The ultimate list of *free* social media tools

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I haven’t been useful in a while so I’m thinking, it’s about time to throw some tips and tricks your way. As many of you know, I started to work for Paratus Communications in London. The lovely Adam Vincenzini and I do all the digital stuff that needs doing and over the last couple of weeks we’ve been sharing all these little tips and tricks that make the social web so much more fun. There was a lot of “ohhh did you know?” “nah, I didn’t, this is amazing!” – You get the picture.

So instead of keeping all these secrets to ourselves, I thought I will share. Adam shared too, on his blog. But that’s beside the point because my list will just have to be that much more awesome. And overall, both of us should get some applause, because we basically did all the heavy lifting for you. All you do now is sit back, relax, test out all the tools and pick and choose the tools you feel will make your life on the interwebs that much easier.

Search comments, forums & discussion boards with Boardtracker.

Boardtracker is a nifty little tool, I have to say. We often think that the social web starts with Facebook and ends with Twitter but it doesn’t. A whole lot happens in forums, discussion boards and blog comments. To find out what is being said in those places about your brand/product/self use Boardtracker. It makes it awfully easy.

You love to spy on others, don’t you?

We all like to boost our egos or need a reality check from time to time. Are you a blogger and want to see how many people are subscribed to your blog AND find out how you measure up against others? Use Feedcompare. It’s dead simple.

Get your blog to look pretty when printed..

You know how you sometimes come across a blog post that is just *so* good that you want to print it off? But when you actually do it doesn’t look pretty? Yah, I know exactly how you feel. Joliprint is the solution. How does it work? Head over to Joliprint, type in the URL, and “joliprint it”! Easy peasy! To save your blog readers the hassle, add it as a widget to your blog. (Coming soon on SG!)

Testimonials, Twittermonials.. = Tweet-Stimonials

Do you own a business? Are you a freelancer? Do you offer any services or products? And you want to show off all those Tweets that say nice things about you on your blog? Look no further. Tweet-stimonials is the way to go. It couldn’t be any simpler. All you need to do is add the plugin to WordPress. Favorite the Tweets you want to show off, and TADAAA! (I haven’t added it to SG because apparently people have no nice things to say about me! Just kidding. Or, am I?)

The eye-catching way to share the web..

I love this tool. You know how sometimes people send you links and you don’t want to click on them but you kind of do because it could be something totally amazing? But then again, you don’t know what it may be? This can now be avoided. Curate.us takes a picture of whatever site you are wanting to share and to top it all off, the image is clickable. Picture and image in one. Great, right?

There are many things you can do with one Tweet..

You can archive them as well as analyze and export them. And there’s one tool that lets you do all of those things. The Archivist is brilliant. It analyzes your Tweets and offers some pretty useful data visualisations. You can also download all the data as an Excel file and then use it as you please.

Are you a Chrome & Twitter user? Then you need this!

Tweetbeat Firsthand integrates Twitter into any webpage. It’s super clever. If there’s a name on a web page it will show you if that person has a Twitter account and brings those people’s most recent Tweets to you within the page. Yah, pretty amazing right? Anyway, I won’t go into this too much because Adam Vincenzini wrote a great post on Tweetbeat.

Who’s talking to who about what..?

I particularly like MentionMap. It provides a live analysis of what a person is talking about and who they are talking to. That’s not only extremely useful from a business (marketing/PR) perspective but also for private individuals who are looking to find good people to follow. It’s easy to understand. Best way is to pop over and give it a go. :)

Feedlooks – Google reader on crack

As much as I love Google Reader I may just love Feedlooks more. The one thing that bugs me most about Google reader is that I have to leave the reader, to see the actual post, to then share it. Feedlooks makes this unnecessary. You stay on the same page, get the same visual experience as on the actual site and can share it if you like. Also, there’s a rating given next to each post which gives you an idea of the post’s overall popularity.

SocialMention – social media monitoring made easy

I’m in the process of reviewing social media monitoring tools for Paratus and one of the things that I noticed is that one tool doesn’t fit all. Not every monitoring tool is suitable for every client. Different needs, different tools. But that’s an entirely different topic. However, SocialMention is most likely the best free tool out there. It works like Google but lists all social channels. Best way to find out how it works, is to just try it.

Facebook forgot a feature.. and here’s the solution!

Do you administer a Facebook page? Are you annoyed about Facebook not telling you when someone likes your FB page update or even comments on a post? Then you feel like me and many others in the social web. Hyperalerts is the solution. Sign up and it will send you an Email within minutes after something gets posted to your page’s wall. Easy peasy, useful!

This is it from me for now.. Do you have any tools you want to add? Put them in the comment section! I want to hear your thoughts!

BTW, are you a fan of SocialGlitz on Facebook yet?

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