iPad. You can use TweetDeck to manage profiles across Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Foursquare and Google Buzz. If you’ve used the other tools on this list, the multi-column format will feel familiar.

TweetDeck is lacking a good workflow, so it is not for those who will be collaborating with a team. In addition, because it needs to be installed on your system instead of being able to run in a Web browser, many people won’t be able to use it in a secure corporate environment.

11. Scoutlabs ($249/mo)

Scoutlabs

Scoutlabs has a great clean interface and overall excellent features for volume trending, sentiment-tracking, learning about key quotes (based on sentiment), and managing workflow for response management. Unlimited results helps protect you from increased monthly cost due to unexpected spikes in volume.

It’s a great option for agencies and freelancers because you can give clients access to a dashboard with your logo on it, branding the service as your own. Note that it can be a challenge to output some graphs and reports which may be an issue if you want to produce reports for your clients.

12. Radian6 ($500/mo)

Radian6

Radian6 is a powerhouse that gives you the ability to slice-and-dice your data until your head spins. Integrated workflow, alerts, sentiment, monitoring across blogs, forums, news, Twitter, and more is what this social media monitoring tool has to offer.

The amount of monthly volume can influence pricing which is a little scary for companies that may experience wild swings in monthly volume. This is not the type of solution you should set up and hand over to your clients; it provides you with a wealth of information so you can become the go-to expert for them. If you invest the time to learn this tool, you can discover insights that will make you a hero to your clients.

Read more at sixrevisions.com