5 social media apps that make networking easy

With your tablet in tow, staying on top of your social media networks has never been easier. Keep tabs on what people are saying about you and your company on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn; analyze the traffic that your Tweets deliver; and add business contacts to your address book with the click of a button. All you need is this handy group of apps.

For more app advice, check out the rest of our series:

3 classic tech tools

3 apps that let you work from anywhere

5 free apps every advisor should know about

5 apps for a paperless (or paper-light) office

4 apps for portfolio analysis

1. LinkedIn. FREE!

Don’t let compliance concerns with social media sites keep you from engaging with peers, clients, prospects and the public at large via LinkedIn. “It’s more than just setting up your profile,” says Amy McIlwain, who heads Denver-based Financial Social Media, a social media-focused marketing firm for advisors in the financial and insurance segments. “It’s getting involved in groups, in discussions, in LinkedIn answers (a sub-community where experts provide answers to business questions), it’s following companies. It’s a necessary, and very valuable, tool for advisors.

2. Hootsuite. FREE!

Hootsuite is a social media dashboard — a tool for managing profiles and content across multiple social media networks, including LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Amy McIlwain sings its praises for the simplicity with which users can update profiles, schedule status updates and messages, and otherwise manage their social media presence. It also has analytics capabilities for tracking mentions and analyzing traffic across multiple networks. The basic version of Hootsuite is free; a supercharged version costs $10 a month.

3. SocialMention.com. FREE!

Chances are, people are talking about you on social networks, whether you like it or not. Use this tool to find out what they’re saying about you or your company on networks such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. “It’s really good for reputation management,” says McIlwain.

4. Cardmunch. FREE!

Software from LinkedIn that takes a business card, transcribes it, automatically adds it to your contact network, and even identifies common contacts.

5. Jive.

This enterprise social networking software “takes some of the best features from social sites like Facebook and incorporates them into a news-feed-like tool for a practice,” explains Winterberg. “It moves people away from face-to-face meetings, and since it works with mobile devices, it’s a way to keep everyone engaged, even when they’re out in the field.”

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