How influential are you in social media? How do you know?

Everyone knows that social media use is booming right now, but how do you know whether you are spending your time wisely and producing provocative information that people actually pay attention to?  We have found 2 amazing companies that have created tools (that are free as well) to help you measure the value of your brand in social media:  HootSuite and Klout.

HootSuite is a great solution to manage all of your social media accounts all in one place.  There are 9 different social media networks that you can link your HootSuite account including LinkedIn (profile and groups), Facebook (profiles, groups and pages), Twitter and FourSquare to name a few.  There are many different features, but the some of the  best features are:

• Scheduling: Allows you to schedule the exact date and time that your post will be published.
• Multiple contributors:  For larger businesses, the ability to have company accounts managed by multiple people.
• Analytics: Customizable reports that show click rates, Facebook insights and Google Analytics that can be sent to you automatically

Now that you have a way to manage your social media accounts, how do you know that your time is paying off for your business?  Klout is a new, great way to show you how influential your firm is in social media.  The first thing to do with Klout is to register all of your social media accounts, and it will gather all sorts of analytics on the different posts that you have made.  Then it looks at the click, response or retweet rate of your posts and calculates a score (0-100) on your influence and categorize the type of “influencer” you are.

Another few great analytical features of Klout are:

• True Reach is the number of people you influence, both within your immediate network and across their extended networks
• Amplification indicates how much you influence people
• Network Impact measures the influence of your network
• 90-day activity gives you a breakdown of the growth of your Twitter account, Facebook insights and more…

Both of these tools are great for both personal and business social media accounts.  They are such a great way see the impact that you are making within your social media circle and the reach of your brand.  For further information make sure to check out each of their websites.

HootSuite- http://www.hootsuite.com

Klout- http://www.klout.com