For the Non-Techy: How to Manage your Social Media Effectively with Seesmic Web

This is a guest post by Ana Lucia Novak

This is Post Five in the Twitter Desktop Apps and Twitter Tools Series

Social Media management is one of the least favorite things most business owners hate to deal with because of the inconvenience of   logging into multiple accounts.  If you are one of the non-techies, just the thought of logging into multiple accounts is enough for you to veer away from participating online.  However, as a business owner, you can’t afford NOT to be using social media marketing because you’ll be missing out on building and fostering relationships and growing your business.  When I speak to small business owners, they conclude that social media management was one of the reasons why they think that social media activities are a huge waste of time.  However there is a win-win happy solution: Seesmic Web, a dashboard, which I found to be quite successful in managing multiple social media accounts under one “hood”, while keeping my finger on the pulse real time.

Seesmic Web is just that: launch any browser, log in, connect multiple Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Foursquare, Ping.fm and Google buzz accounts; customize your columns by either conducting searches or following a specific trend using the # (hashtag) or bring down one of your Twitter lists; and you are able to watch, listen, and engage directly from your own Seesmic Web application.

Before I get too deep into sharing Seesmic’s features, I want to add that Seesmic offers a number of options such as Seesmic Desktop (AIR), Seesmic for Windows, and an app for Android, Blackberry and iPhone as well as a Seesmic for Desktop 2.

Personally, I opted for Seesmic Web because I need the flexibility and I found that Seesmic Desktop (using AIR) drained my Macbook Air battery in a matter of hours.  I have yet to experiment with Seesmic Desktop 2, so I can’t comment just yet on that feature (that will be another blog post :>)

I recommend Seesmic Web as a Twitter desktop app for those that are new to social media, or even for a power user, because it will empower you to engage online knowing that you won’t need to log into multiple accounts, which is an effective time management tool.

Planning and preparing in advance will help you set up tweets or facebook posts in advance; if you are a retail or restaurant business owner, you can manage Foursquare check-in’s and acknowledge your vistors; and if you blog a lot, using the Ping.fm feature will help you cast a wide net so that your content is getting bookmarked and share across multiple platforms.

Reasons Why I Use Seesmic Web:

• It’s free (and no need to download the app)
• Simple steps to add multiple Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Ping.fm, Foursquare and Google Buzz accounts
• Can have unlimited columns (think lists, searches, following trends and # hashtags
• Powerful contact manager
• Scheduler – can set up Tweets, Facebook posts, Foursquare Posts in advance – great tool to promote events, Meetup’s,  Specials, or repurpose your videos/content (driving traffic back to your website)
• Attractive, eye-catching interface (easy navigation (especially for a non-techie)
  • Drag/Drop photos, etc. into the composer area of Seesmic Web (and easy to add upload to your status updates)
  • Can integrate Bit.ly URL shortener to get advanced statistics
  • Phone Applications available for Android, iPhone,Blackberry or Windows 7
  • Can access from any computer and from any browser
    • Special features with Chrome Browser
      • (able to see Direct Messages and Mentions)
      • Multiple languages: English, Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish and they continue to add more languages.
      • Future roll outs will consist of keyboard shortcuts

Seesmic Web is an easy tool to implement and a great tool to organize your social media activities.  When compared to Hootsuite (a tool I love, too), MarketmeSuite, Tweetdeck, it all boils down to your comfort zone, just as you use Chrome over Safari or Firefox over Internet Explorer, you decide which tool best meets your needs.

I appreciate your reading my blog post and so I encourage you to learn and experiment with Seesmic Web and their phone application; head over to http://seesmic.com/ .  Please comment or ask me any questions at analucia.novak@mac.com .

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About Ana Lucia Novak is founder of Social Media Tech Solutions (aka. Social Ana),  and co-author of “Making Your Connections Count”. She brings to you 20 years of high tech industry experience in Silicon Valley. Her roles at Oracle, SAP, Electronic Art and hot start-up companies afforded her a rich, well-rounded background in sales, marketing, corporate communications and human resources.

She is a Silicon Valley Online Marketing and Social Media specialist, a catalyst for change, who thrives on solving business related problems for her clients, streamlining business processes and systems with the goal of freeing her clients from the “behind the scenes” operations so they can focus on creating products, building their brand and increasing revenue.

Ana Lucia has knowledge and hand’s on experience with Social media infrastructure set up; a vision for creating and executing Social Media strategy; Internet marketing, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and WordPress set-up and maintenance.

For more information about Ana Lucia Novak visit her website. You can also connect with Ana Lucia on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.