The best way to get up and running with social media fast is to watch what the experts are doing and adopt some of the methods and tools that they are using. Here’s a quick look at 5 popular social media personalities and a description of the tools of the trade that they are using… enjoy!
In this list we’ll share with you some tools for url shortening, RSS feed push and campaign scheduling, mobile Tweeting via iPhone, a PC client, and social location check-ins. Regularly reviewing your social media analytics lets you identify what’s working and what’s not and make adjustments accordingly
url Shortening
Mashable – when it comes to social media, these guys know what they are doing. When mashable posts tips and links to their social streams they use the Bit.ly url shortening service. Bit.ly crunches long, ugly web urls into a smaller, manageable hyperlink. Users have access to click-through stats and best of all, many add on apps and Twitter clients will automatically create a Bit.ly url for you
Campaign Scheduling/Management
@GuyKawasaki – Guy loves to Tweet and he’s famous for re-posting (ie. multyiple tweets) and there’s nothing wrong with that.. why not repost a tweet 3 or 4 times a day at different hours or at set intervals? Guy uses Otweet – http://objectivemarketer.com – to apparently schedule and manage how Tweets and social posting. Tools like this enable users to analyze trends and determine what works and what doesn’t.
iPhone Tweets
@JoelComm – Joel is a popular author of “Twitter Power” and considered somewhat of an expert in social media. He also has a very successful iPhone application (iFart) that helped put him on the map (and likely funds his full time social media career). Browsing Joel’s twitter stream reveals that he prefers to Tweet from his iPhone using Tweetie… not a bad chopice if you have an iPhone and are looking for a client.
PC Client
@garyvee – Gary Vaynerchuck, social media author and enthusiasts, wine lover, and popular video blogger relies on Twitter to communicate with his legions of followers. It seems Gary’s Twitter client of choice is TweetDeck… again a great choice and they also have a nice iPhone client as well.
Social Location Check-in
@scobleizer – Robert Scoble, self-proclaimed Geek and technology enthusiast has a huge Twitter following… Robert has recently hopped on the social-location bandwagon and has been tweeting about foursquare and GoWalla (http://gowalla.com/users/scobleizer). It seems that Robert’s preference for location-aware tweeting and check-in is foursquare, as you can see from this Tweet