Each and every one of us has a vice or two, and most of us enjoy many great freedoms as well. In some cases, the price of those vices and freedoms are nominal while others are extremely priceless. Now, imagine that somebody was willing to pay you to endorse something like Coca-Cola or Mountain Dew. How much would they have to pay you to promote and endorse their product? Of course, if the product that they want you to endorse was already a product that you use and enjoy, that price could be much smaller. Heck, you might ask for a lifetime supply of it as part of the negotiation, but what happens if the product is something that you despise and never use? For me, I have not had a carbonated beverage since Christmas of 1999, so, if Coca-Cola asked me to endorse their Coca-Cola Classic [carbonated] beverage, I would actually turn it down… but suggest that I promote their non-carbonated Powerade sports drink instead. However, we all see athletes settling for a price; sometimes, it is quite obvious when a celebrity is endorsing a product that they do not use and merely did so to earn some fast cash. Like wrestling’s Million Dollar Man always said:

“Everybody’s got a price for the Million Dollar Man.”

This question is universal as we can ask that about every aspect of our lives. Think about your hobbies and ask yourself what price somebody would have to pay you for you to stop (or start) doing something that you loved (or hated). For me, some of my biggest hobbies and interests include fitness and social media. I have recently debated within myself about what I would do if somebody offered to pay me to stop one of my favorite hobbies, but I honestly cannot find a price suitable to stop working out or engaging others on social media. I sometimes joke around with my foursquare friend, Eric Andersen, about slowing down his check-ins so I can catch up in the near future. You see, Eric started on foursquare a few months before I did, and he has maintained. As a result, he is nearing 21,000 check-ins while I remain a mere 4,000 check-ins behind. Of course, I am not going to be paying him to stop checking in, but it is a fun topic to think about. Also, when it comes to foursquare, no amount of money would satisfy me enough to stop checking in; as you know, foursquare introduced me to Elaine, and that added bonus makes all the difference in the world. Similarly, I have met (both virtually and in person) a lot of people thanks to Facebook and Twitter, so you won’t find my posts and tweets stopping anytime in the near future either. I will be going to the gym nearly every day, and I will be checking in each time in order to help maintain my mayorship! Lastly, I won’t be doing any carbonated beverage commercials any time soon. Still, I’m sure there is a price out there for just about anything. How much is your online freedom worth to you? What about your hobbies or your business?

When it comes to blogs, I enjoy a good read just as much as I enjoy posting my own opinions and insight about various [business and social media] topics. Along the way, I have found some pretty impressive blogs that always seem to provide some creative, cutting-edge, and enlightening information. While it would take a few long posts for me to cover all of the awesome blogs I have stumbled upon and now frequent!

Social Media Explorer – Thought-leader Jason Falls is a highly-regarded author (No Bullshit Social Media) and keynote speaker with a vast amount of social media marketing experience. Lucky for us and instead of merely charging for all of his thoughts and insight, he and his colleagues relay much of their knowledge on this blog, It is refreshing to know that they are sharing their information and experience with us each and every day!

Social Media Examiner – Considered by many within the industry to be jam-packed with great, reliable, and relevant information, Social Media Examiner has grown in popularity in recent years, amassing over 130,000 email subscribers. Currently sitting in the sixth spot atop the AdAge Power 150, Social Media Examiner delivers the latest news in social media. Oh

AboutFoursquare – As a huge fan of foursquare, how could I legitimately exclude this great blog from this list? I mean, I visit this site all of the time in an effort to find out the latest and greatest news about everything location-based services (LBS). Chris Thompson is the editor-in-chief, and he is always on top of his game. When I need to know anything about foursquare, I first turn to this blog for the details. And, if I missed anything during the week, there is a weekly podcast to recap the foursquare news, latest foursquare badges, and much more. I will admit that it was a privilege to be a guest on the podcast many times already, and I hope to go back on in the near future!

Likeable Media – I first started reading more from this blog once I got a copy of David Kerpen’s (its founder) book, Likeable Social Media! I found it to be an awesome extension. Kerpen is on point and knows what is and isn’t likeable. This blog (and the book written by Kerpen) is a great resource for businesses of all sizes.

Mashable – I guess that, if I am going to talk about social media blogs, how can I leave out Mashable, right? Although, it is a different breed of blogs, I will admit that it is full of great and interesting stories of the latest and greatest stuff that is social media and technology!

Well, that is a quick glance of five solid sites that I visit a lot and highly recommend. Of course, being an avid social media professional and fan (and a technology junkie to boot), I have a lot of other sites that I visit with great regularity. Which sites do you visit most often? Which sites have the best information?

YouTube is the number two search engine, with a user base that is ever-growing and increasingly interactive! Additionally, YouTube has a fresh, new look that many find extra appealing! I love, for example, using YouTube to show more of my personality and hobbies; as such, I tend to upload a good amount of fitness-related videos on my personal profile! However, some of its current features are lacking just a bit, and I am confident that YouTube could (and should) easily correct and improve these for the greater good of its user base! I must admit that I am not the definitive YouTube authority or guru, so there might be some awesome work-arounds  to these concerns of mine, but they are not yet apparent to me.

Subscription Sorting

When it comes to subscribing to new or trending channels, I tend to do a lot of it, so it would be very helpful if I could easily sort through these numerous channels so that I can better ensure that I want to continue subscribing to each. Luckily, it appears that they have made it easier for me to mass unsubscribe if I need to, but I additional sorting functionality is key for me if I am to become a stronger and more active YouTube user. When I look at my channel subscription list, it does not appear that I have any options at my disposal, and that is quite surprising. I want an easy way to see which channel uploaded last and then be able to switch to view my subscriptions alphabetically! While we are at it, I would love a lot of sorting options; surprise me, YouTube!!

Subscription Groups

Once the channels are sorted out for me – wherein I can look at them alphabetically or by most popular or even by when the channel last added a new video – I want to be able to group them together. For example, I subscribe to a lot of fitness channels, and I also subscribe to a lot of technology-related channels. If I could organize these better and group them accordingly, that would be extremely helpful!

Improved Playlist Add Features

Just like my subscribing habits, I tend to make a lot of playlists. First, I sort out the types of videos I upload for my viewers, and then I make playlists to suit the various other videos I have found and want to remember in the future. Unlike Twitter and their 20 list limit, at least I am allowed to make as many playlists as I want, but have you ever tried adding a video to a playlist these days? Each time that I have tried to, especially in recent weeks, I can only see three playlists at a time, and I have to carefully scroll down to the appropriate playlist. Talk about a headache, especially for somebody who has a lot of playlists.

In addition to the headache of scrolling and adding to a playlist, what about the times when you forget if a video was added to a desired playlist or not. YouTube does not have a checkbox add like feature that identifies which playlists the specific video is already a part of right as I am trying to add it. As a result, I either have to open a new window from which I can pull up the desired playlist and figure out if the video in question has already been added or merely add it and figure it out later. This is just not cool, and YouTube should be able to simplify this process a bit more similar to how foursquare offers a checkbox list adding process

Wrapping Up

Well, I will keep my fingers crossed and look forward to more YouTube channel improvements as I strive to better organize my content and better enjoy my user experience! Are there any features that you want added into the YouTube experience that would make the entire experience that much better?

Empire Avenue continues to be the network that I like the most when it comes to understanding my placement and worth online. It helps me to better understand which of my social media profiles is doing very well and which might need a little more attention and time on my behalf. As I have mentioned before, Empire Avenue does not look to measure my “influence” over a topic or on a specific network; instead, it looks at my activity level and overall network power. In the past, I mentioned how I like to use Empire Avenue to buy virtual shares in online personalities and brands that I believe in and back. I have even met a great number of people on Empire Avenue and found the network to be well-suited to a variety of online measuring strategies. Empire Avenue users now have a new feature that allows them to market even more through the platform using Missions. Basically, Missions allow me to ask my shareholders that fall within a criteria of my choosing to go to a website of my choice and do something that I want them to do like following me on Twitter, subscribing to a newsletter, liking a Facebook page, or even reviewing a product online. In exchange for them doing this, I pay them a predetermined amount of EAVES (virtual money). Plus, now that the Missions feature is out of beta, everybody can give it a try!

While I have not created a bunch of Missions yet, I do like how I can narrow down who can complete my Missions! If I want to target a certain group, I can! For example, I recently used Missions to get the word out about a Facebook page for a client of mine. I was able to require shareholders to like my client’s Facebook page in exchange for 1000e. I limited the mission to the first 50 people who hold at least 50 shares in my stock and have a share price of at least 20e. If I am an author, I could target a related community on Empire Avenue that I am already a part of! Of course, I would like to see more criteria options wherein, for example, I could target people based off of their specific topic interests that they list on their profile or the stock exchange index that they selected! Certainly, I am sure those are currently in the works, and I look forward to those type of additions!

Sure, there is a virtual price to these marketing campaigns (Missions), but, unless you are buying additional virtual bucks with your real money, the price is really free because you are earning these virtual bucks (EAVES) via your online activity! So, build up some EAVES and give Missions a try or two! I’d love to hear how you used Missions to reach some social media marketing goals!

Dear Santa,

I write to you in hopes for another great Christmas. In years past, I have truly been blessed with so many intangible gifts. As we approach this Christmas, I have a few items, tangible and intangible, that I would love to receive. Overall, I am confident that I have been a good boy this year, so here goes! First, I ask for continued health – physical, mental, and emotion. I have been lucky to maintain a great level of health over the past 30 years, and I hope for continued health as we move into 2012. Second, I ask for continued and unconditional love. Last year, I got an extra early Christmas gift in the form of 4sqLoveStory; for this year, I ask for the next step. I hope to share even more greatness as the New Year approaches. I know that that is not something you have control over, but I figured you could put in a good word for me. Third, I ask for great health and prosperity for those close to me – for my loved ones, for family near and far, and for all of my friends, online and offline! Certainly, I ask for positivity and good deeds for all people on earth; since you have a bigger following online and offline than I do, I figured you might have a little more Klout!

Now that we have the really important stuff out of the way, I could use a few stocking stuffers if time and budget permits. First, would you ask those great folks over at foursquare to finally convert my profile to a follow/celebrity account? I have at least 165 friend requests that I currently cannot accept. Furthermore, there are more of my Facebook friends have recently become foursquare users. It would be great to be able to connect with them! Second, do you have any connections within the ranks of Twitter? For quite some time now, I’ve really needed more lists – being limited to 20 lists per profile is really cramping my style. Ten or 20 more lists would be a great start! Lastly, I know those people over at Research in Motion are busy trying to figure out their BlackBerry mess of sorts, but they still lack an Android app for their quality Tungle service! Like so many other people, I’m getting really blue in the face waiting for them to release this version of the app. If you could lend them an elf or two to help speed up the process, that would be greatly appreciated. Oh, and just one more thing… if you happen to swing by any business or technology (social media) authors’ homes before coming to my place, would you grab a copy of their books and ask them to sign them? You know how much I love autographed copies of awesome books.

Thanks again for listening, and I wish you safe travels this year!

Dwayne

Okay, so I am a perfectionist of sorts who really strives to use the correct phrases and words whenever possible. With that said, my body cringes when others consistently show a lack of basic language, grammar, and communication fundamentals. Now, jump into this technology-filled world and look around. People are on Twitter and Facebook using forms of shorthand like acronyms and slang (etc) to convey their message to their friends and colleagues. We have all seen the LOLs and BRBs out there, and some have used “B4” and “ur” in order to better stick within the message length restrictions on Twitter. I understand and appreciate that creativity, but we all need to take a moment to think about what our words and phrases are truly saying before we hit the send button. Case in point… IRL!

IRL (in real life) has become synonymous with everything offline. On Twitter, for example, you see people tweeting about how they are anxious to meet up with someone IRL for the first time. What they are really trying to say is that they have never met the specific Twitter friend in person but look forward to meeting (possibly at an upcoming industry conference). This really gets under my skin because I meet “REAL” people everyday online and via social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, foursquare, and Empire Avenue. I’m not playing some fictional game called social media or something; instead, I am engaging my audience, reaching out to new and great people and brands, and listening. I’m not alone in this line of thinking; Alexandra Samuel, the director of the Social + Interactive Media Centre at Emily Carr University, blogger for Harvard Business Review and Oprah.com, and the principal of Social Signal, reminded us to stop apologizing for our online lives. In that blog post Alex reminded us of the following:

There’s no denying the differences between life online and off. In our online lives we shake off the limitations of our physical selves, perhaps even our names and consciences, too. What remains are the fundamentals: human beings, human conversations, human communities. To say that “reality” includes only offline beings, offline conversations and offline communities is to say that face-to-face matters more than human-to-human.

With that said, I ask each of you to do me a favor. If you are online and tweeting or Facebook posting, think about what you are saying and the words you are selecting before you hit the send button. Unless you are specifically talking about the Indy Racing League, the acronym, IRL, has very little use in our online conversations, especially if we are trying to differentiate between our online and offline interactions. Instead of using IRL, think about using P2P (person-to-person), F2F (face-to-face), or IP (in person) – something… anything other than IRL! Am I wrong in my assessment or point of view?

Everyone is raving about one of the latest social networks Pinterest. So what is it, and why is it all of a sudden so popular? Pinterest is a virtual pinboard where you can organize pictures, ideas, and other things you find online into different boards. A lot of brides have been using Pinterest to organize their weddings, and a lot of couples have been using Pinterest to decorate their home. You can follow pinboards created by other people and find various images that make you smile, make you laugh, make you cry, and make you think. There are a ton of awesome crafts, inspirational sayings, and funny images to “repin” and “like.”

My favorite thing about Pinterest is the beautiful pictures, craft ideas, and absolutely hilarious photos. I have started a new board called “wedding obsession” with a lot of wedding and engagement pictures and ideas. I have also started collecting a lot of recipes from Pinterest and have even tried a few! Furthermore, I have boards for movies, books, things that make me laugh, and much more! Another cool thing is that, when you click the images, they will link to another site where they originally came from. This feature allows you to actually find out where the things in the picture came from so you can buy them for yourself. Pretty cool, right? You can create as many “boards” aka collections to place all your favorite photos in when you “repin” them to your followers. It is very cool and very helpful to organize all your thoughts and favorite pictures into different categories.

Two things you should know about Pinterest: you actually need an invite to join, and it can be VERY time consuming.

One: You can browse, but to actually start your boards, you will need an invite. Please let me know @laurenkgray if you would like an invite to Pinterest; I would be happy to send you one!

Two: Pinterest is more time-consuming than Facebook [for me]. I get on Pinterest, start reading, start pinning, etc. and before I know it, I have no idea where the time went. Make sure you monitor your time and delegate your time for this consuming site!

I promise joining Pinterest will be worth your time, and it is an awesome, creative site to be a part of! I really think this type of social sharing is the future of social media. People are getting tired of sharing just statuses and such; we like seeing pictures and videos. I expect Pinterest to fully blow up soon!

Lauren Gray is a senior PR student at Western Carolina University. Lauren serves as the PRSSA National Vice President of Public Relations as well as various other PR and marketing positions on her campus. She tweets @laurenkgray and also blogs at laurenkgray.com. Feel free to connect with her on Twitter for further conversation!

After roaming the social media networks and web as a whole over the course of the past five to ten years, I have noticed many failed attempts by brands and personas at engaging their audience using the technology and social media tools available. Many just have set up a profile on the “in” network at the time and just assumed that they would gain an audience. Others have decided to be less personal or merely ignored or removed negative comments that came their way. I’m sure you all have come across a few of these examples. Yet, while many have failed to understand and implement social media to brighten their reach and fan engagement, a select few have excelled at it. For these people and brands, using social media is second nature; they’ve added great value to and connected on a personal level with numerous loyal fans, potential customers, and casual onlookers. As a result, they lead the pack and show us all why they are truly superstars in every sense of the word! So, to kick off this new series of posts, I must introduce you (or remind you) of this highly-talented, highly-personable, and extremely creative musician named Kina Grannis.

Who is Kina Grannis?

Kina is awesome. Her biography on her website notes the follow:

In 2007, after four years at USC (where she recorded and self-released three EPs) and a brief move to Austin, TX, Kina joined YouTube, made a music video and entered herself into Doritos’ Crash The Super Bowl contest. In the months that followed, Kina began to accrue followers, lots of them, making herself right at home in front of her computer. Her Two Weeks For Kina site traded daily videos in exchange for votes, and while her votes piled up her following grew exponentially. A few months later, her video for “Message From Your Heart” aired during the Super Bowl and its 97-million viewers and Kina had a YouTube following, a Twitter following, a #1 video on Digg.com, a street team and, for a short time, a record deal.

But, Kina is much more than that! She has a passion for what she does, and she loves sharing it with others. You see, she does not shove her material down your throat (or into your ears and eyes); no, she shares, she cares, and she listens to those who follow. In fact, her genuine heart won her a massive following and many volunteer members known as her street team. Kina gets it; she is not fake nor has a staff of people acting as her online! As David Kerpen would probably say, Kina is likeable!!

Why Kina Grannis Rocks?

Okay, so Kina gets all of this grassroots-type success, and she lets it get to her head, right? WRONG! Kina keeps it real and continues to appreciate her fans. Plus, she gives back. She finds creative ways to interact and engage her fan base. When at concerts, she does a meet-and-greet at the end of nearly every show; she loves to connect directly with her fans – it is extremely important to her. Then, she finds ways to give away tickets to one of her concerts or merely gives away music online. Also, have you ever watched one of her YouTube covers? Well, fans send in requests to her, and she covers many of those songs. At the end of these awesome, personable videos, she sends shout-outs to her fans – like great, cool birthday shout-outs, among other things! She does not wait for others in the industry to tell her what to do, for she creates her own path and follows her vision and numerous aspirations! Here is a great example that is highlighted by many and also mentioned on her website:

Exchanging creative control for independence, Kina forfeited her record label, determined to record and release the songs she’d been writing for years. In true DIY form, Kina self-funded and independently-released Stairwells in early 2010. The album debuted on Billboard’s Top 200 and #5 on iTunes Pop Chart, and The New York Times and WNYC Soundcheck recognized Kina as one of the top Asian-Americans making an impact in the pop music world (she’s half-Japanese). She released a music video for her single “Valentine,” which has been featured on Yahoo! Music and has accrued more than 10-million views on YouTube. The track would later propel Kina to win Sirius Radio’s Coffee House Singer/Songwriter Discovery of 2010.

What? Yes, you read that correctly! Kina is a leader with a vision, and she did not want to sacrifice her creative control and overall musical independence in exchange for having some short-term success in the industry doing something that she couldn’t put her whole self into. Grannis knew what she wanted to do, and she knew the stories she wanted to tell, so she turned down that record deal with Interscope to pursue recording her own material that she already had ready for an album.

What Kina Grannis Teaches Us?

Kina teaches us to go with our heart and fulfill our dreams. As people and brands looking to engage online, she teaches us that it is important to show your personality and admit a few flaws. Being personable and human is what makes a huge difference. Also, Grannis teaches us to be real and take a chance every now and then, especially when that decision is backed by great thought and insightful feedback! All of us can be superstars online, but it is not just a 9 to 5 job nor can it always be as easy as having others handle every aspect of your online presence. Hence, we go back to the whole concept of being yourself and letting your personality shine online just as you do in person! Kina treats her fans with great respect, and your brand should too – and don’t just fake it because your customers will see right through you and leave you for your competition. Lastly, Kina reminds us that a little creativity goes a long way. Just look at the video clip below (and the behind the scenes video below it); how many other musicians would take 22 months to complete a music video? Not many! But, Kina is different, and that is important to remember!

So, be a superstar in life. It takes some hard work, but you can do it! Learn from Kina and let your personality shine! P.S. In the meantime, let’s persuade Kina to engage her fans on foursquare – those great LBS opportunities are endless!!

Twitter is a great social network that enables us to connect to lots of people all around the world; it provides us all with an array of uses. For example, some will use Twitter to share their blog posts and other interesting web links. Other people love to share great photos via Twitter. Yet, some use it as a way to share breaking news about an event (i.e. wedding, TweetUp, or concert) or something urgent (i.e. natural disaster, political updates, or obituary). Those are just a few ways we share using this 140-character machine that we call Twitter. Since joining this social network, I have run across some mediocre third-party tools from time to time, but I have also come to find some really great and useful tools. Here are five great Twitter tools I recommend!

HootSuite

This is the tool that I use most often when managing my personal online brand and definitely when managing many of my clients’ online presences. As Olivia Millwood recently mentioned in a previous guest blog post here about HootSuite, HootSuite allows you to add and monitor a vast array of social media profiles including Facebook profile, Facebook Page, Twitter, foursquare, LinkedIn, RSS feeds, and much more! I really like how I can schedule social network posts if I the need presents itself! There is a free version that allows you to do a lot, but I would recommend giving the Pro version a try! The Pro version allows you to add in RSS feeds, does not limit how many profiles you connect and monitor via HootSuite, and even provides some great analytics for your ROI convenience! As you can see in the image above, this tool is highly customizable to your needs; in my case, I like to keep things very organized with lists and various tabs/streams.

TweetDeck

Before I got really hooked on HootSuite, I was all about TweetDeck. For me, this was the first true social media monitoring champion. Like HootSuite, you can add a lot of your social media profiles to the platform and monitor everything according to your organizational needs. While HootSuite has tabs and an ability to add 10 streams per tab, TweetDeck has everything on one layer of sorts and allows you to jump between columns; so the functionality is very similar, but the look and feel is different! One difference I have noticed is that TweetDeck allows you to schedule a post at any time that you want instead of in 5-minute intervals (how HootSuite does it). However, I will say that it frustrates me that they do not offer scheduling on their mobile app; in fact, when I inquired about it a few months ago, somebody from their team told me (via Twitter) that it was not a pressing feature that they were working on in the near future. Bummer! So, if you need post scheduling functionality, HootSuite is a better option. I must admit that I am curious how this platform will grow over the coming months and years now that Twitter bought this (once) third-party app.

CoTweet

Another great monitoring and managing tool is CoTweet. Just like HootSuite, CoTweet offers a free version (called Standard) and a paid version (called Enterprise). With the free version, you can add some Twitter profiles, schedule tweets, assign tweets to team members to work, and archive tweets after you or your teammates have responded so you do not accidentally respond again. The Enterprise version does that plus allows you to add your Facebook presence, get improved analytics, have advanced roles and permissions, create workgroups, and use of their (currently) enterprise-only mobile app. CoTweet has outlined the differences between both versions on their product comparison page. I must admit that I like this platform but only use it as part of the Foursquare Help team, so, since we are not a for-profit business, the cost to jump to the Enterprise Edition (and hence get a much-needs mobile app) is not worth whatever investment it is, so I remain hopeful that more pricing options and feature platforms become available for this somewhat hidden gem!

Buffer

Have you heard of this nice little Twitter tool? Well, I recently found myself using it more and more. Basically, you connect it to your Twitter profile(s) and set up your tweets to be sent at a later time. Sure, HootSuite gives me this option, but Buffer helps me spread out my tweets by picking out times throughout the day wherein more people will see my good content, and those default times are based on some research information. Basically, it takes a lot of the guess work out! For somebody who tweets a lot, this is a great tool to keep in your back pocket! In fact, this tool has some cool analytics built right into the app, allowing me to know which of my tweets sent through it and at what times worked best for me; this click-through rate data is a great thing. With this information, I can adjust my tweet sharing accordingly if I so desire! This neat new company is also looking to add other social networks into their app, so that will be great! This app does have a great free version as well as two paid options. Another thing that is great is that they built some Buffer Goodies – great extensions/plug-ins for the popular browsers, a cool mobile app, and an awesome Buffer button (like the cool one I have on all of my blog posts). So, what are you waiting for? Check out Buffer and go be awesome on Twitter!

Triberr

I recently joined Triberr in an effort to help retweet some great content from people I know and/or collaborate with. A tribe is a group of people who come together for a single purpose; on Triberr, people seek to gather into topic-specific tribes and help push out each tribe member’s blog content. By using this service, your content gets more exposure while you help your tribemates garner more exposure of their own. It’s a win-win! Currently, this site is on an invite-only basis, but it is another freemium app to use! You get 100 bones (their version of virtual currency) to start for free and can buy more as you need to. If you are an avid blogger looking to share content, this might be a great platform to try out! As Triberr grows, new features are bound to be released. One popular feature, however, is being removed in an effort to avoid violating Twitter’s newly updated Terms of Service (TOS); that feature is the automatic posting feature. For me, this is a bummer because I trust that my tribemates will produce good content, and I want to help retweet that content as soon as possible; thus, the automated option was great. So, we all just have to login and manually push the content. One interesting new feature that I have not tried yet is called Dynamic Tribes. Basically, you formulate a Tweet that you want others to send out, and then you pay people in “Bones” to tweet your message. You can set a spending budget and how much you are paying per tweet; also, you can require that the tweeter has a certain number of followers, etc. This sounds like a cool new feature that I might just have to look into!

Summary

Twitter is a great place without the use of third-party apps, but the five apps that I mentioned above really supercharge the Twitter experience and can help you reach your Twitter goals if used correctly! Which of these five tools do you like? Have any favorites? I’ll be back with another five Twitter tools in the near future, but feel free to let me know which tools I need to add next time.

Why would you be thinking about using HootSuite in the first place? Perhaps, you are just getting into social media management, or maybe you have a business account and a personal account to run on Twitter. Are you on Facebook or LinkedIn? Did you know you can also integrate other social media platforms into HootSuite? Twitter, Facebook (personal accounts & pages), LinkedIn, WordPress.com, MySpace, foursquare, Mixi, Ping.fm (which can further send out updates to even more services), and RSS feeds can all be integrated to monitor and post updates from one convenient HootSuite login.

Here are 5 of the top reasons you should consider using Hootsuite to make your social media managing life simpler.

Convenience – The first reason is stated above. You can manage so many accounts from one login point instead of wasting time and energy to log into each individual account. You can also manage more than one account. If you manage other people’s accounts or if you run several of your own personal and business profiles, HootSuite is a wonderful tool to keep them all neatly organized in one space.

The look and feel of the platform itself influenced my decision to go with HootSuite over similar social media management tools. As an interior design assistant, I am personally influenced by color; I know that lighter, brighter spaces help me feel motivated. The organization of the tabs and streams in HootSuite is such a clear and concise way to view many streams at once. TweetDeck (another comparable social media managing tool) uses a stream for all your mentions of all the accounts on your screen. If you manage more than one account, this can become very confusing.

Scheduling – The second great reason to use HootSuite is the scheduling feature. You can schedule a post to any of the above accounts from your dashboard. This allows social media managers the ability to be tweeting when they are working on other things like typing blog posts, going to social events, washing dishes, or even if there is a time that you need to be tweeting for your clients and are busy tweeting for yourself or engaging in a tweet chat. The reasons to schedule tweets can go on and on, even to keeping your stream more user friendly by delaying all the RT and responses to your favorite tweets. Be careful to not over schedule; I mainly use this feature to help build up those sales tweets for clients or informational tweets. I don’t recommend ignoring your mentions and scheduling all your responses, just perhaps to spread out the amount of responses over time in an effort to not clog up your stream with all of them at once. I believe in real people helping businesses tweet, not completely automated (robotic) accounts. Part of the joy of Twitter is engaging in real time with other like-minded tweeps. For Facebook page posts, I think scheduling is an excellent way to help maintain posts while you are on vacation or unavailable to send out regular posts for your business accounts. I have never personally scheduled my own personal tweets or Facebook posts. I like the real time reaction.

Efficient Collaborations in Teams – The third reason that the GotoGrls (my social media business) use HootSuite is because there are two of us. We both take turns managing our clients’ social media accounts. This feature allows us to see firsthand who has responded, who is posting, and who has scheduled tweets. We are able to see what is going out without wasting time sending emails and text messages to one another. It just speeds up the to-do-list getting done.

Measurement & Analytics – The fourth reason we use HootSuite, is because of the analytics. With the analytics, monitoring, and reporting features that HootSuite offers, you can create professional reports to either use internally within your own social media company or use externally to report (to your clients) the insights behind any of the social media accounts you have chosen to connect with HootSuite. In this graphic below, you can see how a quick summary of clicks on shared links looks like for one of our clients. Dates provided make it easy to know which links draw more clicks than others and can help mold future posts for a more effective social media strategy.

Helpful Resources & Training – The fifth and final reason is the great help and training that HootSuite offers directly from their own website and blogs. They also have a chat called #HSUchat and a program called HootSuite University (aka @HootSuite_U). Also, there are great free videos to get you started. Here is a link: http://learn.hootsuite.com/hootsuite-university-video

These are just 5 reasons to use HootSuite. In my opinion, the list of pro’s goes on and on! So, discover HootSuite for yourself. See how quickly you become a huge fan of these cute owls too!

Olivia, who also tweets at @Nichebydesign, is being mentored by an interior design pro ~ award-winning designer, Nancy Chalmers. Together, they are an amazing mother-daughter interior design team. Olivia is a treasure hunter who finds the perfect wallpaper, fabric, and unique items for clients. Mid-century-modern design is her absolute favorite style, while being well aware that the client should leave their mark on their home and not just their designer.