There are a variety of apps, from mobile and desktop services to the unsung heroes of browser extensions, so many to choose from, in fact.. too many! So here are 3 of those apps that make our days easier.
1. Riffle (Chrome Extension)
One of our time consuming activities is finding social information on the people we want to connect with. As an example, when we go to an event, we like to connect with the speakers, find out more about them so that if we do meet, we have a commonality to speak about. So we write down their names, open twitter, open LinkedIn, open Facebook. It gets tedious, you get the idea.
So Riffle makes it easy, right click their username in an article and in slides this beautiful UI with a plethora of info:
- Basic Twitter info
- Klout Score
- One-click access to their LinkedIn profile
- Top hashtags used
- Top mentions
- Top URLs
- Activity breakdown
- Favourites/ Tweet ratio
- RT/ Tweet ratio
- Tweets per day ratio
- Most used platform for accessing Twitter
This info allows us to see a few things that may be important to us, and you may be thinking this information seems superfluous but it leads to other question. As an example:
- How active are they/ RT to Tweet ratio = Do they just post or do they engage and converse?
- What mobile device do they use? = Trade common usage apps in conversation
- Top hashtags = What they’re currently interested in which can be brought up in conversation
- Top mentions = Who they’re engaging with, who do they look up to?
- Which platform do they use most? = Are they an on-the-go social user or sit down methodical? Helps to see how they think.
These are insights into the influencers of your industry. They help connect dots to questions you may not have asked beforehand. They allow you access and supply you with an arsenal of topics to discuss if and when you meet them at the next conference or just engaging with them online.
2. CoSchedule (Desktop Service)
CoSchedule is a social media editorial calendar, a wonderful dissemination tool. It doesn’t just integrate your social channels and spit out posts, it lets you rewrite each post per channel (very important because the voice you use for LinkedIn shouldn’t be the same as Twitter) and schedule them along a path of time (same day, tomorrow, a month from now etc.. ) to help you visualize your posts journey.
This can be extremely important for those who require a visual for organizational purposes. It can get busy in our heads, so many posts, topics, tabs open, schedules, calendars etc.. that a tool like CoSchedule can give peace of mind where we hadn’t considered the need.
Bonuses to CoSchedule are its simple integration into WordPress. Suddenly you have their wonderfully simple UI available in each post you’re writing, so you don’t need to ‘go to’ yet another service. They also have teams in mind and provide an area to lists Tasks, so you can assign them to create a workflow for your team.
Social analytics are very simple, based on how many shares, likes and comments, which is all you need at a glance.
We can’t say enough about how much we love their UI. Want more info? Check out their blog!
3. Twindr (iOS 8 App)
We just came across this today and we love it! Here’s why!
Traditional Twitter reach building strategies (following many people, then unfollowing, rinse & repeat) clutters your twitter feed, generally costs you money to flush out (Tweepi) and makes your followers/ following ratio look desperate. You should be fine tuning your followers because you want an audience that will advocate for your brand, who will engage in conversation with.
Something as simple as Twindr allows you to thin the herd while waiting for the bus. It also allows you to really see who is following you and if you’re on the right track. In other words, it forces you to take the time to see what you’re doing, and for this, we think it’s great!
