The online media landscape is in a constant state of change, and with the growing list of opportunities to use digital media as a marketing channel, the tools are evolving quickly.  Below is my New Media Toolkit – a list of online apps, services and vendors that I’ve found to be of great value.  It is by no means comprehensive, but if you need help today, these are great places to start!

Competitive Intelligence Tools

• Quantcast is an outstanding resource for assessing visitor demographics and user interests for your site and competitors’ sites.
• Compete.com is one of my favorites for analyzing comparative site traffic and levels of engagement over time.
• Alexa.com should be mentioned as well.  While I don’t trust the data for site traffic (see Can You Trust Competitive Site Data?), it is the only free estimate that shows the number of page views per visit.  Since Compete no longer offers this for free, Alexa is still useful.

Search Engine Marketing Tools

• Google Estimator allows you to forecast ad inventory, cost per click and projected media spend for a given set of keywords and geographic market.  While this is better than nothing, the results may vary significantly from reality for a variety of reasons.  Use with caution.
• Google Ad Preview allows you to see how search results appear in different parts of the World
• Search Status Toolbar from Quirk: one plug-in allows you to see keyword density, no-follow links, page rank, inbound links and other great tools (referred to me by Catfish Comstock)
• Google Trends and Google Insights are valuable tools for seeing trends in keyword searches. This is one of the best ways to measure changes in demand due to cyclical or seasonal factors.

Social Networking Sites

• Facebook: join me and 600 million of my extended friends. Just don’t freak out when your mother sends you a friend request (love you mom!)
• LinkedIn – if you are in business and you are not on LinkedIn, you are missing the boat. Seriously.
• Twitter - before you say no, take a test drive.  It’s a great way to promote your content and you may even have fun doing it.
• Slideshare – best described as “You Tube for Powerpoint” slideshare is the #1 place to post your presentations and demonstrate thought leadership.  It also happens to have some powerful Google juice; several of my presentations have top rankings (e.g. “Social Media Business Case“). To see how it works check out my Social Media Strategy preso.

Social Bookmarking and News Sites

• While there are many social bookmarking sites, I prefer Digg.com and Propeller.  Stumbleupon is also worth exploring. I tried using Newsvine but they suspended me for linking to my own blog (now that’s an interesting policy…).
• In terms of online marketing news, I like the eMarketer, Online Media Daily (MediaPost), AdExchanger and IAB SmartBrief newsletters
• There are many social media news sites, but if you have time for only one, subscribe to Mashable for the latest in social media news and other cool things of interest.

Social Media Tools
No media toolkit would be complete without recommending some tools to help you manage social media activities. Here are a few for your Tweeting and Posting pleasure:

• URL Shortening: http://bit.ly allows you to truncate links and track click-throughs. Nice way to curate content.
• Post / Tweet Aggregators:  Over the past 12 months I have used numerous post / tweet management tools including Ping.fm, Twitterrific, TweetDeck and TweetLater.  But I now use and recommend Hootsuite for several reasons: 1) ability to post to multiple profiles on Twitter, Facebook, Facebook Fan pages and LinkedIn, 2) scheduling capabilities, 3) great stats, 4) intuitive interface and 5) good iPhone app.  I also use Twitter Selective Status Facebook app as it allows you to selectively update Facebook status when tweeting old-school style (using Twitter.com) simply by adding #fb at the end of the tweet.
• Another aggregator (a must have!) is Nutshell Mail. It is a very useful app that aggregates updates from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. and sends them to you in an email.  If you are blocked from accessing social networking sites at work, this will help. I also LOVE that it allows me to Unfollow with one click from the email.  It’s easier and faster to Unfollow from Nutshell than it is from Twitter.
• Social Media Bookmark aggregator: Onlywire is a decent plug-in that allows you to share once and post across most social bookmarking sites.  If you have a blog you can use it for free (just add some code to your blog).  Or you have to pay $2.99 per month.
• Blog Monitoring: several vendors offer solid toolsets.  The more robust and comprehensive, the more expensive, ranging from SM2 and Addictomatic (both are free) to the not-so-free social media monitoring tools BuzzMetrics and Radian6.

Twitter Tools

• Search.Twitter.com is Twitter’s native search engine; use it to find out how much you or your competitors are being discussed on Twitter. Using tools like Hootsuite you can now access Search.Twitter through the dashboards.
• For charts showing how many users are following you (or your competitors) over time check out TwitterCounter.
• If you are trying to keep your ratio of Following to Followers in check, use FriendorFollow to find out which of those you are following are not returning the favor.
• If you are seeking to find influencers on Twitter (users with lots o’ followers), TweepSearch is a great place to start.
• MrTweet connects you with others on Twitter based on interests and industries
• Twitpic allows you to upload pics with your tweets (and we all like pictures!)
• Everythingtwitter is well… I guess the names says it all

Call Tracking Tools

Your web site should use dedicated numbers that allow you to track the source of inbound calls.  Two vendors we’ve used are Voice Star and Mongoose Metrics.  Both allow you to track the source and duration of inbound calls at a relatively low price.

Campaign and Social Media Measurement

If you’re seeking to answers on how to measure the impact of online media (Paid, Owned and Earned) you should visit us at EncoreMetrics.com.  All we do is media measurement and attribution; and we do it very well.

Miscellaneous Wrapping this up, I’ll recommend Wordle as a fun, yet practical, app you can use.  Wordle creates wordclouds in a variety of formats. Here’s one I created using the copy from this blog pos5. Enjoy!

Again, this is not intended to be the all-encompassing New Media Toolkit, and I’m sure there are many great tools that were overlooked.  That said, I hope these are helpful in becoming a more prolific online marketer.  Please feel free to COMMENT, SHARE with others and SUBSCRIBE to our blog. We look forward to your feedback!

Steve Latham (follow me on Twitter)

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