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List of Interesting Social Media Tools, Cool Productivity Apps & More – Part II
Continuing the list of great and promising tools here is another list of tools and apps. (You can see part I of the Social Media and Productivity tools & apps list here.) Just as a reminder, some we use here at KRT Marketing, others I use personally, and some I’ve never tried but read good reviews and included them on my “tools-to-test” list.
Also this is not an in-depth review of the tools, it’s just a list of social media and productivity tools that we hope you’ll find useful. Here is today’s line-up:
Bottlenose
A nifty search engine that provides live social intelligence after crawling all the major social networks. You can, in real time, find out what’s trending, monitor, analyze, target and engage. You can setup several accounts and post updates, replies etc… And yes! The light version is free! The Pro version is coming soon.
Skitch
This is a free app that makes it really easy for you to capture a graphic and a portion of your screens and edit it. You can draw attention to pictures using their annotation and markup feature. You also have the option to include shapes, arrows and text. Once you are done, you can drag new graphics to presentations, emails, documents or export to several file formats. You’ll be totally hooked on this one.
Quozio
This handy and free tool allows you to create an image out of text. Think of that perfect quote you want to post on Pinterest . It gives you different fonts, backgrounds and filters. It also comes with a bookmarklet option, which makes it easy for you to create that image while browsing the internet.
10 Examples of Social Recruiting using Facebook
For a while now, HR departments have adopted Social Media for recruitment. When you think of Social Recruiting, LinkedIn automatically comes to mind. Indeed, LinkedIn is the most popular Social Channel used for talent acquisition (see infographic at the bottom of this post). However, using Facebook as a social media recruitment tool is growing in popularity.
Since the Facebook job search feature will be launching soon, I thought it might be helpful to highlight a few examples from companies that have integrated Facebook into their recruitment marketing strategies.
Top 10 Facebook Recruitment Strategies
1- Heroes Work Here
An initiative from Walt Disney Company on their careers Facebook page where they highlight the veterans that work for the company. That shows they value Veterans recruitment.
2- Promoting Referrals
We all know how important referrals are for talent acquisition – DaVita takes it to Facebook reminding the existing workforce to refer their friends. Can the design be a bit better and effective? Yes! – but the idea is there.
List of Interesting Social Media Tools, Cool Productivity Apps & More – Part I
I am always asked about the tools we use or that I’ve tested; so I decided to start a blog post series where I will list interesting tools for social media, productivity and others. Some of these tools are more known than others. Some we use here at KRT Marketing, others I use personally and some I’ve never tried but read good reviews and included them in my “tools-to-test” list.
Here is today’s line-up:
Toronto based company that developed a dashboard to monitor Pinterest traffic. Users can schedule pins, receive real time analytics on which pins are most effective, use multiple accounts, and bookmark. It sits right in between Buddy Media and Hootsuite. Free
UPDATE: Pinerly is now Reachli.
Reachli goes beyond just Pinterest, so that we can also track images on Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other popular visually centered networks. You can read more info on their blog.
Crowdbooster measures and optimizes your social media marketing by providing powerful, easy-to-use analytics and recommendations on Twitter and Facebook. You can see the best time to tweet, for example. Users can also schedule tweets and posts on Crowdbooster.
They have a free personal plan option where you can track one Twitter and one Facebook page. If you would like to monitor additional profiles you would have to upgrade to one of their paid options.
Litmus tests and tracks email campaigns. It provides you with screenshots of how your email looks like in all major email clients and mobile devices. You can also perform tests on your email vs. spam filters.
They do offer a free trial, but there is no free plan option. Basic plan starts at $49/month.
Free online photo editor that lets you perform the basic editing all the way to advanced stuff like cloning, touch-up and eye-gasmic effects. It also offers cool overlays, textures, and frames. It’s a great alternative for those of us who used Picnik. Right now all features are free, but they are getting ready to offer different plan levels.
Facebook Power Editor
Power Editor improves advertisers’ efficiency in creating, editing and managing a large number of campaigns and ads on Facebook. It allows mass-editing of Facebook campaign settings, targeting, bids, budgets, flight dates, and creative elements across ads, campaigns, and even accounts. You can also monitor ads stats in order to optimize ads and campaigns from within the tool itself. Power Editor can work in conjunction with a spreadsheet application such as Excel. It’s a really dandy free tool. Currently, it only works with Chrome. You can download a pdf with more details about how to get started directly from Facebook help http://bit.ly/K06rbH.
Update: If you like these tools you may enjoy the part II of the Social Media & Productivity tools list. You can see it here.
Have you used these tools and apps? What are your thoughts? Have another cool tool? Leave us a comment.
San Francisco Giants vs. Oakland Athletics – It’s the product, stupid!
Baseball is about to start and I was thinking about our two home teams, the Oakland Athletics and the San Francisco Giants; and how the two franchises market themselves differently. I decided to do some research:
The A’s in 2011 posted an operating profit of $23.2 million from $161 million in revenue. It grew its value from $180 million to $307 million in just five years but it ranks 29 out of 30 teams. Interestingly enough, they consistently lead the league in win per dollar spent.
The Giants on the other hand had $29.9 million in profits from $230 million in revenue in 2011 and is worth an estimated $563 million. It was worth $471 prior to winning the World Series. It ranks 7th.
Source: http://www.forbes.com/lists/2011/33/baseball-valuations-11_land.html
I confess I was surprised to find out the Oakland A’s were profitable at all. Of course the profits were only possible because MLB revenue sharing structure. So… if they are recording that kind of profitability how come they don’t focus on awareness and brand affinity?
As far as the product goes, the SF Giants are clearly superior. They have recently won a World Series and Ross Dautel, in a Bleacher Report article, predicts they will make it to the playoffs in 2012. The A’s in the other hand, haven’t been competitive for a while and, according to SFGate.com, most experts predict they will finish in last place in their division this year. From a baseball fan’s perspective, I ask where is the love? What happened with ‘feeding’ the fan connection by keeping their beloved players around? I have to ask: Are the A’s only interested in staying profitable despite having the lowest attendance in the league?
The SF Giants arguably have much more Social Media impact. Facebook likes on their official fan page are at just under 1.3 million while the A’s have 295,000. The disparity on twitter is just as great, as the Giants have 222,000 following @SFgiants as opposed to a little over 30,000 following @Athletics. The Oakland A’s have won awards for best TV and Social Media at the Sports Forum for their Green Collar baseball campaign, but that didn’t seem to close the gap between them and the SF Giants.
Bottom line is that you can be as creative as you’d like, massage the numbers to create success illusion, and you can score all the Social Media and Advertising awards, but the core of marketing still stands: the product quality is fundamental!
By @AdrianaK
Notes:
1- This is a very simplistic overview of the baseball business. You are welcome to give your take on the topic and help us celebrate the “boys of summer”.
2- This post would not have been possible without the help of Patrick Kevill (@pkevill). After all, what does a Brazilian native understand about the American pastime anyways 
Soccer, Carnival, Alternative Fuel and now Social Media – Brazil is happening.
If you think Brazil was only about soccer, carnival and alternative fuel, think again. It is quickly becoming one of the world’s largest social media hubs. So…when I had the opportunity to speak in the largest Social Media event in Latin America: Social Media Brasil 2011, I didn’t blink. It was my first speaking engagement in Brazil and I didn’t know what to expect.
First Event Impressions:
- I got to the speakers VIP lounge to find they had a full bar (and an awesome Strawberry Caipirinha), great nibbles, a massage chair (with a masseuse to the speakers disposal); and a DJ! Needless to say I am spoiled for life!
- The internet connectivity – ahhh the connectivity….Wi-fi? There was none! So if an attendee didn’t have their own ‘hub’ they were in the ‘dark’. People were clogging the 3 and 4 G networks so tweets were still flying around. The crowd was disappointed.
- The attendees were so hungry for knowledge, it was great to see and be a part of it. Packed full auditoriums from 9am to 6pm. People were sending questions via twitter, networking with one another. Their approach was way past the fluff networking.
KRT Socializes at Web 2.0 Expo SF #w2e – Is Social Media Hijacking Marketing Communications? Video
Our sixth session:
Web 2.0 Expo 2010 San Francisco – Social Media Marketing, Thursday, 05/06/2010
Speaker:Michael Smith (The Association of Former Students of Texas A&M) Video recorded with speakers permission
Note: There is a short interruption in the middle of the video. Battery ran out
Switched to Flip to Kodak camera.
KRT Socializes at Web 2.0 Expo SF #w2e – Behaviorally Targeted Advertising Video
Our next session: Speaking up about behaviorally targeted ads.
Web 2.0 Expo 2010 San Francisco – Social Media Marketing , Strategy & Business Models, Wednesday, 05/05/2010
Moderated by:Satya Patel (Battery Ventures)
Panelists:
Mathew Greitzer (Razorfish), Fran Maier (TRUSTe), Ingrid Sanders (TARGUSinfo), Omar Tawakol (BlueKai) Video recorded with speakers permission
Note: There is a short interruption in the middle of the video. Battery ran out
Switched to Flip to Kodak camera.
