NameChk

An essential tool for checking the availability of your username across a huge range of social channels. 

Here’s a rudimentary check of my own name.

Also essential for musicians with an unGoogleable band name. 

IFTTT 

IFTTT (‘if this then that’) is a tool that gives you the ability to connect a huge array of online applications together as one interconnected whole.

There’s a whole blog post on why you should use IFTTT here. It essentially means you can write or use an existing ‘recipe’ so that if an event happens in one application, it will trigger an action within another one.

For instance…

Here are 20 more fantastically helpful IFTTT recipes.

SumAll

SumAll is a data visualisation tool that helps you keep track of sales, site visits, followers and charges from a large array of platforms such as Amazon, eBay, Google AdWords, Shopify and all major social channels.

TweetBinder

A Twitter analytics tool with a simple UI and clear, attractively presented statistics. 

Rival IQ

Track and compare social engagement metrics while keeping a particular eye on what your competitors are saying.

SproutSocial

We received multiple recommendations for this social management platform with a strong focus on inbox monitoring, scheduling, analytics and CRM.

Followerwonk 

Moz’s Followerwonk helps you explore your Twitter channel further by digging deeply into analytics and finding out exactly who your followers are by multiple demographics, social authority, where they’re located and when they Tweet.

Buzzsumo

Find what sort of content works best for any topic then find the key influencers and followers who are most likely to share that content. 

Bottlenose

Porpoise themed trend intelligence app that helps you identify, monitor and instigate relevant trends.

This is an example of one its interactive ‘sonar’ visualisations.

Mention

Prick up your ears with Mention, the tool that allows you to real-time monitor any mention of your brand or company across millions of sources in 42 languages.

Buffer

Again, a hugely popular tool with out Twitter followers…

Friends+Me

This tool allows you to manage all your social interactions through Google+.

You can schedule page posts and have them reposted to all major social networks by using one or more control hashtags.

Commun.it 

One of the better examples of a pun-based top level domain since Nathan Barley, this community manager tool also offers multiple account access from a single dashboard, for multiple team members.

It can also point you towards valuable members of your community who you should engage with more, and those you should just cruelly dump.

Oktopost

With a particular focus on B2B, this tool lets you manage large scale content distribution to all your social media channels while helping you measure its true business value. 

HootSuite

The dashboard of choice for the busy community manager who needs to manage, engage and measure in real-time, however it is quite easy to rack up an expensive reporting bill so be careful if busiest are tight.

Then again we are a sucker for an owl.

Twitter lists 

How could we possibly forget the power of a good Twitter list? They’re an excellent and free resource available to all Twitter users.

It’s a simple way to organise followers by industry, group or theme which then helps you keep an eye on them more closely away from the noise of your busy feed.

A good list from a key influencer is also very useful in providing you with a curated selection of great users to follow.