4 Very Impressive Social Media Tools Every Blogger Should Use

You’ve spent hours writing a great article for your blog and you want people to notice it! After all that’s why you blog, right? One of the best ways to reach your audience and reach out to the world is to utilize the power of Social Media. There are tons of Social Networking and Bookmarking sites across the Internet. Connecting and posting all of your blog content to each network can be very time consuming. Thankfully there are several essential tools to help every blogger post their content in a hurry.

Here Are 4 Essential Social Media Tools Every Blogger Should Use:

Onlywire

Onlywire is the most robust and flexible option for publishing your blog posts to over 36 different social bookmarking and networking sites. For every social network account you own, you must supply login details to Onlywire. This application allows you to post simultaneously to all of your registered networks. Thousands of bloggers use this platform as part of their Social Media Strategy.

You have several options to publish your content with Onlywire.

Free Version
Onlywire offers a bookmark and share plugin which is available for most platforms including WordPress. You can choose the size and style of this button which must be displayed on your blog in order to have access to the service for free. If you are comfortable with requiring this plugin on your blog and allowing Onlywire to have a link back to them, then the free option is best. Plus visitors can use the button to publish your content too!

Paid Version (ad free)
The paid version is ad free but costs $2.99 per month to use.

The power of the button!

You also have the option to add Onlywire to your desktop or browser which allows easy access and quick posting. The most common use for bloggers is to include the button in their browser which allows them to publish content within the browser window. This option is very convenient and fast!

Are there any alternatives?

Onlywire seems to be leading the pack as there are very few reliable alternatives that compete with this impressive app.

How to use it?

You want to use Onlywire in conjunction with Hootsuite, the app reviewed below. Use Onlywire to submit to social bookmark sites like Stumbleupon, Digg, Reddit, Propeller, and others. For Twitter and Facebook, use one of the three below:

Hootsuite

Hootsuite is the most robust platform for sharing your published content. At some point this application may require a subscription because the features it packs are unbeatable for the price of free!

Hoot works best with Twitter and Facebook. The latest update includes features to include thumbnails with Facebook submissions  and enhanced features for Facebook Pages. You can also assign tasks to be featured or published with Scheduled Updates. It has a built in analytic device that tracks results in real time so you can test metrics for your social media campaign.

For heavy Twitter users, Hoot displays any tweet mentions in a nice interface they call “streams” where you can quickly take part in a conversation, re-tweet other users, and respond to followers.

You can personalize hoot with it’s built in themes interface and track each and every social network you have with tabs. It’s like having all of your social networks in one place. You rarely have to login to your social networks because Hoot does it for you!

Run multiple blogs?

If you have multiple blogs with multiple Twitter accounts, you can manage all of these hassle free. This means you can write one message and post to all of your networks at the same time!

Multiple authors?

Hootsuite allows you to collaborate with multiple users. This gives Hoot an edge over other similar apps. If you have several writers and contributors, you can schedule tasks and collaborate on the go with “My Assignments Page”.

Apps and Plugins

iPhone, Android, Desktop, and Browsers apps are available so you can take your social networks with you wherever you go.
With the browser app (called Hootlet), you can easily publish content from anywhere within your browser. This means you can publish content any time you read an article you like. Combined with Onlywire, these two are a lethal combination.

The downside

Since Hoot focuses on Twitter and Facebook heavily, there is little support for Myspace and other networks like Delicious and LinkedIn.
To allow access to these other networks, you have to sign up with Ping.fm and add all your other networks there. Tweetdeck and Seesmic have these other networks built in.

Tweet Deck

Tweetdeck is a very powerful tool as well. It is very similar to Hootsuite and allows you to connect to Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn and more. Tweetdeck is actually an application that you download instead of using it within your browser. It has most of the options that Hootsuite offers but it’s not browser based. Tweetdeck really becomes a centralized home for all of your networks. It notifies you every time you get a message, tweet, or mention.

Hootsuite vs Tweetdeck

The major benefit of using Tweetdeck vs Hootsuite is that you don’t need to use Ping.fm as this app supports more networks without third party methods.

Supported Devices

Tweetdeck is available for Mac, PC or Linux. Apps for the iPad and iPhone exist as well.

Seesmic

Another app very similar to the two above, Seesmic is also browser-based, supported by multiple mobile devices including Blackberry, and allows you to manage your networks in the same manner as the other apps like Hootsuite and Tweetdeck. Support for Google Buzz has recently been added to Seesmic which can come in handy if you need it.

Although the interface might not be as slick as the others, Seesmic offers more networks for users to link to and has a very light weight platform. It’s support for Blacberry, Android, and Apple devices make this a smart choice for mobile users. So if your on the go a lot, this might be your solution.

The bottom line

Onlywire is essential for managing other bookmark sites not supported by the last three apps. As for the other 3, whether you decide to use Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, or Seesmic, it’s all preference and should be based on what networks you belong to, and what your goal is. They all support the big networks like Facebook and Twitter and some support additional networks like Myspace, Google Buzz, and LinkedIn. Tweetdeck is the only app that requires you to install it on your computer but it does have some perks. I advise you test each one out and try them for yourself.

If you have any questions or want to add something I did not touch on, please leave a comment below.

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Tagged as: Blog Tools, hootsuite, Onlywire, seesmic, social media tools, tweetdeck