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.  

23 Mobile Things -- Thing 4 : Keeping up

For Thing 4 we were asked to consider this: "Do you follow a lot of news sites and blogs and find that you’re spending so much time going to many different websites? You can make it a lot easier on yourself if you take advantage of RSS feeds and apps to collect them all."

RSS Feeds
I've long since given up using RSS feeds. The last feed reader I used was FeedDemon and I have to say it's been a few years. I don't even know if it's still operational? Back in the day RSS feeds with feed readers were a great way to have information come to me. That is until it became overwhelming with too much information bombarding me and my not keeping up. That big old information monster rearing its ugly head. 

Twitter
For me what replaced RSS feeds was using Twitter. I came to use Twitter because of one of the previous "Things" programs. (Flashback 2009: me on Twitter) At first I didn't buy into Twitter; I basically saw no use for it. Then I gave it an extended try and I started using Twitter mainly for professional use (keeping Facebook mainly for family & friends). 

So how does Twitter replace my RSS feeds? I follow many librarians, tech people, others in higher education, and groups or organizations -- all of these people are talking about and sharing information & topics that are of interest to me in my profession as an academic librarian interested in technology, information literacy, higher education etc. I can quickly see tweets from these people and from that determine if I need or want to read or research a topic more. The 140 character tweet is that little info bite that sums up the topic. The tweets are what is trending now so they help to keep me updated. And the bonus over RSS feeds is if I have a question I can quickly post it and get replies. And don't forget the ease of sharing with others -- either by retweeting or tweeting on my own. I have the Twitter app on my iPhone and iPad plus I use TweetDeck (I handle multiple Twitter accts) on my PC. 

 Flipboard and Zite 
I've had both apps for a long time. I liked Flipboard's format although I don't tend to use it any longer. The main reason is I have it on my iPad and for work I tend to be on my PC more than anything. Zite I've used the least. I guess I haven't really given it a chance so maybe I'll check into it some more and see what it can offer me.