35+ Social Media Tools That Make Life Easier
Posted November 14, 2008 in Productivity, Tools/Resources 94 Comments »
Millions of people use social media on a regular basis, and many more are joining the ranks every single day.
With the number of people involved, and the enormous amount of time we all spend using social media, it’s only natural to try to save some time and make life easier on yourself.
We’ve compiled this list for just that purpose — over 35 tools that can help you do more with social media in less time.
Social Aggregators
EventBox is a mac-only program that integrates the top 5-6 social networks into a single program. From the looks of the site, it’s pretty too.
Flock Browser
Flock is a full-blown web browser that has been designed around social media. It integrates with dozens of services and helps make it easier for you to stay connected.
FriendFeed
FriendFeed help’s combine all of your different social networks into a single feed. Make yourself easier to follow, or make it easier to follow others.
Yumeo
Yumeo is a social network that allows you to control many other social sites in one place.
Ping.fm
Ping.fm makes it easier to update your social networks by connecting the most popular networks into one service.
Second Brain
Organize all of your content in one place, including bookmarks, files, etc…
Plaxo
Plaxo is a service designed to make it easier to stay in touch with people you care about.
Twitter Tools
TweetDeck
TweetDeck is an Adobe Air application that helps organize and make sense of your twitters. You can group tweets based on search terms, time frame, and many other ways.
Twhirl
Twhirl is another desktop Twitter client. It adds the ability to cross-post tweets to other sites, post images to TwitPic, and search tweets (among other things).
TweetBeep
TweetBeep is like Google Alerts only made for Twitter.
TwitBin
TwitBin is a small Firefox Extension that allows you to receive and send tweets anywhere in your browser.
Twidget
Twidget is an OS X dashboard widget that let’s you keep up with your twitter account.
TwitterBerry
TwitterBerry is a mobile twitter client for Blackberry users. It works over the data network with no need for SMS.
Twittelator Pro
Twitelator is a newer iPhone app for twitter. This one has been recommended by several top users.
TwitThis
TwitThis is a social button to put on your website that helps promote your articles on twitter.
Digg Tools
Digg Toolbar
A quick an easy toolbar that integrates with Firefox and provides most of the common Digg functions.
Website Cache View
Shows multiple cached versions of any website in case of the “Digg effect”.
Digg Alerts
It’s like Google Alerts for Digg.
Digg Notify
Digg Notify is a desktop app that will display a little notification box with information every time someone Digg’s one of your stories.
Digg Alerter
Digg Alerter is a really cool desktop app that shows you a lot of Digg info. One version of this actually shows information about who’s ‘buried’ a story.
Digg Defender
This is a Wordpress plugin that will save your site from going down under massive traffic by redirecting it through the Coral Cache network.
Tools For Webmasters
Digg Website Widget
Put a list of your latest Digg submissions into the sidebar of your website.
Wordpress Twitter Tools
This is a Wordpress plugin that let’s you pull your tweets into your blog.
StumbleUpon Website Buttons
These StumbleUpon buttons make it very easy for visitors to stumble your articles.
Delicious Tagometer
The tagometer is an advanced Delicious button that shows how many users have tagged a post and with what categories.
TwitterFeed
TwitterFeed takes your latest post titles and posts them to your twitter account.
Miscellaneous Tools
Spokeo Search
Social media search that makes it easy to find information from 41 different networks.
Jott.com
Voice-to-text, task organization, and much more. Post to twitter and many other services by calling in from your phone.
Gathera
Gathera is an internet explorer plugin that aims to connect social media, email, messaging, and many more features into a single place.
Nielsen BuzzMetrics
Search the blogosphere and track/find trends.
Infegy Social Radar
(Commercial) Social Media Monitoring tool that helps track the web.
Open ID
Open ID is a single sign-on solution that is supported by many of the most popular web-apps and networking sites.
What Tools do you use?
This list is only a tiny scratch on the surface when it comes to social tools. Which do you recommend? Do you have any hidden gems?
About the author: Mason Hipp is an entrepreneur, marketing guru, and writer. He blogs about life and business at FreelanceFolder.com and is co-author of the Book The Unlimited Freelancer. Follow him on twitter @MasonHipp
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94 Comments
Selene M. Bowlby
November 14th, 2008 at 11:48 amGreat list, Mason! I’m particularly fond of Ping.fm and TweetDeck. I don’t know what I’d do without them.
Mason Hipp
November 14th, 2008 at 11:59 amHey, thanks! TweetDeck looks really cool — being kinda new with twitter I haven’t fully-used it yet, but I’m looking forward to adding it to my daily routine :-)
David Hepburn
November 14th, 2008 at 12:35 pmA great list. It’s cool to be aware of all these resources. Helps keep our finger on the pulse.
jacqueline
November 14th, 2008 at 1:19 pmDoes anyone else feel hesitant to starting a new technology? My fear is that the thing I choose will disappear. How do you feel about that – or are you all gung ho?
Angela
November 14th, 2008 at 2:02 pmGreat list! You have the URL for Twirl wrong though, it’s not http://www.twhirl.com, its http://www.twhirl.org
George - LogoDesign.org
November 14th, 2008 at 2:08 pmLove the “Tools For Webmasters” section of the list, some great resources there!
Jason Miller
November 14th, 2008 at 2:15 pmAre there any tools (free) out there that give, audience, demographics and usage info on social media tools, services and websites?
~ jason
Emil Milanov
November 14th, 2008 at 2:28 pmNice list!
I think you forgot to include http://www.minggl.com which is browser plugin that integrates friends and feeds from Facebook, Myspace, Flickr, Digg, Twitter, LinkedIn etc.
Cheers!
Andy
November 14th, 2008 at 2:39 pmThis is a nice long list! For those reading and wanting to pick though, I prefer Flock for many reasons but the main one is the organizational sidebar while surfing. I’ve never managed my RSS feeds, my twitter and facebook updates and media, and my gmail easier. Those 3 reasons alone are enough to make me swear my life to Flock forever!
Mason Hipp
November 14th, 2008 at 3:13 pm@Angela — Fixed, thanks for the catch :-)
@Emil — Yea, this is definitely not a complete list. Minggl looks like it would fit right in though, good find!
@Jason — Check out http://www.quantcast.com for a lot of good demographic information about any website. Also, there are a few good wikipedia pages under “Social Networks” that give a number of useful statistics.
Christine|the bonbon life
November 14th, 2008 at 3:27 pmNice post.
I personally use Flock, FriendFeed, Twhirl, Tweetdeck, Wordpress Twitter Tools, Twit This, OpenID, Jott, Spokeo.
I’d say my fave is FriendFeed at the moment but the one I consistently use the most is Twhirl. It’s how I started using Twitter last winter and I’m very comfortable with using it–more so than Tweetdeck.
Melissa Donovan
November 14th, 2008 at 5:44 pmI can’t believe how many Twitter tools there are. Am I the only person in the world who uses Twitter the old fashioned way – by logging on to the Twitter website?
Adam
November 14th, 2008 at 6:05 pmMore than a few apps I need to try…I think PIng and Jott will be at the top of the list.
Nate - Web Designer in Atlanta, GA
November 14th, 2008 at 8:30 pmThanks for sharing!
Mr Javo
November 14th, 2008 at 10:35 pmI use TweetDeck, ping.fm and delicious. Here you present tools never heard by be before, I going to try a couple of them, thanks for sharing!
SEO Honolulu
November 14th, 2008 at 10:37 pmNice list. Another nifty Adobe Air app is Posty. http://spreadingfunkyness.com/posty/
You can manage twitter, friendfeed, identi.ca, pownce, tumblr, and jaiku from it. I’ve talked with the developer and he hinted at integrating instant messenger protocols into it too.. now that would be the ultimate app :)
Ari Herzog
November 14th, 2008 at 10:57 pmUseful compilation, many I use or know of, and others that are new to me.
Might I suggest a second BlackBerry Twitter client, that’s a little cleaner than TwitterBerry? Look at BlackBird: http://dossy.org/twitter/blackbird/
I have both installed, but prefer BlackBird for saving on battery power, e.g. removing avatars.
Mortgage Guy
November 15th, 2008 at 1:01 amAll these tools are useful extensions of your extended life that is getting complicated by the minute. So many programs and some totally useless and mundane. Twitter seems to have an industry growing with it and its getting silly.
Chris Lang
November 15th, 2008 at 1:13 amYou forgot this one:
http://www.keywebdata.com/?p=200
Free of robots or scripts this will cut your Digg time down by 200%
JustinSMV
November 15th, 2008 at 1:53 amIts amazing how many Social Media Tools that are out there now and the future to come. Great list you have here.
Jon Scott
November 15th, 2008 at 7:00 amNice list, I have used some of them but most I haven’t looked at yet. I like the twitter integrated tools the most. There seem to be a lot emerging in this space. I do wonder if anyone will use Twitter itself in the future! So thanks for sharing. I found this list of 35 free apps also if you’re interested:
35 FREE Tools for IT/Developers And Business
Charnita Fance
November 15th, 2008 at 10:52 amMost of these are covered on my Social Web Tools blog but very great & useful list nonetheless. Very well put together. I have compiled a 100 & counting list of Twitter tools on my blog…… They’re never ending!
jesse
November 15th, 2008 at 1:11 pmgreat stuff! i’m simply amazed at the redundancy – i wonder who will still be around after a year?
Les Faber
November 15th, 2008 at 4:56 pmExcellent recommendations. Thanks!
You guys are doing a super job!
James Herbert
November 16th, 2008 at 2:09 amCheck out diigo.com. It is a wonderful tool for social bookmarking and annotating web sites to share with others
Amanda
November 16th, 2008 at 3:35 pmJust started looking into Ligit (http://www.lijit.com/) – It’s a search tool that you can add onto your website that will search your blog and all of the content you have in various social networks. Seems like it could be useful, you can check out stats too.
Thanks for the great list!
Brandon Mendelson
November 16th, 2008 at 11:29 pmMason, this is was a great list. I disagree on some of the Twitter tools (I feel like all of those tools defeat the simple point of Twitter, but that is an argument for another time.) This was very useful, and I hope the post does well.
Craig Farrall
November 17th, 2008 at 5:47 amA really nice list here, I have already gone to check a few of these out after this post, so I will let you know if I find any useful :)
Hem
November 17th, 2008 at 1:31 pmThese tools are great. Personally I have never used any of them before reading this post.
sitegif
November 18th, 2008 at 1:55 amGreate list,and I capture all these websites snapshot so we can easy compare them together.
http://www.sitegif.com/gif/media-tools-social-aggregators/
Clare
November 18th, 2008 at 5:46 amFantastic list – I had used twitterfeed in the past and you’ve just prompted me to add my new blog feed to my twitter account.
Thanks
Spin Guru
November 18th, 2008 at 10:56 amGreat list! I found this particularly helpful in finding posts/blogs from multiple sources on any given topic: http://www.blogpulse.com/ A big time-saver!
Jekson
November 19th, 2008 at 1:06 amIts really great list. there are so many site gives these kind of list. I have already this list but I have found some new sites from this blog thanks for sharing. I have found some new this really good for me also this will helps to newbie those who are finding this kind of list of social bookmarking sites.
Thanks for posting.
Gopal Raju
December 1st, 2008 at 3:05 pmGreat List!
Regards,
Gopal,
ProductiveDreams.com
Danh ba web 2.0
December 2nd, 2008 at 1:47 amGreat list. Thanks for collection
Keep up the good work !
Neill Horsman
December 3rd, 2008 at 12:15 amWOW, more social network tools than you can poke a stick out..
Fav of mine for twitter is twhirl, nice and liteweight.
Website Design
December 10th, 2008 at 8:00 amThat was a wonderful list. Keep up the good work.
Keith Johnson
December 11th, 2008 at 1:38 pmOutstanding list! Many thanks for putting this together, Mason.
Regards,
Keith Johnson
Technical Writer
Hallandale Beach, Florida
http://greatdocuments.net
rei
December 12th, 2008 at 4:38 amgreat list
http://www.bloggerunited.com
tech mogo
January 22nd, 2009 at 11:51 amGood share, although I must say that I still don’t get the hype around twitter…?
CMD
January 22nd, 2009 at 5:38 pmHeard of some, not others. Will dig around and find what works. Thanks for the hard work and for sharing.
Olympia
April 3rd, 2009 at 4:11 pmYou’ve put together a great list. Thanks!
I use Twhirl because it can also post to ping.fm, which I am a fan of. I like how you can post to several social sites with one update. Can’t beat that! I also use Plaxo.
I guess I’m off to try some of these other services.
Rahul Chopadekar
August 7th, 2009 at 5:19 amGreat list dude… Friendfeed & Twitbin are my favorite applications………
Social Media
August 24th, 2009 at 2:55 pmReally Super crazy list for any social media manager… I used most of the tools but many are still waiting for my test drive…
Joe Kozak
September 9th, 2009 at 9:13 pmGreat information! I’ve actually found a new social media tool that can be used just on your desktop. No Web Browser required. I was wondering if I can post the link here for more people to see…http://bit.ly/4eoezc
Asier Gomez
October 6th, 2009 at 9:29 amVery useful and cool tools selection!!
Thanks FF.
Asier
Lea Charlton
October 18th, 2009 at 7:24 amExcellent post. I would also like to point out The Payer Player as a social media marketing tool. This is a new portable social widget that you can download to your desktop, integrates with other social networks and bookmarking sites (including Twitter, Facebook, Youtube), plus provides Live Broadcasts, VOIP, social video recording and PCMobile2Chat. This is still in development but most of the features I mentioned are available now and they keep adding. Extremely viral – kind of like ooVoo, Skype, Tweetdeck, Png.fm and Shaquille O’Neal is endorsing it … this is a serious post in regard to this new social media marketing tool – they call it a communications megahub. Their website has an excellent breakdown. http://www.thepayerplayer.com/pittsburghseo
facebook application developers
November 21st, 2009 at 7:42 amOnly when time in need we find social media extremely useful. It’s easy to overlook its importance in daily manner when we’re all about promoting our products and sharing fun updates. I just pray the connection is still on, signal is well received during the catastrophe.. otherwise we may need a much more powerful solution.
Paul Lewis
December 1st, 2009 at 3:32 pmGreat list..
I’ve got a few more here that you should add to the list with a quick look at 10 of the most used social media tools –
http://pglewis.co.uk/social-media/2009/12/10-top-social-media-tools
areapal
December 14th, 2009 at 6:44 amhi this is great list. now i know more in social media tools.
James Armes
January 2nd, 2010 at 3:02 pmGreat post! I currently use TweetDeck on my PCs. On my BlackBerry Storm I use ÜberTwitter (http://www.ubertwitter.com/), which I think is far superior to TwitterBerry. For my website, I use the Twitter module for Drupal (http://drupal.org/project/twitter) to display my latest Tweets and send automatic updates when I publish a new post.
Amernas
January 3rd, 2010 at 6:29 pmVery interesting social medial tools list.
I am working to put all popular social media applications and tools in a web directory (toolsense.com).
Jay
January 19th, 2010 at 2:02 pmDon’t forget http://www.viralheat.com on the list of places where you can keep track of mentions across many social media sources.
Diane Rayfield
January 25th, 2010 at 6:21 pmThanks for the many cool tools! We use HootSuite for Twitter. It’s also great for an aggregator tool as it can also push content out to LinkedIn, WordPress, and Facebook (pages or profile). You choose when to schedule and where it goes. We also use Ping.fm, and bookmarking tools, Share and Retweet.
RSS readers are very helpfu, Google Reader being my reader of choice. This lets you pull in relevant content for quick scans.
Best to you! Keep up the good work.
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