I was reflecting on 2007 when I first joined Twitter. It was confusing, believe it or not, Twitter is a breeze to use these days with all of the third party tools. Back in the good ol’ days there was no search function to find other users, conversations, or hashtags. Heck, hashtags were not even “born” until a year later. Using Twitter’s API, motivated geniuses developed third party application that were readily received by the community. Many were acquired by Twitter, including the widely popular dashboard Tweedeck and search tool Summize.
But today the buffet of social media marketing tools and software are almost endless. There’s a tool for this, for that, and then some. As if social media itself wasn’t overwhelming enough, having to sort through the tools can be time consuming and costly altogether.
Awareness Networks, a social media software company, has put together a checklist for users and organizations to ask vendors before making a purchase. This checklist also serves as a good measuring tool when hiring a social media marketer or agency.
