Tools & Technologies Archives

5 Questions Social Media Managers Should Have An Answer For

July 10, 2013/by Corey Padveen

There are certain questions social media managers should always be able to answer – no matter what.

While every project might be different and unique in its own right, there are certain questions that social media managers will constantly be faced with, and should always have an answer for.

Below are five questions that will almost certainly come up for social media managers in everything from a friendly roundtable discussion with other industry peers to make or break decision-making meeting with prospective clients. In each of these situations and everything in between, qualified social media managers should have an answer locked and loaded. Or, at the very least, know in which direction they would like to take the question.

1. How do you measure the success of social media?

This answer is going to differ depending on the type of client you are talking to, but no matter who the client is, or what the goals of the program might be, you should always be able to provide a detailed response outlining what constitutes success based on numbers.

There are still plenty of skeptics out there when it comes to social media. If you expect to change their minds, you need to be able to answer them with something a little more substantial than ‘Likes’ and ‘Followers’.

2. Can’t I do this for free?

There it is – that evil word: free. This is still among the most common misconceptions when it comes to social media; and it is a very easily understandable one.

I can sign up for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+ and any other social network for free. Why would I pay someone to do it for me? And therein lies the misconception. You need to be able to explain why social media is about so much more than simply having the account. There is an expertise involved and a significant investment of time.

Know how to answer this question and convey your point, and selling social media will be much easier.

3. What tools do you use?

Be careful – this is not as black and white as it looks. There is a lot behind this question and a very careful answer needs to be given.

Tools are great complements to a thoughtful social media strategy, and you need to be able to explain that while tools are incorporated into your program, they are not the only part of the solution.

It is also very important that you are familiar with every possible tool you can find. This question can be a loaded one aimed to test your knowledge of the marketplace. Who is going to trust a social media manager that knows less than the client?

4. What’s wrong with our current social media?

Again, there is a lot more to this question than meets the eye. For starters, if you can answer it, you have done your research and that looks great. Second, you don’t want to insult the current program, but you don’t want to make it seem like you wouldn’t change anything either.

Wow your audience by explaining how you would enhance their current social media efforts to help generate more business and provide them with some details as to how you would do that.

5. I already have an SEO program in place so why would I spend money on social media?

Finally, it is very important that you understand both the differences between social media and SEO, and how they relate to one another.

Keeping up-to-date on both the updates to search engine ranking criteria and social networks will allow you to intelligently answer this question and showcase how the two differ and help one another.

If you can answer these five questions, you stand a great chance of closing more deals. Knowledge is at the root of success when it comes to social media. In an ever-evolving field, it is important that you stay on top of your game in order to wow both your customers, your competitors and your industry.

Can you think of any other questions that social media managers should be able to answer? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

4 Tips to Help You Manage Your Online Reputation

June 19, 2013/by Corey Padveen

It is crucial now more than ever that you properly manage your online reputation – everyone can see everything.

With the advent of social media in the business world, it has never been more important to keep an eye on and properly manage your online reputation. 140 characters may seem short, but that is all it takes to start a PR crisis that quickly spirals out of control.

Not long ago, we posted an infographic with plenty of information on the importance of monitoring and managing your online reputation. There were some important stats in the infographic. Most crucial was the fact that 70% of consumers trust brand recommendations from their friends and family, and a whopping 92% of consumers trust reviews they read online from former customers. That’s a substantial majority.

So how can you manage your online reputation and build your business? The four tips below should always be kept in mind when it comes to online reputation management.

Engage in Conversations

When people are talking about your brand, talk with them. Don’t let the conversations take place about you without showing your engaged audience that you are listening. This will accomplish two things: it will show those conversing that you care and show the same to onlookers.

Handle Every Crisis

As we noted above, one 140-character message can mean a major dent in your business. You don’t want to let anything get out of control, because in the world of social media, it is much harder to deal with the ripple effect than to deal with the one disgruntled customer.

Offer Social Care

Social Care is the new concept of offering customer service on social media channels. Currently, according to a study by Nielsen and NM Incite, one-third of online adults prefer Social Care to conventional approaches (i.e. phone). That may sound like a minority, but that’s a huge group of people!

By offering an additional service that helps your customers, you will gain an edge over your competitors, and it will certainly help build up your reputation. Just be sure to answer customers when they reach out to you!

Follow Your Brand

There are free listening tools like SocialMention and BackTweets, and high-end, highly technical, highly pricey listening tools like Crimson Hexagon and Sysomos that you should be using to listen for brand mentions. You’d be surprised at where your brand is being discussed, and you want to be abreast of what’s going on.

Using listening tools always provides you with the added option of dealing with issues that you may not have known about (i.e. extensions to your Social Care model) and can also provide you with valuable insights as to what your customers want and how you can improve your business and services.

There are several ways to go about monitoring and managing your online reputation. Putting these tips into practice is great way to start.

Do you engage in some for of online reputation management? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

4 Important Social Media Metrics

May 14, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Marketers are always looking for the best social media metrics, and these four social media metrics will be among your most important.

We are always faced with the task of measuring our social media campaigns in order to generate ROI reports. No matter what your goals are at the outset, there are going to be certain social media metrics that you will need to keep in mind when compiling these reports.

Influence

Granted, this is a somewhat arbitrary metric. Some might venture to argue that influence is not a metric at all. However, it is something you are going to want to pay attention to. There are plenty of services – like Klout, Kred and PeerIndex – that will provide you with a concrete number to help measure your influence, but you will want to do a little work on your own.

Pay attention to the groups, communities and networks where you are seeing your highest levels of conversation, and audience engagement. If, for example, on Facebook you see that your content is shared five times more than it is on Twitter, you might want to reevaluate your Twitter strategy in order to increase the influence you have on your community there.

Engagement

As noted above, engagement is something you are going to want to keep a close eye on. Engagement is at the heart of a successful social media program, and it is going to be one of if not your most important metric.

When measuring engagement, it is important to keep in mind that a conversation is not the only form of engagement. Look at instances where you audiences are engaging with content by simply liking, or sharing it. These are social signals, and are very important to both SEO and a success program. Take note of the types of content where you are seeing the most engagement, and modify your campaigns accordingly in order to maximize those levels wherever possible.

Share of Voice

Looking at the conversation taking place around your own brand is one thing, but how big of a share in the industry discussion does your brand have? This is why it is important to measure share of voice.

Your share of voice is the percentage of mentions in your industry that relate to your brand compared to your competitors. This is an important metric for a few reasons, the most important of which is to know where you need to become more involved in the conversation. To help you measure share of voice, there are free tools like Social Mention that can be used.

Social Referral Traffic

In the Traffic Sources section of your Google Analytics dashboard, you will see where your traffic is coming from. This is going to be a key focal point for a successful program.

To know whether or not your social media program is driving traffic and, subsequently, leads and business, you need to be monitoring that activity. This will give you a good indication of where your efforts and the strategy you have in place are paying off, and where you need to make adjustments. Engagement, influence and a significant share of voice are great metrics, but if those are not converting into leads and sales, then you need to modify your approach.

These may only be just four metrics, but they are universal and among the most important when it comes to social media metrics. You will need to look at these no matter what kind of a campaign you are conducting, or what your goals are.

What other social media metrics do you use? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

6 Blogging Tips for Maximum Engagement

April 17, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Blogging can be a huge asset to your website and business, but only if it engages your readers.

Web logs (blogs) were around long before Facebook or Twitter, and along with email, blogging was one of the first forms of social networking. When it comes to online marketing, few things can be as beneficial to your business as blogging. That said, there are a few important things marketers need to know before jumping into the world of blogging.

Engagement is crucial if you want your blog to succeed. Indexing thousands of blog posts is great, but only if there are people showing up to read and share them. So, how do you go about optimizing your blog for maximum engagement?

Below are 6 helpful blogging tips that you can use to increase engagement with your audience.

1. Write What You Know

This may seem like a given. After all, if you know about wine, you’re not necessarily going to start a blog about brain surgery. (Unless you’re a brain surgeon with a phenomenal palate.) And as long as you write about what you know, it will not be long before your audience perceives you as an expert and begins to engage with your content.

On the other hand, writing ignorantly will turn your audience off, and you’ll have a tough time getting them to stick around or come back for more.

2. Integrate Your Social Channels

It should be easy for your audience to share your content. If they like what they see, they should be able to easily share it with their friends. This is the viral effect and it is one of the fastest ways to build your audience (and clout). So when you build your blog, make it social friendly. Each post should have the ability to be shared right from the page. (ShareThis and Shareaholic are great integrations for this.)

3. Write for Your Audience

Be sure you know who you are writing for and use a rhetoric appropriate for them. Going back to the example of the brain surgeon, the doctor surely knows a lot of technical jargon, and that would be great if he or she is writing for the medical community. But if the posts are intended for you average patient audience, then using latin phrases and medical terminology may not be the best option. You want to be sure that the audience you are writing for is able to relate to the content. Otherwise, how could they be engaged? They don’t understand!

4. Address Important Issues

When people read blogs, they are looking for a few specific things. The overall theme of these things: value. If I am going to take time out of my day to read your blog, I need to know that I am getting something out of it. So when you start blogging, consider writing about a few of the following:

Addressing common problems, issues, questions.
Focus on industry-specific keywords.
Lists (Top 6 Blogging Tips, 5 Best Social Media Tools, etc.)
Pros and Cons (product comparison/review articles).

These are just a few of the hottest topics to cover when writing a blog. These types of posts see much higher engagement and are typically what people are looking for when they stumble upon your post organically.

5. Be Original

There are billions of indexed pages on the web and hundreds of millions of blogs. Chances are, unless you are a Nobel Prize-winning theorist, other people are talking about the same topic you are. So think carefully about what angle you want to use when approaching your topic, and emphasize what will make you stand out from the crowd. You might be saying the same thing as a lot of others, but your idea isn’t just X, it’s X plus Y. When people see something they haven’t seen before, or even see something familiar in a different light, they are going to be intrigued.

6. Close with a Call-to-Action

Whether it’s a request to sign up, a question or asking your readers to share the article, you want to close out every post with a call-to-action (CTA). CTA’s are statistically proven to increase engagement for one simple reason: people respond to them. The best way to engage with your audience is to get the process started for them, and when it comes to blogging, the best way to do that is to incite a second step at the end of your post.

These are just a few helpful pointers that you can apply to your blogging to increase engagement. There is plenty more that can be done, but each of these methods is shown to give engagement a boost.

Which of these tips do you think is most beneficial to increasing blogging engagement? Can you think of others? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Social Media: Week-in-Review, April 13, 2013

April 13, 2013/by Corey Padveen

In case you missed some of the topics we covered this week, here is the social media week-in-review!

Social Media: 5 Methods to Convince C-Level Skeptics

Social media can be a tough sell when it comes to the corporate level. It is generally the last hurdle marketers need to cross, but the most important one of the lot! These 5 tips can help any marketers showcase the importance of social media, and get your program going by convincing your executives.

Pinterest Marketing: 7 Useful Tools

Pinterest has been an unstoppable juggernaut in the world of social media marketing these last few years. As such, several tools have been developed to help take you Pinterest marketing to the next level. Find out what some of the best Pinterest marketing tools are in this post.

Social Care: Customer Service on Social Media

More and more, people are turning to social media when they have an issue to deal with. As such, it is important for companies to be engaging in some form of social care. In this post, we explain why social care is an important phenomenon, and what some of the benefits are when it comes to engaging in customer service on social networks.

Social Media Case Study: Heineken

Heineken has developed an incredible social network worthy of being called the best of its competitors in 2012. In this week’s social media case study, we aim to pinpoint what it is that has made Heineken’s limited edition bottle redesign such a successful campaign.

Social Equity: How Google+ Adds Value to Your Business

Many people have written off Google+, suggesting that it is not an active enough network on which to engage. The fact of the matter is, Google+ is a fierce competitor in the social media world, and can have great effects on your Social Equity. Read this week’s Social Equity segment to find out how Google+ can add value to your business!

Have a look through some of these great articles and enjoy your weekend!

Pinterest Marketing: 7 Useful Tools

April 9, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Pinterest marketing recently received a boost with the integration of backend analytics on Pinterest. These 7 tools can further benefit your Pinterest marketing strategy.

Little by little, Pinterest is becoming more business friendly. First, there was the launch of business pages, and recently there was the announcement of integrated insights for businesses. This is an exciting time for Pinterest marketing, and for those evangelists, here are some great tools to help boost your Pinterest marketing efforts.

1. Piqora

Formerly known as Pinfluencer, Piqora is a fantastic tool when it comes to Pinterest marketing. With Piqora, users can build campaigns, track results, obtain more in-depth insights than those provided by basic analytics and measure both your influence in your community and the influence others have on their communities. This is an excellent tool for those serious about Pinterest marketing.

2. Pinpuff

Ever wonder how influential you are to your Pinterest community? Pinpuff is a fairly simple and easy-to-use tool that lets you know how influential you are to your community on Pinterest. Similar to the influence-measuring features in Piqora but without all of the technical elements.

3. Shopinterest

We have mentioned how to create catalogues in Pinterest, but what if you took your Pinterest marketing a step further and allowed your followers to not only see products you offer, but purchase them? Shopinterest, in beta at the moment, is currently offering users the ability to build stores and sell goods to engaged users – for free!

4. Reachli

Reachli is great not only for Pinterest, but any form of visual marketing. The tool allows you to build your campaigns and market them across a variety of networks. You can then closely track the progress of your campaigns with the broad analytics offered in the backend, and adjust your campaigns according to where you see the most success.

5. Pinalytics

A great tool that takes the insights offered for free in the backend of your own profile and applies them broadly across the entirety of the social network. Use Pinalytics to search for a keyword, term or user and see all of the trending activity and analytics that go with that search. This is a great tool to see what topics are garnering high levels of engagement.

6. HelloInsights

This great Pinterest tool provides you with a set of helpful insights that allow you to ‘pin intelligently’. Use the information to find out what is working, what isn’t and where, when and with whom you are getting the best results.

7. Pinstamatic

Ever wonder why some people have better boards than everyone else? With Pinstamatic, you can be right on top with your competition. This tool allows you to customize your boards to maximize engagement with add-ons like quotations, music maps and much more!

These are just a few of the great tools out there that should help with your Pinterest marketing. Pinterest is still an evolving tool, so keep your eyes open for new changes and updates that are geared to help marketers.

What tools do you use when it comes to maximizing your Pinterest marketing strategy? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Social Media: 5 Methods to Convince C-Level Skeptics

April 8, 2013/by Corey Padveen

When it comes to social media, every department may be sold on its benefits, but the most important folks in the room are the hardest to convince: executives.

Social media is an investment. Whether that investment is time, money, labor or something else, executives see it as an expense. And since the goal of executives is to keep a company as profitable as possible, it may not be an expense they are immediately willing to undertake.

Luckily, we have put together a compelling set of arguments to present to skeptical executives when it comes to selling the (very necessary) concept of social media. These five points should help any marketer cross that last hurdle before implementing a social media program and sharing a well-earned ‘told-ya-so’ at the next quarterly meeting. (NOTE: Probably not in your best interest to use those exact words at the next quarterly meeting. A well-organized report should do the trick.)

1. The ‘Leg-Up’ Argument

One of the easiest ways to show that social media is a necessary program is to show where your competitors are failing. We showcased 10 free social media monitoring tools in a blog post last week that you can use for some (very legal) corporate espionage. Listen in on what people are saying about your competitors and explain how this is information that can be used to give your brand a competitive advantage.

2. Scare Them (A Little Bit)

Though it seems hard to believe, there are still plenty of people out there who do not understand the power of SEO and social media. After all, not all executives rose through the ranks in the age of technology and online networking, and may not completely understand their awesome power. Ask them for five keywords with which they associate their brands. Type them into Google. Are they the first result? No? Their chances of being clicked on just fell 36% – and no we’re not kidding. Are they on the first page? No? Down over 90%.

We discussed some of the benefits of social media and SEO in a blog last week. SEO is still one of the most powerful ways of being found online. And even for those executives who do not believe or understand the power of social media, many know about SEO. Explain the added benefits to search rankings as a result of a properly executed social media strategy.

3. Show Conversations in Real-Time

This method is going to require a little bit more prep than the others. First, use any of the free social media monitoring tools we discussed in our earlier blog. Then, put together a profile of keywords that pulls in live conversations showcasing some leads that your company would be able to target with a social media program. This not only showcases the power of social media, but gets executives excited about implementing the program.

Last year, I was in a meeting with a real estate executive. I put together a very preliminary listening profile and, in our meeting, we pulled out three leads, one of which turned into a referral for the agent. Needless to say, they could not wait to dive into the program head on. Try it – these programs exist for a reason.

4. Present Case Studies

One of the most widely used arguments against the implementation of a social media program is that the results are unproven. This is always a baffling claim, because the evidence that these programs work is staggering. Before meeting with your executives, find some case studies for your industry (and yes, they exist for every industry) examine them and present them, in detail, at your meeting. Hard evidence of success is something executives are trained to look for, and practical examples are always better than theoretical ones.

5. Find More Than One Reason

You might know that the benefits of a social media program are virtually endless, but your executives might not. So, when you go into your meeting, give your executives more than one reason why they need social media. Though it’s obvious to seasoned social marketers, it is not as clear for everyone else.

BONUS: If you want a little push to get you going, set a few things up in the backend that can get your company started. These can be set up on your own time and include small, free listening programs, Google Alerts, or something similar. Having something in place will also help you get over that last hump before implementing a full-scale program.

Have you found any methods that help sell to skeptical executives? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Social Media: Week-in-Review, April 6, 2013

April 6, 2013/by Corey Padveen

In case you missed some of the topics we covered this week, here is the social media week-in-review!

Pinterest Marketing: Need-toKnow Updates [INFOGRAPHIC]

With the recent Pinterest updates, there is quite a bit social marketers need to be aware of. This infographic does an excellent job of outlining what new features exist, what features have been removed from the photo-sharing network, and how marketers should adapt to these changes.

Social Media SEO: The New Backlink Strategy

When it comes to SEO, social media is of ever-growing importance. Link-building has long been one of the foundational pillars of successful SEO, and with a proper social strategy in place, you can take your link-building to the next level.

10 Free Social Media Monitoring Tools

Success in social marketing is all about having an effective strategy in place, but tools can be a great compliment to your program. These 10 free social media monitoring tools can help you maxiomize your efforts in social marketing, and expand your reach considerably.

Social Media Case Study: Gillette

In 2010, with the World Cup right around the corner, Gillette wanted to attract a new customer base in Italy – males under the age of 25. They knew that social was important, and aimed to expand their presence in this new market using YouTube. The results were outstanding and we highlight some of the key lessons for marketers in this week’s social media case study.

Social Equity: Social Media and SEO

Linking your social media strategy to your SEO efforts can have dramatic effect when it comes to Social Equity. In this week’s Social Equity segment, we look at the value added to your business as a result of having highly correlated social media and SEO strategies.

Have a look through some of these great articles and enjoy your weekend!

10 Free Social Media Monitoring Tools

April 3, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Social media is all about listening to what people are saying about you, and monitoring your brand online. These 10 free tools are a great asset for any social media marketer.

While all of these tools feature paid and enterprise versions, the basic, free versions contain a wealth of information and are fantastic resources for any marketer looking to optimize his or her social media marketing.

1. HootSuite

Many people know about HootSuite. And for anyone who has used it, it should come as no surprise that it sits on top of this list. There are plenty of neat listening and monitoring features available in HootSuite, including the ability to listen to keywords and geo-target your monitoring to see what people are saying in a given radius.

2. TwentyFeet

Ever wonder how you can optimize your social media activity for maximum results? TwentyFeet is a great tool to help you get there. TwentyFeet aggregates your social media activity and mentions from a number of social media channels and helps you determine where your social efforts are paying off and where you could use some help.

3. PeerIndex

PeerIndex is a great tool for those looking to build up their influence in certain categories. The tool helps users determine their level of authority in different niches based on conversations taking place and the level of engagement a brand has with its fans.

4. SocialMention

With regards to free listening tools, SocialMention is among the best. This tool allows you to listen for your brand, company, product, service, competitors or industry keyword mentions across a multitude of social media channels. Data is pulled from dozens of social media services to give you the most accurate, real-time information.

5. SocialPointer

Engagement with your audience is crucial to the success of a social media program, and SocialPointer allows you to track mentions of your brand on different channels and respond to your audience in real-time. This is a great tool for those engaging in social care (social media customer service).

6. HowSociable

Ever wonder if your social media marketing efforts are enough? HowSociable measures your social media activity and provides you with a score to help you determine whether or not you or your brand are engaging enough on social media to be successful.

7. Brand Monitor

For every conversation you find about your brand, there may be hundreds if not thousands more taking place across the social sphere. Brand Monitor helps you track all of the mentions of your brand on different social networks to give you a better feel of how the conversation is taking place and where you should be involving yourself to improve your brand’s online reputation.

8. Kred/Klout

Kred and Klout are two scoring services that review your social media activity, engagement, influence, authority, etc. and provide you with a score that tells you how you rank compared to others on social media.

9. SocialBro

SocialBro is a great tool when it comes to determining your influence and success on Twitter. The insights offered drill deep into your follower lists and provide helpful analytics to determine if your Twitter marketing is paying off, if you are targeting the right audiences and whom you influence.

10. Topsy

Topsy is a real-time social media search engine. Configure your account to pull data only relevant to your industry, brand, product, competitors, etc. and receive plenty of real-time information that you can use to improve the success of your social media marketing.

As we always point out, these tools are a great asset to compliment your social media strategy, but real success is ultimately going to come from a well developed and properly implemented social media strategy. Tools alone cannot run a social media program. People are out there talking and you need to be able to use these tools to listen and then properly engage with your audience.

Which of these tools have you used? Which ones are you going to try? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Twitter Marketing: 7 Tools to Maximize Your Success

March 25, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Twitter marketing is greatly improved with the help of certain tools, but it is important to remember that your strategy is what drives your overall success.

Twitter celebrated their seventh anniversary late last week, and we thought it would be fitting to open this week with a discussion of Twitter marketing tools, and what seven of the best tools are when it comes to your success with regards to Twitter marketing.

Before we delve in to the list, however, it is important to note that Twitter marketing tools are great when you have a strategy in place, but you cannot expect your efforts to succeed with the tools alone. These are complimentary tools to simplify the Twitter marketing process and help you maximize your success on Twitter in the most efficient way possible. What is important to keep in mind is that you need to utilize the information that these tools provide and incorporate that into your strategy in order to reap the most benefits. Now, with that disclaimer in place, here are seven of the best tools to help you optimize your Twitter marketing.

1. Followerwonk

Followerwonk is Twitter lists on steroids. Imagine the ability to delve deep into Twitter profiles, analyze leads and segment those leads based on the information you extrapolate. That is the Followerwonk specialty. Furthermore, you have the ability to track followers and watch ongoing statistics and insights as they are gathered in order to keep your Twitter marketing efforts up to date.

With Followerwonk, you can compare, analyze, track and sort your followers in order to keep your Twitter profile as organized as possible and increase the efficiency of your marketing.

2. Tweriod

We recently posted an article detailing some of the best times to post to social networks. Tweriod is all about your best time to post on Twitter. It takes a sample of your followers, analyzes their activity and provides you with a detailed report on when to post to your Twitter feed to maximize your exposure.

3. SocialBro

SocialBro, in similar fashion to Tweriod, produces reports to help you optimize your Twitter marketing. Where SocialBro differs, however, is in the depth of these reports. The pro version of SocialBro provides detailed insights about your followers, your community, your lists – you name it, SocialBro has reports for it.

The in-depth analysis in the SocialBro reports also tell you about your influencers and whom you are influencing. Using this feature, you can monitor your Twitter clout and see where your efforts to build up your reputation are paying off.

4. Twitonomy

Twitonomy is a Twitter analytics tool to help you analyze and modify your internal Twitter strategy. The tool breaks down your activity on the social network and provides you with insights to help you increase the efficiency and appearance of your profile.

Furthermore, it is a great tool when it comes to cleaning out your profile and keeping your following list as professional and targeted as possible.

5. TwileShare

Ever wanted to share more on Twitter? Sure, you can upload photos and now, with Vine, some short videos, but to get the most out of sharing on Twitter, TwileShare is your go-to.

With TwileShare, you can share plenty of content (e.g. photos, PDFs, ebooks, documents, etc.) and monitor statistics to see how that content is being shared and viewed on the network.

This is a great tool for those looking to look deeper into their viral exposure on Twitter.

6. Twilert

Social listening is crucial for brands looking to manage their reputation using social media. Twilert allows you to monitor mentions of your brand, service, competitors, etc. and receive a digest email letting you know what those mentions are. For those looking for a simple, easy-to-use and free listening tool, Twilert is one of the best ones around.

7. Twitter Counter

Twitter Counter has a free version and a pro version. For all things Twitter profile-related, Twitter Counter is an amazing tool. It shows you the growth of your account, insights into your activity, the average activity on your account and your place on Twitter relative to others.

Of course, the pro version of Twitter Counter has plenty more to offer as far as in-depth insights into your account.

These are just a few of the great tools that exist when it comes to maximizing your internal Twitter marketing efforts. As we noted above, Twitter marketing is all about strategy. These tools are intended to add to your existing efforts, not replace them entirely. Understanding Twitter and how to approach the network from a marketing perspective is worth much more than any tool can give you. But with this knowledge, these tools will make the job that much easier.

What tools do you use when it comes to Twitter marketing? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!