My Social Media Toolbox for 2009

Ryan Moede, Former Viget

Article Category: #Strategy

Posted on

It's a new year and, with that in mind, I thought it would be a good time to do a quick rundown on the tools that are in my daily social media toolbox.

Netvibes
When you're keeping an eye on hundreds of blogs, custom search feeds and various social networking profiles, Netvibes does a bang up job aggegating my world's information into a simple, clean dashboard. Paired with a morning cup of coffee, it's a great way to start the day. And even when I'm on the go or standing in yet another line (this is DC, after all), it's slick iPhone optimized site keeps me informed and entertained

Twitter
What can I say, it's a veritable force to be reckoned with. On Twitter I'm keeping in touch with friends and business contacts alike, monitoring conversations for clients, keeping tabs on custom searches and simply valuing the wealth of information that rises to the top of the human-curated web. It's taken me a long time to settle on the appropriate desktop and iPhone apps for Twitter, but I think I've finally found a home with Tweetdeck for my desktop and Twittelator for the mobile play.

Conversation PrismSocial Networks
The major outposts for me are Facebook and LinkedIn. Sure, there are countless other sandboxes to play in (and yes, I ditched MySpace about a year ago), but LinkedIn has quickly become my online Rolodex, and Facebook has managed to simply connect everything else in my life.

Social Media Monitoring
Where to begin? I still have yet to settle on just one, but I've enjoyed working with premium services from Radian6, Techrigy and Scout Labs, in addition to experimenting with free(ish) services from Filtrbox and Social Mention among others. (And yes, Google Alerts have been in the mix from the beginning.)

Comment Management
Monitoring tools are getting better every day at tracking blog posts. Unfortunately, tracking the extended conversation in the comments is still playing catch up. But we're making progress. Backtype and Disqus both provide great services for managing comments around the web, and with the Disqus integration with FriendFeed,

Social Bookmarks
I've tried them all, but Delicious has been there for me since day one, and it just simply works. That is all.

Blog Platform
We're rocking Expression Engine for the Viget blogs, but for my personal social media marketing blog, I really have been pleased with Wordpress, especially since upgrading to 2.7. And yes, there is an iPhone app for that, too.

Photos
Flickr. What else?

Video
Who doesn't love them some YouTube? Of course we do, but graded on overall experience, Vimeo is hands down my favorite service.

Music
I don't think I could survive the working on the computer all day if there wasn't a killer soundtrack to go with it. And lately, it's been Vampire Weekend, Kings of Leon and Martin Sexton courtesy of Pandora, who also just released the second generation of their iPhone app.

Travel
Keeping in touch with friends and colleagues when on the road or attending conferences is made easier with Dopplr - a simply must for anyone on the road.

Project Management and Communications
I'm still working on making it a daily habit, but our team here is ramping up on Yammer for staying on top of the latest quick updates, in addition to managing projects on Basecamp and contacts in Highrise.

What I like about these tools and services is that they're built around discovery, sharing and community. And for nearly every one of these services, there is a mobile app to take it on the go. How social media services will be redefined by going mobile and creating an augmented reality is something I'm excited to see.

And while I'm quite certain I've played with just about every bright shiny object that comes along, these are the tools that consistenly make my job just a little easier, and a whole lot more fun.

What's in your social media toolbox?

 

Note: Viget recently launched SocialPiq.com as a way to find the best social media tools based on individual needs

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