by Emma Wyatt

Speakers and authors use a variety social media channels to build buzz and demand for their work. A strong social media presence is crucial these days for building communities and executing effective marketing campaigns.

You may have a Blog, do regular Twitter updates, Facebook entries and keep a YouTube channel going. You may be present on LinkedIn and other business-specific online communities. It’s a full time job keeping everything updated and relevant! How do you stay on top of it all without going crazy?

Fortunately, there are tools that can help make the work a bit easier. Here’s a list of my favorite Top 5 Social Media Management Tools that can help you manage your online presence more efficiently.

Hootsuite
This popular tool allows you to harmonize a full range of networks; including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Plus Pages and WordPress. Hootsuite allows you to co-ordinate and schedule updates to your social media networks, as well as produce blog post that can be uploaded straight to your website. You can also use Hootsuite to follow and map your interactions and evaluate marketing campaigns with its customized analytic reports. Furthermore, it’s free!

Social Oomph
Social Oomph can save you time if you are managing multiple professional accounts. Compatible with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and others, Social Oomph can help you schedule updates as well as publish blog posts across multiple pages. Social Oomph can support access for multiple people for one account using an email facility. Perfect if you want to share the ability to update your feeds with your administrative team. The basic version of this tool is free; however, there are a number of monthly plans available that include access to an auto-follow function.

Buffer
Buffer is also a free tool, but you can purchase monthly plans that give you access to analytic services. Unlike Hootsuite and Social Oomph, Buffer is limited to Tweets, LinkedIn Posts and Facebook updates. It does, however, support multiple profiles. Great for authors and speakers who have more than one brand.

Buffer aims to manage your social media efficiently. With Buffer you can build a store of content and schedule updates to be shared during the course of a day or a week. This is ideal if you have limited time on a daily basis to update your networks. And it will help you to stay present without over-saturating your community.

TweetDeck
Created by Twitter, TweetDeck is a free application you download to your desktop. The app is now compatible with MySpace, GoogleBuzz, LinkedIn, and FourSquare. TweetDeck allows you to schedule tweets across multiple twitter accounts. You can monitor your activity and interaction simultaneously. The app also has a filtering system as well as an alert notification so you can keep up to date with what is relevant. Ultimately this tool was designed to save time when managing multiple twitter accounts and does not interact well with Facebook. You can access your stats with TweetDeck but they are not reported out for you.

Sprout Social
This tool is similar to TweetDeck and allows you publish, schedule and moderate messages across multiple Twitter and LinkedIn accounts. Sprout Social interacts more comfortably with Facebook. Sprout Social has a Team Content function so you can allocate multiple users. Sprout Social has a valuable analytics facility where you can produce reports, which includes tailored branding – ideal for presentations.