9+ Social Media Tools mentioned at “Mapping Social Marketing Strategies” by Crain’s Small Business Forum

Crain’s Small Business Forum had a panel of four social media experts for “Mapping Social Marketing Strategies” today on the 80th floor of the AON Center in Chicago. It was an excellent forum, I walked away with a good list of action items. Here’s the items related to tools.

Tools to check out:

• Google Blog Pulse

  I’m not sure if this is the correct name. I can’t find a “Google Blog Pulse” There is Google Blog Search and an unrelated Google site that is named “Blog Pulse.” However, Google Blog Search is nice. I use that in Google Alerts/Google Reader (see below).

• Sprout Social

  Free for now. Mentioned along with the $500/month Radian6.

• Google Goals

  Perhaps this tool was misnamed. There are no results for a product named Google Goals. Instead, there is a goals section in Google Analytics. But still, this is something I need to explore in Google Analytics.

• Gigya

  The panel recommended AddThis and Gigya. Personally, I’m not a fan of AddThis. Their button has way too many options on it. Has anyone out there ever used an AddThis button? As in, actually used it. Not put it on your site, but have you clicked on an AddThis and tweeted something? I haven’t. Too many options. I’m hoping Gigya will be better.

• Knowem

  The panel also mentioned namechk.com, which i LOVE. I’ll be curious to see what Knowem has in store.

Tools for me to recheck:

• Social Mention

  This was mentioned along with Google Alerts. I can’t get Social Mention to load a search right now, but I love Google Alerts. The panel mentioned how you can get emails with it. But I like Google Alerts in Google Reader much more. That way Google Reader gives me stats on how much activity certain keywords have. But apparently Social Mention can give you sentiment. Which would be interesting.

• Hootsuite’s clout filter

  I love Hootsuite and use it regularly. I never saw this clout filter though. That sounds interesting.

The panel included: Matt Batt @storyassistant, Gini Dietrich @ginidietrich, Marty Higginbotham @stagechannel, Diane Rayfield @dianerayfield. Moderated by Lisa Leiter @lisaleiter. Full profiles available on the event page.

There were many other tools mentioned in the forum. I just captured the ones to add to my action list. If you have any tools you like, or if you were at the forum; leave a comment below. Thanks!