See 9 of Our Favorite Social Media Tools

Choosing a social media tool set to handle the massive tasks before you is almost as bad as the problem it’s trying to fix. How to determine which of these tools are really necessary, and what they can do for you can be difficult.

Clearly there is a need though, as managing social media for your business is not for the faint of heart. It's going to take a well-thought out strategy, dedicated staff, and several well placed tools.

So let’s take a look at a few of these social media tools, attempt to give you a clear picture of what they do, and if you need them.

9 Fantastic social media tools and what they do

These tools cover a number of areas and tasks. Assuming you’ve figured out the social networks you’re focusing on, there are some great tools here to help!

Tweetdeck - A great tool for Twitter that organizes all of your Twitter activity onto one “deck”. This gives you the capability to see at a glance what’s happening.

SharedCount - Ideally you’ll want to see how popular your content is. SharedCount can deliver this info quickly and accurately. Showing you how widely your content was shared.

TweetReach - This Twitter tool will show you the reach and exposure of each tweet you send out, and delivers data reflecting who retweets you and their influence.

LikeAlyzer - A pure Facebook analytics tool, this one offers you the ability to take an in-depth look at your Facebook pages and even offers suggestions on what you can do to improve them.

Klout - Klout collects information on your various social profiles and comes up with a popularity score of 1 to 100. What's your Klout?

Mention - Mention tracks absolutely anywhere that your name or your company may be mentioned online, and delivers them to you in a daily email.

IFTTT - This automation app can do everything from text you tomorrow’s weather to automatically updating your Twitter with content from your other channels. IFTTT currently makes connections with over 90 channels, including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

Buffer - Buffer is an automation tool that permits you to schedule social media posts and updates to your accounts. Buffer currently covers Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn Twitter and more.

Hootsuite - The most well-known of these tools, Hootsuite is an awesome social media management tool that allows you to keep track of up to 100 accounts on many social media sites, all from one centralized dashboard.