We sought expert opinions from a wide range of pros you’re likely familiar with.

We are grateful for the dozens of social media professionals who have written over 600 articles for us since we started Social Media Examiner in October 2009.

To give you a glimpse of what we can expect in the next 12 months, we decided to tap their knowledge and expertise. Here are their predictions of where social media is headed in the next 12 months.

#1: Businesses consolidate social media activities

Michael Stelzner @mike_stelzner

As the social media landscape becomes more crowded in 2012, businesses will pick their battles and dig in. What used to be simply Facebook and Twitter is now Google+, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter (and who knows what’s next). On top of this, you have many specialty networks like Foursquare, Yelp and Instagram.

The old mantra of “be everywhere” will quickly be replaced with “be where it matters to our business.”

The major four players have all gone through massive changes in preparation for the battle for users. But don’t let a shiny new wrapping be the motivation to focus on social network A or B. Instead, it will be essential to focus where you’ll see results. And that may not necessarily be Facebook or Twitter for your business.

Have you picked your battle? Image source: Flickr

Michael Stelzner, founder and CEO of Social Media Examiner.

#2: Photo and video social networks will blossom

Jay Baer @JayBaer

We’ve been nibbling around it for a while, but 2012 will be the year of the multimedia social network.

Photo- and video-based social interaction will grow. There is more meat on Instagram and Viddy and Tout than bun, and that enables the whole point of social networking—making and perpetuating connections and seeing the world through someone else’s eyes.

I don’t expect these services to dethrone Facebook, as many people simply are not comfortable with multimedia. But already you’re seeing power users reduce their Facebook (and Twitter) musings in favor of multimedia, where a picture (or video) speaks louder than 140 characters.

Given that the camera on your smartphone is almost as good as your actual camera, the multimedia-driven social networks are here to stay and will be an emerging force for brands in 2012, too.

Multimedia-driven social networks are changing the playground.

Jay Baer, author of the popular social media blog Convince & Convert and co-author of The Now Revolution.

#3: Brands embrace real time

Ekaterina Walter @ekaterina

Brands should move to agile marketing and real-time thinking. Gone are the days when it took 6 months to develop and launch a campaign or 5 days to answer a disgruntled customer.

Brands need to master the art of opportunistic marketing and the art of real-time response. To break through the online noise, they need to stand out with their creative thinking around capitalizing on current buzz and trends.

For that, brands need the right infrastructure and agile processes that will allow them to intuitively and immediately pick up on the marketing opportunities. They need agencies that can adapt, react and support them in real time as well.

Brands need to be ready for real-time response. Image source: iStockPhoto.

Ekaterina Walter, social media strategist at Intel.

#4: Strategy takes center stage for social media

Jason Falls @JasonFalls

I firmly believe that 2012 is the year most business start to turn the corner on embracing and understanding social media marketing and using it more strategically. We’ve had enough of the hippie, tree-hugger, Kumbaya nonsense and want to start using social media as a strategic business driver.

Now is the time. Businesses will start to show their chops in 2012.

The tree-hugging time is over. It's time to focus on social strategy. Image source: iStockPhoto.

Jason Falls, principal of Social Media Explorer and author of No Bullshit Social Media.

#5: New apps help with content overload

Leo Widrich @leowid

I believe that 2012 will be the year that we will see a lot more apps and companies come forward to help free us from content overload. This hopefully means both to make reading content and sharing it more meaningful and less cluttering.

I think this will come down to throttling, filtering and optimizing the content that reaches our eyes and that we share. Especially if Zuckerberg’s Law of sharing holds true, this will be an amazing opportunity.

I am sure there will be some fabulous new inventions coming to the social media world regarding this in 2012.

Freedom from content overload is on the way. Image source: iStockPhoto.

Leo Widrich, co-founder of BufferApp.com.

#6: Businesses outsource content creation

Nichole Kelly @Nichole_Kelly

As social media becomes more mainstream, content will continue to play a bigger role. However, stretched marketing teams will continue to struggle with adding content creation to their already full plates.

Therefore, marketers will need to find a sustainable model for creating amazing content, which may include more outsourcing. As social media matures, efficiency will become an increasingly important factor.

Nichole Kelly, founder of FullFrontalROI.com.

#7: Advanced analytics are coming for the masses

Dag Holmboe @dagh

Today a lot of what we call social media analytics is actually social media metrics, which is a lot of data telling a story of the past using great data visualizations.

Advanced analytics are already being performed inside large agencies, brands and social networking sites. Data analysts and scientists, many with advanced degrees in statistics and computer science, primarily do the work.

In 2012, we will see social media analytics companies releasing simplified SaaS (software as a service) tools for smaller agencies and brands to perform similar, less complex analytical functions. The tools will tell a story of not only what happened, but also of why it happened, and to model and predict the future.

Small businesses will have access to advanced social media analytics. Image source: iStockPhoto.

Dag Holmboe, CEO of Klurig Analytics.

#8: Regularly creating unique content becomes essential

Lewis Howes @LewisHowes

For a company or brand to be successful marketing with social media in 2012, two main things will need to happen.

1. Create unique content. So many brands and individuals are creating amazing content that you will need to do something not only amazing but unique, so that you gain the attention you’re looking for.
2. Be consistent. You can’t just create this unique content a few times; you need to create a schedule for yourself to come out with unique content on a consistent basis.

If you fail to do both of these, someone else will gain your customers’ attention.

Lewis Howes, co-author of LinkedWorking: Generating Success on the World’s Largest Professional Networking Website and founder of Sports Executives Association and SportsNetworker.com events.

#9: Businesses learn to choose the right channels

Ryan Malone @ RyanMalone

In 2012, I think that much of the overzealousness currently in social media will be replaced by a nuts-and-bolts focus on getting the most out of the channels that fit your business.

Companies will focus on fewer channels, and they’ll want to dominate them instead of being diluted across all channels. The adage of “master your craft” will ring true for the companies that stay focused.

Ryan Malone runs SmartBug Media.

#10: Facebook’s growth inspires unique Facebook marketing experiences

Amy Porterfield @amyporterfield

In early 2012, Facebook will hit ONE BILLION users. With one billion users, you can’t deny the numbers. Facebook is by far the social media powerhouse.

The hype that will surround the one billion milestone will only draw more attention to Facebook. Not only will we see a boom of small businesses setting up shop on Facebook, but also those businesses already on Facebook will feel the heat to get even more creative and strategic with their fan activity.

Facebook is getting crowded, and those businesses that create unique user experiences will stand out from the masses. More sophisticated, interactive third-party apps, expanded live video capabilities and greater flexibility with page customization will all play a big part as fan growth and engagement become the most vital components for Facebook success.

Look for more apps to help you market your business on Facebook.

Amy Porterfield, co-author of Facebook Marketing All-In-One for Dummies.

#11: Competition on Google+ rises

Kristi Hines @kikolani

I see social networks getting even more competitive with Google+ trying to dominate the market in 2012!

The top networks (Twitter and Facebook) will be looking to compete by adding even more features. Google+ will continue adding similar creature comforts to their network for page functionality and looking to develop hangouts into something more useful for businesses.

The social network that will come out on top will be the one that listens to their users and allows each user’s messages to receive equal exposure without internal ranking systems judging which news goes to the top and which news gets hidden.

Google+ continues to add new features. Google+ Business Pages can now have multiple managers.

Kristi Hines, freelance writer, online marketing consultant and author of the popular blog Kikolani.

#12: YouTube provides a social experience

Paul Colligan @colligan

YouTube will (finally) get recognition and significant use as a major social network.

Google’s social focus demands tighter integration between YouTube and Google+. Google wants to change YouTube consumption from a passive experience to a social one and is primed to do so.

Recent feature additions (like YouTube video viewing in a Google+ hangout) prove that Google will do whatever it takes to make the transition. Those paying attention will respond by focusing on their own personal YouTube networks.

Video production is not required as YouTube members in the content curation and video aggregation space will hold as much sway, if not more, than their content-producing counterparts. Those who do both will, obviously, rise to the top quickly.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAsOwSsvWOk

Paul Colligan helps busy people leverage new media to get their message out to more people with less effort and for greater profit.

#13: YouTube takes the lead

James Wedmore @JamesWedmore

My prediction for social media in 2012 can be boiled down into one word: “video.” …as in, more of it!

At just over six years old, YouTube has just recently made some big changes, and they have a lot in store for us in 2012. Their most recent design and layout changes (including YouTube’s home page, which looks strikingly similar to Facebook’s Live Feed function) begin to indicate that YouTube wants to behave more like a social networking site.

The YouTube audience (not just the content creators) will now have more fun, engagement and interaction while on YouTube. The more activity you as a user (or channel) have and receive from your videos, the more opportunity your content has to get viewed and go viral.

YouTube is becoming highly intuitive. By observing your search and viewing behavior online, YouTube will continue to improve and impress us all with how they display relevant and related content in an efficient manner.

Also, with YouTube’s investment in their 100+ channels of “original content creators,” the video-sharing giant has also waged war (and is winning!) against the big TV networks, as they continue to blur the line separating “offline television” and online entertainment.

Combine this with an ever-decreasing barrier of entry for the average person to quickly become a video-producing master, and you’ll notice that in 2012, video quality (picture and sound) and entertainment quality will rapidly increase across the board. This will inevitably result in higher standards and expectations from the average YouTube viewer and leave those who are resistant to using video in their marketing scrambling to catch up.

It's time to check out how you can use YouTube for your business.

James Wedmore, founder of Video Traffic Academy.

#14: YouTube rises to top of mind

Phyllis Khare @PhyllisKhare

Most people might think that G+ will get the most attention in the Google suite of services, but I think YouTube will be top of mind. Why? With the latest redesign, YouTube is cleaning up its Wild West image and coming into alignment to be a grown-up social environment.

If your business is not there yet, make haste and set up your channel and start reaping the benefits of the second-largest search engine on the Internet.

Consider creating a YouTube channel for your business.

Phyllis Khare, co-author of Facebook Marketing All-In-One for Dummies, author of Social Media Marketing eLearning Kit for Dummies and social media director for iPhone Life.

#15: More social players will join in

Casey Hibbard @Casey_Hibbard

I predict that the social media landscape will become more populated with new and powerful players like Pinterest in 2011.

As social media continues to evolve there are opportunities for more multimedia social platforms.

Don’t underestimate the potential for these new sites to start majorly influencing social sharing and traffic—nearly overnight.

Keep an eye open for more useful tools like Pinterest!

Casey Hibbard, Social Media Examiner’s case study writer, president of Compelling Cases Inc. and author of Stories That Sell: Turn Satisfied Customers Into Your Most Powerful Sales & Marketing Asset.

#16: Marketers adopt smarter social media tools

Stephanie Sammons @StephSammons

In 2012, social media tools are going to get a lot smarter. These tools are going help us make sense of our social media connections and streams. They will help us maximize our visibility and influence while minimizing our time commitment.

Bufferapp is a terrific example of this. Here is a tool that can provide some intelligence as to when your followers and fans are most likely going to be paying attention to your updates. As you direct content from across the web into Buffer, the app will distribute it for you during those optimal time periods. In a sense, it’s an intelligent and personal social media distribution tool! Forget having to “schedule” tweets and updates. Who has the time?

I strongly believe that the people who commit to learning the new and most effective social intelligence tools as they are introduced will create a significant competitive advantage. These tools will make you more productive and grow your online influence while the competition is still floundering around trying to figure out how to be consistently visible and valuable to their target markets!

Find and focus on the tools that can make you more productive and competitive in 2012!

Check out Buffer and other social media tools that make you smarter.

Stephanie Sammons, founder and CEO of Wired Advisor.

#17: Businesses integrate new content consumption practices

Jim Lodico @jlcommunication

The way we read our news and social media streams is changing fast. People are turning to platforms such as Flipboard, Storify, Zite and others to help curate information and sort through the noise. Google, Facebook and Twitter are also making changes to help users find the information they want to read and block the rest.

Businesses looking to place their content in front of their target reader will need to adapt to these changes and new media. This means 1) a continued effort to publish content of the highest quality that readers will want to share, 2) an even further increase in the importance of headlines and images and 3) creating a following that will help drive your content to the top of these new platforms.

From a user’s perspective, I love the new Flipboard platform for iPhone. From a publisher’s perspective however, it can be somewhat intimidating. That said, I think these new platforms will greatly reward content that makes its way to the top.

Stay up-to-date on where your audience gets its information.

Jim Lodico, copywriter and marketing consultant specializing in creating powerful content and teaching businesses how to use blogs.

#18: The “applification” of social media continues

Debbie Hemley @dhemley

I think we will see many more social media apps come out in 2012 for social networking, news aggregation, productivity, entertainment, communication and ebooks.

We’ll be accessing more on smaller screens than ever before and with a few touches and swipes across our screens, we’ll be posting and sharing content with people who are in close proximity to our geolocation, stretching on to all corners of the world.

Debbie Hemley, social media consultant and blogger.

#19: More branded Facebook apps are on the way

Janet Aronica @janetaronica

I think we’re going to see more and more companies creating branded Facebook apps in order to leverage Facebook’s real-time news ticker feed. I’m especially interested in news apps such as WSJ Social and The Washington Post Social Reader.

These apps potentially serve as new revenue streams for a rocky industry with advertising opportunities within Facebook. I’m intrigued to see how the digital journalists behind the apps navigate the privacy issues that are all too common to the space as well.

These kinds of Facebook experiences reimagine news consumption as a social activity and I think it’ll be interesting to watch the new apps and partnerships that come out of the space.

Shareaholic's Top Posts App shows bloggers their most popular content, keywords, traffic sources and demographics for 2011.

Janet Aronica, head of marketing for Shareaholic.

#20: More “do it all” services will become available

Corina Mackay @corinamackay

We continue to see social media tools and services come and go, as they battle for our time and data. Giants like Facebook, Twitter and Google continue to thrive, but none of them is taking it easy.

From changing designs and new features to acquisitions and complete makeovers, we’ve seen the bar raised time and time again, as these big companies compete for the lion’s share of our attention. Google has our email, documents and appointments; Facebook has our photos, videos and family; and Twitter has the best platform for advertisers to engage with us.

I’m guessing this trend will continue into 2012, with more acquisitions and revamps, and fewer new apps gaining ground in the social space.

Corina Mackay, an entertainment-based social media manager and writer.

#21: Convergence of social and mobile (but maybe not what you’re thinking)

Ben Pickering @bpicks

Whether you look at it as social media going mobile or mobile apps getting social, you can bet that 2012 will see a lot more social activity on mobile devices.

However, while experimental marketers will continue to push the envelope with innovative mobile-social campaigns, I’m not predicting that the next year will see Foursquare conquer mainstream America or mass adoption of QR codes.

Rather, what you will see is that a significant amount of the online activity that consumers previously conducted through a computer and traditional web browser will now be done through a smartphone or tablet. Some of this activity will migrate from browser to native applications, but much will be done through a mobile browser.

This means that before worrying about the new-new thing, companies need to think about how existing core marketing initiatives carry through to the mobile web. It needs to be just as easy for someone on a mobile device to not only access content but also to act on that content in a social manner—i.e., “Like” it, share it, etc.

In 2012, smart marketers will be thinking first about optimizing current assets for mobile and then about unique attributes of the mobile experience, such as geolocation, that they can tie into their overall marketing strategy.

Is your marketing optimized for the mobile experience? Image source: iStockPhoto.

Ben Pickering, CEO of Strutta.

#22: Marketers embrace mobile

Jamie Turner @AskJamieTurner

Gartner predicts that by the end of 2012, the number-one way that consumers will be interacting with the Internet is via their smartphones and tablets. Given that, it’s important for marketers of all stripes to embrace mobile.

As intimidating as that may seem, mobile is actually pretty simple to execute. In fact, there are several articles on Social Media Examiner that de-mystify mobile and make using it for small- to mid-sized businesses a snap. Check ‘em out! They’re packed with tips on how to integrate social media into your mobile marketing program.

Are you prepared for communicating with your customers via smartphones? Image source: iStockPhoto.

Jamie Turner, founder, the 60 Second Marketer and co-author of Go Mobile.

#23: Email and social call a truce

Jason Miller @JasonMillerCA

Smart marketers understand that social and email marketing are not mutually exclusive. As email becomes more social and social becomes better at finding leads, the platforms will complement one another for smarter, more targeted messaging and list-building efforts.

Jason Miller, programs manager, social media & content at Marketo.

#24: Businesses fall in love with email marketing again

Marc Pitman @marcapitman

The quick adoption of Google+ both by users and as an infrastructure change for Google highlights a problem with social media marketing: fragmentation. It’s important to interact with customers where they are, so wisely using the increasing number of tools is good.

But I predict in 2012, savvy marketers will fall back in love with email. Email response rates tend to be greater than most other social media tools. And email is fairly “low-tech,” allowing businesspeople to reach more of their customer base. So I think there’ll be a new wave of blog posts and tools helping people grow their email lists.

Marc Pitman, author and speaker dedicated to making it ridiculously easy for people to get nonprofit fundraising training.

#25: Traditional marketing interweaves social media

Tom Martin @TomMartin

2012 will be the year of the boomerang. Marketers of all stripes will return to classical marketing thinking. They won’t abandon social media, mobile and the like, but they will demand that those efforts be intelligently interwoven with their existing offline/traditional marketing efforts.

This integration requirement will lead to growth of social media delivered by marketing-oriented firms at the expense of the independent social media guru with little to no actual marketing experience.

Tom Martin, founder of Converse Digital.

#26: The blue-collar blogging revolution heats up

Marcus Sheridan @TheSalesLion

There is a forgotten group—in fact, I’d say it’s a forgotten majority—when it comes to this movement that is social media. And who is this majority? It’s the thousands upon thousands of blue-collar businesses spread across the globe that up to this point have been slow to embrace social media, but are now joining the ranks of other industries in an effort to change the way things in marketing have always been done.

As someone who has owned a swimming pool company for about 10 years now and also works with many blue-collar businesses in this field of social media, I’ve noticed a very interesting trend in the final months of 2011. Each and every day, more and more mechanics, carpenters, plumbers, landscapers, etc., come to understand the need to embrace this new age of marketing. They’re seeing the trends of the way people shop, think and make decisions. Finally, instead of refusing to tackle their online deficiencies, they’re instead confronting the problem head-on.

More than ever, these businesses are blogging, producing educational videos and leveraging all types of social media. The idea that social media and blogging for business will only shine upon white-collar and tech industries will soon be a thing of the past. Do the blue-collars have a long way to go? Yes, that’s certainly true, but without question, eyes are finally opening and the revolution is just around the corner.

This is what I can’t wait to see unfold as 2012 progresses.

More blue-collar businesses will adopt social media marketing. Image source: iStockPhoto.

Marcus Sheridan, small business owner, thought leader, popular social media speaker and founder of The Sales Lion.

#27: Marketers learn to craft messages to get above the noise

Jeff Korhan @jeffkorhan

My social media prediction for 2012 is that successful marketers will take greater care to design and package their messaging for attention, usefulness and conversion.

As the tolerance for social media noise approaches a breaking point, the quality of social media content will significantly rise to meet the higher standards of both consumers and search.

Jeff Korhan, professional speaker, consultant and columnist on new media and small business marketing.

#28: The social media gap widens

Charlene Kingston @SocialMediaDIY

I predict that in 2012, the gap between businesses that perform well on social media and those that don’t will widen dramatically.

The newness of social media has worn off. People are looking for businesses that offer practical solutions to their present-moment challenges. It comes down to this: If you are looking at your online community in terms of what you can get from them, you might as well pack up and go home.

For your business to succeed, you must focus on how you can help your customers succeed. Your business attitude shows up in social media in everything you say and do. Your attitude drives your conversation topics, the way you write your tweets and status updates, and your business offerings.

More than ever, your business success depends on how much you help others reach their business success. Your social media success is the canary in the coalmine that demonstrates the health of your business.

Charlene Kingston, founder of the Social Media DIY Workshop.

#29: Businesses invest in quality content

Stephanie Gehman @airport_girl

I believe we’ll see a surge of quality over quantity in content marketing heading into 2012. As more businesses understand and embrace the imperative for integrating social media into their marketing strategy, I hope they will also recognize the need to stand out in the cacophony of brand messages on the social channels.

In 2012, if businesses want to compete effectively for consumer attention, they will need to engage with tailored, customer-focused and relevant content in order to differentiate themselves from the noisy brand broadcasters.

And, as this realization takes hold with companies, I think we’ll see steep growth in the hiring of qualified and experienced individuals who have a strong grasp of creating and developing valuable content that attracts and engages a business’s target audiences while driving profitable customer conversions and actions.

Businesses opt for quality content in 2012. Image source: iStockPhoto.

Stephanie Gehman, marketing manager for Harrisburg International Airport in Pennsylvania.

#30: Rise of the media specialist

Carla Dewing @CarlaDewing

In 2011 we’ve seen a trend toward multifaceted social marketing positions, or people within companies who are expected to have “layered” expertise in social media. Content marketers will have to transcend basic sales, and work within the rapidly expanding technology field.

In 2012 we’ll see these positions solidified, as social marketers working online branch out and become involved in the coding/tech world as well.

These positions will become integral to any social marketing campaign, as singular jobs become more complex, transforming people into media specialists.

One individual must be able to blog, market, work on a multitude of platforms, work within the tech sphere and perform high-level SEO tasks. Otherwise, how will he or she be able to spot social opportunities when they arise?

These media specialists will be required to have a 360-degree view of social media, as their job becomes more demanding and competitive. I also feel that there will be urgency to perfect mobile technology and marketing, as it crosses from the virtual realm into the physical world.

In 2012, it would be short-sighted for businesses to overlook the benefits of having a media specialist on their team!

Future social media specialists need skills across many areas. Image source: iStockPhoto.

Carla Dewing, part-owner of Contrast Media and content marketing expert.

Now it’s your turn…

How do you see social media evolving in 2012? What trends do you predict? Please share your questions and comments in the box below.

Image sources iStockPhoto and Flickr.

What’s New This Week?

HootSuite Enhances Facebook Management: The popular scheduling tool HootSuite now supports Facebook Groups and Events, exclusive search streams, plus photo uploading directly to Facebook. Hootsuite has also enhanced refreshed the process for posting to Pages and Profiles.

Facebook Streamlines the Photo Viewer Tool:  Facebook has made a few changes to their photo viewer, including bigger photos (720 pixels to 960 pixels) that load faster.

In response to user feedback, the Facebook photo viewer is now set against a white background.

Facebook Ends Facebook Deals After 4 Months: Facebook Deals was launched in a few cities last April. This daily deal product (similar to Groupon) was only available in those cities and has now been discontinued. As Mari Smith notes, this is not the same as Facebook’s Check-In Deals which remain in service.

Blogger Gets a Fresh New Look: Google has refreshed their blogging platform.  Blogger has both a new design and improved functionality.

In the new “Overview” section of your dashboard, you’ll be able to quickly see how people are reacting to your blog.

Here are some social media tools worth noting:

Jig: A new site where you post your needs and get replies from others.

Simply tell others what you need.

Zaarly: An innovative social networking platform.

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TweetResponder: This tool allows you to send direct messages on Twitter to multiple followers at once.

You can also schedule up to 10 follow-up messages.

And don’t miss this:

Social Media Examiner presents Facebook Success Summit 2011! (online conference coming in October–save 50% until Sep. 15th!)

Watch this video from Mike Stelzner (founder of Social Media Examiner).

Join 19 Facebook marketing experts at the web’s largest Facebook marketing conference. This is a special online conference designed to help you master Facebook marketing (brought to you by Social Media Examiner).

Join Guy Kawasaki; Mari Smith; Dave Kerpen; Paul Dunay; Jesse Stay; Robert Scoble; Michael Stelzner; experts from Intuit, PETCO, Applebee’s and Intel; Jay Baer; Chris Treadaway; Amy Porterfield and Andrea Vahl—just to name a few. Go here to learn more.

What social media news caught your interest this week? Please share your comments below.

As Twitter continues to grow, tools to enhance your Twitter experience and measure your influence are popping up all over the web. In this article, I’ll highlight five free tools that offer easy ways to keep track of your influence on Twitter and beyond.

#1: Klout

Perhaps one of the more well-known resources for measuring your Twitter influence is Klout, which is available as an extension for Chrome and Firefox, as well as the stand-alone site. Late last year, Twitter client Seesmic also integrated Klout scores into its desktop and web versions.

Using data from your Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts (and soon Foursquare as well), Klout determines your overall influence, providing basic graphs and a good-looking user interface.

Klout serves up your stats at a glance on your dashboard.

Although the calculation of Klout scores is apparently quite complicated, the results are shown with very basic graphs and diagrams.

Basic graphs show changes in your statistics.

Statistics covered include amplification probability (how likely it is that your message will be retweeted or replied to), the size of your network and your true reach, which takes into account the amount of interaction received per post.

Line graphs show how influential you are.

One of the most fascinating stats (if not especially helpful), is the Influences section, that shows which users influence you and whom you influence in return.

Detailed information about the users you influence.

Another fun (but less-than-useful) feature is the achievements section. Very similar to Foursquare’s badges or Gowalla’s pins, these are simply icons collected for things like having a message retweeted more than 50 times, or having 100 users mention you.

Achievement awards to collect.

Klout makes it easy to compare your score with other users’ scores. By entering another user’s Twitter handle, you can also see stats comparing your accounts. The browser extensions make it easier to compare at a glance by adding Klout scores to Twitter.com, although I would be surprised if anyone interested in Klout scores uses Twitter’s web interface on a regular basis.

Overall, Klout is an eye-catching, easy-to-use platform that delivers a basic overview of your activity and outreach via Twitter and Facebook. With the possibility of getting free stuff based on your Klout score, I’d say it’s not a bad place to start, although I wouldn’t recommend seriously relying on the fluctuating scores.

#2: TwentyFeet

TwentyFeet is another tool that pulls in data from Facebook and Twitter and presents it in graph form. The layout is made up of a set of graphs showing data from various time frames, such as last week, last month or last quarter.

If both of your accounts are connected, you can also switch between your Facebook and Twitter stats and among different accounts for each service. The right-hand panel shows an activity stream made up of significant changes in your account stats, which you can also have directly emailed to you.

Line graphs detail fluctuations in your Twitter activity.

TwentyFeet’s stats are fairly similar to Klout’s, including friends and followers, retweets, mentions and Facebook status comments. Until recently, Facebook “unfriend” stats were also available, but due to Facebook’s policies, they have been removed.

Track your followers using TwentyFeet's detailed graphs.

TwentyFeet makes your data more manageable and easy to understand by pointing out significant differences. As I said before, these differences can be emailed to you, or you can view them in your activity stream when you log in.

The activity stream brings the important data out of the graphs into an easy-to-read format.

“Significant differences” occur when the number of friends, followers, mentions, retweets or comments increases or decreases substantially. For each statistic, an icon will show you whether the numbers have risen or fallen and what the expected change would be. For instance:

Major changes in your stats are shown in the activity stream.

Changes in data for each element are shown above the graphs, which include conversation feedback, influence indicators (mentions, retweets), reputation indicators (followers, times listed, followers lost) and personal stats, such as number of links posted or total number of tweets.

TwentyFeet's Facebook statistics show conversation feedback.

TwentyFeet is a great way to get a quick overview of your activity and influence over a period of time such as a week or a month. It’s also a great tool to get in-depth information about your followers, as each graph leads to a closer look at each specific day’s stats, including which users started or stopped following you. If you want to know specific details about your accounts, and if you have several accounts to look at, this is a tool you should try.

#3: Crowdbooster

A recent addition to the social media stats arena is Crowdbooster (which is still in beta). At the top of the dashboard, you can see one of the most useful features of the tool, Titled Recommendations. Using your existing data, Crowdbooster determines when your posts will receive the most interaction and have the most influence on your audience and recommends the best times for you to tweet the following day.

Recommended times to post are shown at the top of the Crowdbooster dashboard.

The dashboard also includes a graphic overview of your account, which shows the number of replies, retweets, likes and comments received and the number of people reached. This way you can see how your posts are best leveraged to reach the largest audience possible.

Crowdbooster shows how many people your posts are reaching.

The left-side panel details your basic stats such as followers, total tweets, mentions and retweets, with indications of how these have risen or fallen in the past day.

Daily changes are shown in green in the menu panel.

Like most of these data-based tools, graphs detail changes in follower numbers, as well as pointing out who your most influential followers are and who has retweeted your posts the most times. This retweet data is fascinating, as it includes the number of users who potentially saw your message and which particular tweet was retweeted.

A line graph details rises and falls in your follower numbers.

#4: TweetStats

For a more general data overview, TweetStats is incredibly easy to use. This is another tool that allows you to enter any Twitter handle, so you can check multiple accounts or compare other users’ accounts to your own.

The first time you use TweetStats, all of your tweets need to be analyzed, which may take some time. However, once this is done, the process is generally quite fast.

TweetStats is focused on your own Twitter activity and delivers a page of graphs detailing the different ways you interact with Twitter. Bar graphs are used to show which days and times you are most active, whom you interact with the most and even which interfaces you use most regularly.

Bar graphs are used for each different metric.

From the “Tweet Timeline” graph, you can choose a month to get a more detailed view, including all the above statistics for that month alone. A simple line graph details your friend and follower growth on a daily basis as well.

To get an idea of what you tweet about, the last section of TweetStats is made up of a “Tweet Cloud” and a “Hashtag Cloud.” These show the terms, user names and hashtags you’ve used on a regular basis, with emphasis on those you use most often. It even picks out the top five for you. And unlike Klout’s top five “topics you are influential about,” I find these to be much more accurate.

TweetStats' word clouds analyze the topics you tweet about most often.

#5: My Web Career

Unlike the tools that focus on Twitter statistics, My Web Career analyzes data from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Quora and web search results to determine your “Career Score.” This score is based on the size of your network, your overall social media presence and the strength and reliability of your connections.

My Web Career's dashboard gives an overview of your score and the metrics affecting it.

The most useful aspects of this tool are the “My Data” and “My Network” sections, which offer pie-chart breakdowns of your statistics. If you’ve connected your LinkedIn account, you’ll be able to explore with colorful charts which companies your contacts work for and which industries they work in.

See which industries you are connected to by connecting your LinkedIn account.

Discover which companies your connections work for through the "My Data" section.

My Web Career also offers an easy way to explore your contacts through the “My Network” section, which creates diagrams of your connections, showing which companies you are connected to, how many people you know at each one and how you are connected to various people through Facebook and LinkedIn. This is a useful tool for exploring your network and discovering the best way to take advantage of your connections.

My Web Career's "My Network" tools help you explore your network and understand how to leverage your connections.

Although this tool does not have such a strong focus on Twitter specifically, it’s a great networking tool and is useful when exploring the way your social profiles connect across the web to create an overall picture of yourself or your business.

What do you think? Have you tried any of these tools before? I would love to hear your thoughts about what works for you and what doesn’t. And of course I’m sure there are plenty of wonderful tools I have not highlighted, so please share your favorites in the comments box below.

In our recent Social Media Success Summit, there were presentations that covered all the key topics you need to make your social media marketing easy. In this article, I’ll share 12 of those tools that were recommended by the pros.

Tools to Refine Your Visibility and Engagement

Here are three tools recommended by Mari Smith during her first presentation on increasing your visibility and engagement on Facebook.

#1: Socialbakers

Get useful stats from Socialbakers. Socialbakers offers paid services to monitor your Facebook statistics, but it also provides useful free statistics for Facebook and LinkedIn.

Check out the useful marketing data on Socialbakers.

#2: Kurrently

Find out what’s being shared on social media with Kurrently, a free, easy-to-use, real-time search engine for results from Twitter and Facebook. “Companies can capitalize on just-in-time marketing and social CRM opportunities like never before.”

You can search through Facebook or Twitter or both.

#3: Blekko

Select the sites you want to search with Blekko. You can create “slashtags” for groups of URLs, friends, experts and communities and you can “slash in” what you want and “slash out” what you don’t want to search.

With Blekko, you have more control over your search results thanks to the slashtags you create.

Tools to Measure Specific Social Media Goals

Jay Baer gave a fantastic presentation on measuring social media. He clearly identified the different goals a company could have on social media and recommended tools to use to monitor results for each specific goal. Here are three of those tools.

#4: Social Mention

If social awareness is your main social media goal, then be sure to check out Social Mention, which allows you to set up social media alerts so you can measure awareness for specific keywords.

"Social Mention is a social media search and analysis platform that aggregates user-generated content from across the universe into a single stream of information."

#5: Klout

Klout is another tool you can use to measure awareness on Twitter and Facebook.

Check out the different graphs for your score results on Klout.

#6: PostRank Analytics

If customer loyalty is your main social media goal, you can use PostRank Analytics to measure results in improving loyalty.

PostRank Analytics is a favorite tool of social media marketers.

Tools to Get the Job Done

Frank Eliason gave an overview of how to use social media in business and shared two of the tools he’s found useful.

#7: Blogsearch.Google

Use Blogsearch.Google.com for better search results than Google Alerts. There are many tools to monitor keywords. Don’t forget to use this one!

Remember to check out what blogs are writing about you through Blogsearch.Google.com.

#8: Twitterfall

Use Twitterfall when you need to show executives how you can monitor what’s being said about your brand on Twitter.

Twitterfall specializes in real-time tweet searches.

A Useful Tool for Twitter Marketing

Hollis Thomases showed businesses how to use Twitter marketing to grow using this tool:

#9: Friend or Follow

Friend or Follow helps you improve your Twitter marketing. It tells you who’s not following you back on Twitter and who you’re not following back.

Use Friend or Follow to craft a stronger Twitter presence with your audience.

Tools to Make Video Blogging Easy

Steve Garfield always makes video blogging easy for everyone. Here are three tools to create on-the-fly videos to enhance your social media content.

#10: Wetoku

Sign up for Wetoku to make the popular side-by-side video interviews. All you need to do is sign in and send an invite code by email to the person you want to interview.

Wetoku is an easy tool to use for interview videos.

#11: Socialcam

If you have an iPhone or an Android phone, be sure to check out Socialcam. Steve says this is the easiest way to share videos with your social networks.

Socialcam combines video sharing with social communities.

#12: Stupeflix

Use Stupeflix to integrate after-effects and photos to your videos. If you want to do editing without using editing software, this tool is for you.

Stupeflix is an easy way to make your videos more appealing.

Find the Tools You Need

One of my takeaways from the summit was that you don’t need to use all of the tools available. Businesses have different cultures, different goals and are at different stages in integrating social media into their marketing mix. These social media pros found the tools that worked best for them.

Do you think any of the tools above can make your social media marketing easier to execute? Please let us know in the comments below if you’re going to try any of them.

What’s New This Week?

Twitter Enhances Search Capabilities: It’s now easier (and faster) for marketers to find exactly whom to follow. When you search for a topic, you’ll get suggestions of people who tweet about that topic.

Twitter now gives you people results for your search queries.

RockMelt Gets Faster and Adds More Features: Are you interested in testing the latest version of this browser? RockMelt Beta 2 has a new chat feature, a view later option, a new Twitter app and a faster browsing experience. Here’s what we had to say about the previous version. Please leave a comment and let us know what you think of this version.

Chat features are particularly popular on social browsers such as RockMelt.

LinkedIn Updates Their Developers Platform:  This demonstrates LinkedIn’s commitment to expanding their platform and it means marketers can expect more useful tools for LinkedIn marketing in the future.

LinkedIn has a new set of tools available to developers.

HootSuite Acquires TwitterBar and Brings You the HootBar: “This handy tool for Firefox allows you to update Twitter profiles directly from the browser address bar. Combined with HootSuite, this tool gives you even more publishing options.” The HootBar is a Firefox add-on. You can check it out here.

The HootBar adds more tools to this popular social media platform.

KissMetrics Shares Latest Quora Stats: If you followed the buzz about Quora, you may be interested in the latest statistics for this Q&A platform below.

Here’s another social media tool worth a look.

Freelish.us: a micro-blogging service based on the Free Software StatusNet tool.

Freelish.us lets users store URLs – bookmarks – with tags to make them easy to organize and share.

And don’t miss this:

Social Media Examiner’s Social Media Success Summit 2011: Check out the largest online social media conference! Help your business grow with social media. SAVE 50% until Thursday!

What social media news caught your interest this week? Please share your comments below.

Look no further.

All of the answers (and more) are right here in this free third-annual social media report.

Watch the above video for a quick summary.

To understand how marketers are using social media, Social Media Examiner commissioned the 2011 Social Media Marketing Industry Report. We set out to uncover the “who, what, where, when and why” of social media marketing with this report.

A significant 3300 social media marketers provided valuable insight you won’t find elsewhere. In this free report, you’ll discover:

• The top 10 social media questions marketers want answered
• How much time marketers invest with social media activities
• The top benefits of social media marketing and how time invested affects results
• The most used social media tools and services
  
• Marketers’ future social media plans
• Activities social media marketers are outsourcing
• And much more!

If you’re responsible for marketing your business, you’ll want to closely analyze the pages of this free 41-page report and use it to persuade others.

Remember, the nature of social media is to “share,” so if you like the report, please let your peers know about it.

>> Download the report here by right-clicking (control click on Macs). NOTE: Having trouble downloading? The file is large and may not display properly in some browsers. Try right-clicking (or control-click on Mac) to save it to your hard drive. Alternatively, view in Scribd.

Michael can be reached at report@socialmediaexaminer.com.

What do you think about these findings? Please share your comments in the box below.

As of March 2011, Social Media Examiner has 59,000 email subscribers, 33,000 Facebook fans, over 60 writers and half a million page views per month.

In addition, the site has generated almost $2 million in sales; ranks among the top 12 websites on two Technorati lists – business and small business; and ranks among the top 1,500 websites in the entire United States, according to Alexa.

“We didn’t do anything unique,” Stelzner said. “We simply employed great content with smart social media marketing and our community did the rest. And any business can achieve great results.”
Listen to Michael share more of the story.

Here’s How Your Business Can Thrive With Social Media

Would you like to learn the tactics of social media from pros like Stelzner—all from the comfort of your home or office? If so, keep reading.

Imagine how much it would cost you to attend a week-long conference with 22 different experts in a faraway city. The conference fee, airfare, hotel room, rental car and restaurants would set you back several thousand dollars.

But you can attend an online conference with 22 different social media pros for a fraction of that cost.

Yes, we’re talking about Social Media Examiner’s upcoming third-annual social media conference, Social Media Success Summit 2011.

You may have been one of the 2,500 attendees at last year’s summit and now you’re wondering if you can skip this one. We don’t recommend it!

“LinkedIn and Facebook have gone through many changes just in the last two months,” Stelzner said.

If you’re one of those 59,000 Social Media Examiner subscribers, you already know that, right? Because you’ve read the following stories:

• 8 New Facebook Page Changes: What You Need to Know
• What the Facebook Message Platform Means for Business
• 8 New LinkedIn Features Worth Exploration
• How LinkedIn Apps Can Promote Your Business

All of these articles were published in the last two months.

Learn What Works in Social Media Marketing

“We have a whole new lineup this year,” Stelzner said. “And the major emphasis in this summit is monitoring and tracking your social media marketing results.”

Nearly all of the presenters have either authored a social media book or manage social media programs for well-known corporations.

You’ll hear from Boeing, Verizon, Intel, Citigroup and Cisco. Here’s a partial list of the 22 presenters:

• Jeremiah Owyang, Altimeter Group
• Brian Solis, author of Engage
• Mari Smith, co-author of Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day
• Frank Eliason, Citigroup
• Mario Sundar, LinkedIn
• David Meerman Scott, author of Real-Time Marketing and PR

And here’s a sample of what you’ll learn: Facebook news feed optimization, how big B2B brands are using social media, how to use LinkedIn to grow your business, how to attract local customers using Facebook Places and the 6-step process for measuring social media return on investment.

Last year’s attendees included General Mills, American Express, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, 3M, Kellogg’s, General Electric, MetLife, Fox TV, U.S. Army, NCR, Ben & Jerry’s, Xerox, Capital One, Disney and thousands of small businesses.

There are only 2,500 spots and a lot of them have already been taken. Grab yours before it’s gone!

Sign up here to see a FREE sample class or take advantage of the half-price sale. It’s only available for a limited time! Last year’s summit sold out.

Did you attend last year? What did you think? What are your social media plans? Please leave your comments in the box below.

What’s New This Week?

Facebook Upgrades Comments Plugin for Websites: Did you know Facebook allows you to add comments to any web page using its platform? Facebook now allows readers to have their comments published in their Facebook news feeds. And when friends comment back in Facebook, the reply will show up on your site. This is something all bloggers should check out.

This is how the comment I left on a recent TechCrunch blog (with the new Facebook Comment plugin) is published on my Facebook Profile wall.

Facebook Likes Button Clicks Go to News Feed: When your readers Like something on your website, this now generates an update on their news feeds that looks like Facebook Share. It appears as if you’ll only need one Facebook button on your blog or website in the future: the Facebook Like button.

I Liked these pages on these websites and this is how the updates show up on my Facebook Profile and in my friends' news feeds on Facebook.

LinkedIn Groups Guarantee Relevant Jobs Listing: The Jobs tab in LinkedIn Groups is now tailored specifically for the group. “All these jobs are either shared into the group by its members, or match keywords specified by the group manager, so they’re guaranteed to be relevant.”

LinkedIn Group managers can improve the experience for their members with job listings more targeted to their group.

Google Enhances User Profiles: Google Profiles have been around for a while to help you “connect to other public online services and improve your search results.” The new design lets you “highlight the information that’s most important to you.”

Check out the latest options to present yourself on Google Profiles.

Here are a few new social media tools worth a look.

Spreaker: an audio platform that allows anyone to create, broadcast and share a personal radio show across the Internet in a simple and accessible way.

With Spreaker, casual podcasters and bloggers have an easy way to keep in touch with their audience by audio.

fflap: a social selling tool for eBay to help sellers reach more people and sell their items faster.

Social shopping tools like fflap help businesses leverage their social networks.

uQR.me: you can create a unique QR code and a profile page where you can easily change, update or replace the code’s content any time you want.

.

And don’t miss this:

Social Media Examiner’s Social Media Success Summit 2011: Just announced, this online mega-conference will help you business grow with social media.

What social media news caught your interest this week? Please share your comments below.

What’s New This Week?

Google Shows Your Social Graph in Search Results: Google has updated its algorithm to share more social information in search results. Now your Twitter friends, Flickr friends and blogging friends can all show up in your search results for everyday topics. Watch the below video to see how it works.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hAgiIXuNbs

Tumblr Launches the Explore Page: Tumblr users are now encouraged to tag their photos.  The new Explore page organizes and filters posts with these tags and stimulates community interaction.

Every tagged post has a chance to show up in front of an audience of millions that might not otherwise see it.

InboxQ Takes on Quora With Questions on Twitter: This new tool “delivers a realtime stream of questions related to your business, products, industry or general interests from Twitter directly to your browser.” It’s worth checking out even if it’s currently only available on Chrome (and soon on FireFox).

Businesses are sure to find multiple uses for this new tool.

Here are a few more social media tools worth a look. These were mentioned by our readers earlier this week on 22 Hot New Social Media Tools:

Cloud Flood helps you get traffic from Twitter and Facebook by adding a button on your site next to your freebies (MP3′s, eBooks, Zip files).

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Social QR Code allows your users to share content on Facebook and Twitter through the use of QR codes. The functionality on Social QR Code makes it easy to promote social sharing.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvtSHm3Xmvk

Zerply to create a professional profile and network with “people who love what they do.”

Zerply is currently in beta mode, but you can still sign up.

What social media news caught your interest this week? Please share your comments below.

What follows is an amazing list of social media tools you’ve likely never heard of—covering a wide range of categories:

• Tools for pictures, video, audio and screen capture
• Tools to measure and track results
• Tools to manage content
• Blogging tools
• Twitter tools
• Other social media tools

Try them out. And be sure to report back here with your thoughts.

Tools for Pictures, Video, Audio and Screen Capture

#1: Cinches

Recommended by Denise Wakeman, online marketing advisor and founder of The Blog Squad.

“My favorite new tool is CinchCast.com. This simple tool can record audio, either via the web or phone (there are apps for iPhone and Android), so you can share audio messages with your followers. While audio tools like this are not new, this one seems to work the best and most consistently for me both on the web and my mobile app.

Cinches can be syndicated automatically to your Facebook status (not to pages, though) and to your Twitter stream. It’s simple to find and follow people from your social networks as well. Adding an image and description to the audio message is easy too and boosts visibility and encourages comments and sharing. Cinches can be shared by embedding the player in blog posts and posting links in status updates.

I’m using CinchCasts to repurpose a lot of content into audio: presentations (I record one tip from a PowerPoint and expand on it a bit), blog posts and articles. I also reverse the process and embed Cinch tips in blog posts to expand on the written text and create an experience that encourages my audience to stay longer on my blog.”

Learn more about Denise at Build a Better Blog and follow her on Twitter @DeniseWakeman.

CinchCasts was created by the folks at BlogTalkRadio.

#2: Screenr

Recommended by Tim Ware, owner of HyperArts Web Design, helping businesses build and promote their web presence.

“My favorite social media tool in the past half year has to be Screenr, an enormously useful online service to create screen-capture videos, with audio, easily and for free. Because much of what I do these days involves teaching people how to do things online, usually on Facebook, Screenr is the perfect tool for me. I can just say, “Wait a sec. I’ll send you a video.”

Creating an instructional video on Screenr is just about as easy as it gets, allowing you to record, pause (while you rearrange what’s on your screen) and then click “Done” and that’s it! With a few clicks, you can post the video plus comments to your Twitter account, or download the file as an MP4.”

Follow Tim on Twitter @hyperarts.

Create screen-capture videos quickly and easily with Screenr.

#3: DailyBooth

Recommended by Lewis Howes, the author of two books on LinkedIn and founder of Sports Executives Association and SportsNetworker.com.

“As an online/social media marketer, it’s easier to get more sales (or transactions) from potential customers if those individuals feel like they know, like and trust you.  A great way to let them get to know you better is simply by letting them see you daily. A great way to do this is to record a video each day and post it to your networks.  But who has the time to set up a camera, shoot a video, edit it, wait for it to upload and publish to your network each day?  I know I don’t, as it’s hard enough getting a blog post out once a week!

Pictures solve this problem, and DailyBooth provides a fast-growing social networking site that allows you to easily upload and share pictures in seconds. DailyBooth.com is still under the radar for most, but the interaction for those on it is similar to the mad interaction Twitter users have, and it’s getting more and more additive as the days go by.”

Learn more about Lewis at LewisHowes.com and follow him @LewisHowes.

Be sure to check out DailyBooth. It could be the next big social media tool in the future.

#4: Skitch

Recommended by Clément Yeung, co-director of Easisell, a digital marketing and design company that helps small businesses achieve success online.

“I love Skitch because if you constantly need to communicate complex on-page issues to people, then Skitch helps you do it seamlessly from your desktop! Just a few clicks and you have a shareable link that you can send to anyone you like. It’s also free.”

Follow Clément on Twitter @ClementYeung.

Skitch is your online camera and pen. You can screengrab anything, add a note and share it quickly.

#5: Instagram

Recommended by Christine Gallagher, relationship marketing speaker, trainer and coach.

“Instagram, which is an addictive, free photo-sharing app for the iPhone.

It’s social and fun to share your pics with others and see theirs as well. You can also comment or like others’ photos, follow other users and see what they’ve posted lately. It’s super-simple to use and my favorite thing about it is that you can transform seemingly ho-hum pictures into unique little works of art with the assortment of filters available. Two thumbs way up.”

Learn more about Christine at Communicate Value and follow her on Twitter @christineg.

"Use Instagram to take pictures, add filters to make them look artsy or retro and then share them on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter and Flickr."

Tools to Measure and Track Results

#6: Argyle Social

Recommended by Jason Falls, principal of Social Media Explorer, a social media marketing consulting firm based in Louisville, KY.

“Because my primary use of social media is to share great content, I think the tool I’ve become most dependent upon in the last six months is Argyle Social. It’s a URL shortener that has an elegant suite of measures around it, a bookmarklet for easy use and the customization you would need to separate your shares on Twitter from those on Facebook to deliver different messages around the same content. Once they add LinkedIn and perhaps even Posterous or Tumblr to their publishing options, Argyle could become THE tool for folks who not only want to share, but also measure the impact of that sharing.

I know I’ve driven over 150,000 clicks to various content in the last six months. I can break those down and tell you exactly how many I drove to certain pieces of content, too. My own and other sites I found and shared with my networks. That’s pretty powerful information if one of your goals is to share or build trust. I can put numbers around that now.”

Learn more about Jason at SocialMediaExplorer.com and follow him on Twitter @JasonFalls.

Argyle Social helps you use social media strategically.

#7: TwentyFeet

Recommended by Mari Smith, social media speaker, trainer, thought leader and co-author of Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day.

“Here’s my fave new tool: TwentyFeet.com—aggregate all your stats in one place!

I love this simple social profile analytics platform with its easy setup, intuitive interface, daily stats emails and very low micro payments model. Credits are just $2.49 per account for an entire year, but users get one Facebook and one Twitter account free forever. You can monitor one or more accounts from Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, bit.ly, Google Analytics, MySpace and more and see how your key performance indicators develop over time. Oh, and another reason I love TwentyFeet? Their logo is a giraffe (the tall blonde!), my favorite animal!”

Learn more about Mari at marismith.com and follow her on Twitter @MariSmith.

Check out TwentyFeet for a low-cost social media analytics tool.

#8: PostRank and PostRank Analytics

Recommended by Kristi Hines, an Internet marketing specialist with Vertical Measures.

“One of my favorite social media tools/resources is PostRank. You can gain an amazing amount of insight into what topics get the most engagement on a particular blog (such as Social Media Examiner) by finding it in their directory and using the Good, Great and Best filters to see what posts have the most comments and social shares. The best part is that researching another blog‘s social sharing statistics is free, and it’s something you can look at for your own blog as well by making sure it’s listed on their site. If it’s not, just enter the URL in the search box, and they’ll email you as soon as it’s on their site. Then wait a week or two and start discovering what’s most loved by your readers.

If you’re interested in learning more about your own social engagement scoring, you can also sign up for their in-depth social analytics. It’s only $15 per month to analyze up to 5 sites with custom tracking on 10 additional pages within those sites. You can even connect your Google Analytics with PostRank and see how social engagement matches up with your conversion rates and goals.”

Learn more about Kristi at Kikolani and follow her on Twitter @Kikolani.

PostRank Analytics is also recommended by Jay Baer, a hype-free, tequila-loving social media strategist, speaker and coach.

“PostRank Analytics is my favorite tool because it solves a very real problem for bloggers, which is how to understand the full impact of a blog post. What’s more important, page views, comments, tweets, Facebook shares? PostRank Analytics tracks all of the actions related to each of your posts, and compiles a consolidated score that helps you understand what your audience wants from you and your blog. It’s like a psychic, if psychics also had fancy charts and graphs!”

Learn more about Jay at Convince & Convert and follow him on Twitter @JayBaer.

PostRank Analytics is an inexpensive tool with tons of value if you're looking to learn more about how to increase your blog's or website's social media engagement.

#9: Postling

Recommended by Jeff Korhan, professional speaker, consultant and columnist on new media and small business marketing.

“Postling is a tool that brings together multiple social media channels into one interface. What makes it invaluable for me are the email notifications I receive when comments are made on my professional Facebook page. To my knowledge, it’s the only social media tool with this capability. All of the comments are nicely presented in clean threads that maintain the continuity of the conversation, thereby allowing me to easily make timely comments, or schedule them for later.”

Learn more about Jeff at jeffkorhan.com and follow him on Twitter @JeffKorhan.

Postling is also recommended by Stephanie Sammons, the voice behind Smart Social Pro, a resource for professional practitioners to help them understand how to leverage the power of social media and blogging in their practices.

“A tool that can help you stay focused on relevant tracking and engagement is Postling. Postling is designed with the small business owner and professional in mind and can simplify your social media activities. It’s a clean and intuitive dashboard that offers management features to track, engage and publish to your relevant social media profiles, and even to your blog. (It plays nice with WordPress.)

Most importantly, Postling will send you a daily email update of all of your comments so that you know who’s engaging with you and what’s being shared or said about you. (It’s great to know you won’t miss anything.) The basic features are available with a free account. The paid account at $9.00/month allows for multiple accounts per social network, brands and users, providing instant email alerts and an analytics dashboard. And there’s also a premium version for power users at $49.00/month. Overall, Postling is well on its way to becoming a great tool for business owners and professionals!”

Follow Stephanie on Twitter @StephSammons.

Give Postling a try to manage your social media activities.

#10: Sysomos

Recommended by Nick Shin, online marketing strategist specializing in SEM, social media, and PPC.

“Sysomos, by far, has been my favorite social media tool. (Disclosure: I am the SEM and social media specialist at Marketwire and we acquired Sysomos in July.)  Since then, I’ve been able to take advantage of what Sysomos has to offer. I use Sysomos to monitor our social media conversations on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, forums and blogs. The ease of use, robust features and convenience have cut my monitoring time in half. In addition, as the founder of #smmeasure social media measurement chat, I can tell you there’s a lot of concern about how to measure social media. The more I use Sysomos, the more it eliminates the need to keep ‘proving’ the value of social media because of the actionable insight you can get from its analytics. With all of my other responsibilities, any tool that will help me do the same job in less time is a win. I highly recommend getting a free demo.”

Learn more about Nick at Marketing Shindig and follow him on Twitter @shinng.

Check out Sysomos to monitor your social media activities.

#11: Inside View

Recommended by Jacob Morgan, principal of Chess Media Group, a social business consultancy focused on customer and employee engagement strategies.

“My favorite new tool that I started using within the past 6 months is Inside View (through a customized enterprise version of Salesforce).

Inside View (their Salesview product) allows you to make the “social sale” by extracting valuable company information about a person or prospect prior to making a sale. You can get market cap, the org structure, list of key employees and the social sites they belong to, relevant company news, addresses and phone numbers and more; all from your Salesforce “lead” view. You can then sync all of this information with your Salesforce account so that it actually fills in the information for you.”

Follow Jacob on Twitter @jacobm.

Inside View is truly a valuable tool that integrates social data with CRM data and is a must-have for anyone even remotely involved driving business for an organization.

Tools to Manage Content

#12: Trunk.ly

Recommended by Nathan Hangen, Internet marketing strategist and founder of Webrepreneur Media.

“Recently I was looking for a better bookmark solution, and I was getting so desperate that I was thinking of developing it myself. Tumblr was too big, and sites like Delicious and other social bookmarking services felt walled off. Then someone pointed me to Trunk.ly, which you feed with your Twitter and/or Facebook account, and I was hooked. Trunk.ly keeps a history of the links that you like or Tweet and makes them searchable and easy to share. If I was going to build a solution, this would be exactly what I built. It’s beautiful.”

Learn more about Nathan at nathanhangen.com and follow him on Twitter @nhangen.

Trunk.ly keeps track of all of the links you share on Twitter and Facebook.

#13: Storify

Recommended by Michael Brito, VP for Edelman Digital and has worked for HP, Yahoo! and Intel.

“My favorite tool is Storify which is fantastic to aggregate and curate content from around the web. It’s great for events, product launches, etc.”

Learn more about Michael at social media blog and follow him on Twitter @britopian.

Storify is a great social tool to tap into the power of stories.

#14: Posterous

Recommended by Jim Lodico, copywriter and marketing consultant specializing in creating powerful content and teaching businesses how to use blogs.

“I just started using Posterous and I really like the potential. It allows you to post to 20 or so social media channels all through email. Photos, video, blog posts, even podcasts can all be distributed throughout your network just by sending an email. I really like the simplicity and the ability to manage all your social media accounts at once.”

Learn more about Jim at jalcommunication.com and follow him on Twitter @jlcommunication.

Posterous offers an alternative to a traditional blog for publishing content online.

Blogging Tools

#15: Apture

Recommended by Ching Ya, author of Social @ Blogging Tracker.

“One of the new social media tools I found in the last 6 months is Apture. I was between installing it or Wibiya, but because I’ve decided to emphasize visitors’ sharing on Facebook and Twitter, I went for Apture instead. It turned out to be one of the best decisions I’ve made. The catchy, customizable drop-down bar on top of the site makes sharing easy and friendly. You can search for related content—not just posts, but videos and images to be linked to as well. Your visitors can even use it to search similar posts within your site. Highly recommended!”

Follow Ching Ya on Twitter @wchingya.

Apture adds a social dimension to your blog.

#16: OnlyWire

Recommended by Dino Dogan, blogger, writer, motorcyclist, dog trainer, singer/songwriter, martial artist and founder of DIY Blogger.

“OnlyWire can auto-submit your blog post to 42 top social network sites like Digg, Reddit and StumbleUpon. By doing this, you build backlinks to your blog the quick and easy way. This doesn’t improve your page rank but it does improve your social rank so much that in one of my tests, this one technique alone took me from the page 14 on Google to page 4.”

Learn more about Dino at DIY Blogger and follow him @dino_dogan.

Use OnlyWire to build backlinks to your website or blog.

Twitter Tools

#17: FormuLists

Recommended by Elijah R. Young, lead strategist and owner of Social Talk Live.

“My favorite social media tool over the past 6 months has been FormuLists. FormuLists allows me to effortlessly keep up with my newest followers, my recent conversationalists and tons of other specifications that I can adjust in my settings to keep me on top of all of the new folks I meet in my Twitter timeline. Before FormuLists, I had to hope I remembered who I added to my lists, and work around crossover… It was just a mess. Now I can just focus on keeping up with conversations that matter to my followers, and pitching in when appropriate.”

Follow Elijah on Twitter @elijahryoung.

FormuLists is also recommended by Ann Smarty, an experienced blogger and SEO consultant at BlueGlass.com.

“The tool that I’ve just recently discovered and fallen in love with is FormuLists. I have a lot of followers and it’s been almost impossible for me to organize the following manually. The tool has quite a few very handy options.”

Learn more about Ann at MyBlogGuest.com and follow her on Twitter @myblogguest.

FormuLists manages your followers for you so you can focus on building your relationships.

#18: HashTracking

Recommended by Lori Taylor, a self-proclaimed “URL-junkie,” and an award-winning marketing veteran with 20 years experience turned social technologist by day and angel investor (Klout, Live Matrix, Pixsy) by night.

“My favorite new Twitter tool is HashTracking, which we use to track campaigns on Twitter. It takes group conversations and measures the influence and type of engagement level for each participant. The reason I’m in love with it is because the depth of data is incredible. Starting with the total number of people who participated in the group conversation, HashTracking chunks the participants into 4 buckets they call leaders, people who were engaged, just curious, and even identifies the wallflowers. We can get content to the most powerful hands who can truly give us the most reach on a specific topic, not just a broad category.”

Learn more about Lori at lorirtaylor.com and follow her on Twitter @lorirtaylor.

HashTracking is a great testing tool for all kinds of direct response metrics such as a top-ten list for impressions, number of tweets and follower count for each person using your hashtag (for free).

#19: Oneforty

Recommended by Ekaterina Walter, social media strategist at Intel.

“My favorite tool of the past 6 months is oneforty. Oneforty helps you discover thousands of tools that help you do more with your business, career or life using Twitter! This is essentially a directory of various Twitter apps that can help you do whatever you can possibly imagine on Twitter from helping manage your brand Twitter account to managing your followers to finding fun apps for your everyday life. I love their Toolkit feature which allows you to see what other industry leaders or even brands are using to manage their presence.”

Learn more about Ekaterina at ekaterinawalter.com and follow her on Twitter @ekaterina.

Oneforty also just introduced the Q&A section where the community of tweeps can share tips and tricks and help each other discover new cool ways to engage.

#20: TweetDeck for Chrome

Recommended by Corbett Barr who wants to help you attract as many visitors to your site as you need to make your business thrive.

“My favorite new social media tool is definitely TweetDeck for Google’s Chrome browser. I love it because I get all the awesome functionality of TweetDeck without having to run a separate application. I also love how it integrates multiple Twitter accounts into one combined column of @ replies and another for direct messages. It’s a huge time-saver for people who tweet a lot from different accounts.”

Learn more about Corbett at Think Traffic and follow him on Twitter @CorbettBarr.

Chrome users can also use TweetDeck to manage their Twitter accounts.

Other Social Media Tools

#21: LinkedIn Company Page

Recommended by Linda Coles, a sought-after speaker who also runs various workshops and seminars on how to use social media tools effectively and productively.

“I love the LinkedIn Company Page upgrade as you can upload three banner ads, add video to each product or service page and you’ve even got analytics to monitor what’s going on. It may well get as good as a FB business page but in a different environment.”

Learn more about Linda at Blue Banana and follow her on Twitter @bluebanana20.

LinkedIn Company Pages are a welcome addition for businesses on social media.

#22: Quora

Recommended by Lori Randall, online marketing strategist specializing in social media and WordPress sites. Follow Lori on Twitter @lori_randall.

“Quora, an online knowledge hub for mostly social media and technology, is a tall glass of water. People ask insightful questions and exchange substantive answers. I was starting to feel like I was in a social media desert of genuine thought because of all the noise and this has risen to quench my thirst for knowledge admirably.”

Quora has become a popular Q&A platform in a short time.

What Are Your Favorite Social Media Tools?

Have you used any of the social media tools mentioned above? Which ones are your favorites? Which other social media tools would you add to this list? Please share your comments below.