23 Mobile Things -- Thing 8 Round 2, the Return to Social Media Management

Thing 8 was on Social Media Management (SSM) tools. Yes, I posted on this already but since that post I've come up with a new need so I went back and I thought I'd share my experience here.

I now have a FB group that I am in charge of for a short term (2 months). I need to post daily plus other times occasionally. The daily posts should be at a consistent time each day for the others to follow along. The content is already established yet it's better if each piece is shared daily, not all at once or even in chunks. I'm a fairly reliable, organized person so I could try to manage doing that on my own each day but I'm also a tech person who loves to have technology work for me-- after all, isn't that why we have technology? To help make our lives easier? 

So how about one of those SMM tools to help me out? How about scheduled posting options? I'm not the 1st on this frontier to do this so this should have been an easy step, yes? Wrong. 

I wanted a platform that I could use via PC for the majority of the work (copying & pasting in the content) yet also an app so that I could keep tabs on things on the go. First up was HootSuite since I already have an account & they're a big name playing in SMM. I set everything up, it was easy, and all looked good. I scheduled one post into the future for my test just to make sure everything worked before I spent a lot of time adding in other posts. At the appointed time with HootSuite up in one browser window and my FB group up in another I watched and waited for the magic to happen. Magic, yes? No. Fizzle was more like it. I shared my frustration via Twitter:

I didn't have enough characters left in my tweet but the hashtag could have been #fail -- or a few other choice words. jd-Points. I wasn't sure what went wrong -- I'm still not sure -- but I didn't have time to waste and thought possibly it was a HootSuite to FB group issue. So like many in a "want it now" mentality I was ready to move on. 

I messaged my friend, Linda, who has always been a great tech/app resource (retired Librarian who was in on the main floor of 1st two MN "Thing" program offerings). She said she's used Buffer -- which had been mentioned on the Thing 8 page. I like knowing somebody who's had experience with a tool -- especially when I've been experiencing tech fails. jd+Points for recommendations

I checked Buffer out & I was pleased that it met my requirements (web & app versions plus scheduling to FB groups) so I setup an account. I connected all, setup my test post, and all went well. I added in my content for my next 10 posts (amount allowed for a free acct). So fingers crossed that the rest goes well. Oh and the app-- I can easily see my scheduled posts plus make any adjustments if/as needed. jd+Points

23 Mobile Things -- Thing 8 : Social Media Management Tools

Thing 8: "...the opportunity to explore tools to help you manage all of your social media."

I'm on Facebook (mainly personal), Twitter (mainly professional), and LinkedIn (professional). I also mange our library Facebook and Twitter accounts. I have Google+ but I don't really use it. I was on Foursquare but I've pretty much abandoned that.

So looking at Social Media Management tools or apps was a little problematic for me -- I wasn't too impressed with the options that I found or I really don't think that I need them. I was interested in Slices that Heather (@HevWam) talked about in her Thing 8 blog post but I can't find Slices -- guess they've disappeared. 

I do use TweetDeck as a desktop app via my work PC. There isn't an iPhone or iPad app but that's okay. TweetDeck gives me the ability to keep track of both my Twitter account and our library Twitter account all at the same time. I can have multiple columns of display -- news feed, each account, mentions, maybe a hashtag content I'm currently following etc. Here's a snip of what it looks like (not all columns are shown):

For now this is probably the only Social Management tool that I really need. If I want to share something across platforms (say Facebook to Twitter or LinkedIn to Twitter) I can do this directly from those apps/products.  

I guess if I was really in the market for a Social Media Management tool I'd look more closely at Cloze -- it seems to offer a lot of integration with options.  

Thing 8 -- Share Your Creations

Here are some pics of our Library Addition/Remodel as viewed from my office window. I used Picturetrail. I think that I will consider using this product to showcase our construction pics vs. what I used for our current slide show -- which was just the Adobe Photoshop Web Photo Gallery. Picture Tail did take me a little while to figure out but then there is always a learning curve with a new product.