As a member of Valitics using the web to market my business in the real world, I try to update business blog, Facebook, Twitter and LinkIn accounts regularly. It is a very important part of marketing my business and keeping relevant in the eyes of my patients. It is also very time consuming. A way to save time and also keep my social media life organized is the use of a social media management tool. I bet many readers are already using this resource, but this is for those of you who are not.
Hootsuite is my management tool of choice, mostly due to the iPhone app. There are others out there, such as Digsby, Sobees, etc. Hootsuite allows me to manage my business and personal Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts on a single dashboard. I can see my recent posts and the posts of those I am following.
Most importantly, though, I can provide an RSS feed that alerts my selected networks when a blog post has been made. This is a great time saver and makes sure my social media marketing reaches the broadest audience possible. Another great feature is scheduled tweets. I can sit down for an hour and write several messages on various topics, then schedule them to be broadcast sporadically over the next few weeks. This provides relevant content over a period of time. Or this feature can be used in other industries to periodically remind followers of an event coming up without you having to physically write the message at the exact time it goes out.
Customers are constantly bombarded by different marketing messages. A social media manager provides a great way to stay on top of the game and in the mind of your customers.