"10 Little Known Social Media Tools You Should Be Using -- Now"

Social meadia is everywhere. It's in our homes, places of worship, schools and, of course, our businesses. Everywhere you look, people are using social media and are talking about it. And it seems that every week a new type of social site pops up.

And as the number of social networking sites grows, so does the number of services that are created to measure, track and monitor those services. What's a marketing professional to do?

To help you cut through the clutter, here are the 10 must-use social media tools that can not only help you make sense of your social media efforts but make them more effective.

1. EditFlow
EditFlow is a plugin from open source content management system WordPress that allows you to manage your editorial team seamlessly.

With it, you can get a snapshot of your month-to-month content with the calendar feature. It also offers improvedcontent status beyond WordPress' default draft and pending review. And user groups can help you keep your team of writers organized by department or function.

Who should use it and why: Any business owner who manages a multi-author website should give EditFlow a look. This tool can keep all of the things that are important to a multi-author blog in one spot so management is easy, clean and documented.

2. TweetReach
This tool allows you to see how far your tweets travel. For example, with TweetReach I can search my blog and come up with these results. It breaks down how many people your messages reach and how many tweets it took to reach them. For instance, TweetReach can tell you how many times your tweets have been shared by retweets, replies and other standard tweets.

Who should use it and why: From a social media manager to a small-business owner, basically anybody who is interested in finding out how effective his or her tweets are based upon the number of people they touch should consider using TweetReach. It can also useful from a metric standpoint in terms of justifying the results of your social media campaigns with senior management or partners.

3. ArgyleSocial
This Durham, N.C.-based startup is a social media platform that aims to help marketers connect the business dots with the social media dots. ArgyleSocial offers a single dashboard to monitor Facebook and Twitter that allows you to delegate tasks to your team. It also offers easy reporting on the ROI of your social media efforts.

If you'd like to be an affiliate, you can use ArgyleSocial's white label brand and resell the social media platform to your clients. All of your accounts can be wrapped up into one bill and sent to you to distribute or absorb as an included service.

Who should use it and why: From the social media manager to the one-person business that needs to prove to management, clients or themselves that their social media campaign is paying off.

4. HootSuite for iPad
HootSuite users should be happy with this iPad application. It includes a stationary column in the sidebar that keeps track of all streams being tracked.

Among the other things HootSuite says you can do with this iPad app include checking in using a Foursquare account, scheduling messages to send at a later time, examine click-through statistics, add geo-location coordinates to messages and shorten URLs with a built-in Ow.ly tool.

Who should use it and why: HootSuite for iPad is for heavy iPad users who want to manage their social media content and engagement.

5. TweetLevel
You might be thinking you don't need another Tweet metric tool, but TweetLevel, allows you to specifically search for hashtags, which can lead you to insights on who to follow based upon conversation versus person.

Once you've found someone you'd like to follow, you can use TweetLevel to help measure his or her social influence. You can also evaluate the buzz around a certain topic to determine if it's a trend worth paying attention to. Then take a peek at related phrases around your topic to gauge the true scope of the trending idea.

Who should use it and why: Public relations managers and social media marketing professionals who want to analyze a campaign should give TweetLevel a try. This tool can help you identify the Twitter conversation, where it's going wrong and how to correct that mistake.

6. ReFollow
When it comes to Twitter, numbers might not be as important as the people you follow and who follows you.ReFollow is an application that allows you to lock in those followers that you've connected with and make sure they continue to follow you.

Other features include filtering a search on Twitter to uncover insights, such as what you have in common with certain followers. This can lead you to connecting with someone who maybe you're Twitter conversation has been close to zero, but with a simple direct message to that person you can make a connection and build a business relationship.

Who should use it and why: This can be the perfect tool for the person who wants to grow a list of highly-qualified, like-minded people. Consider using ReFollow if your concern is quality over quantity, which it should be.

7. TwitterSearch
You've probably heard of TwitterSearch but, more than likely, you aren't using it correctly.

New media expert Thomas Baekdal offers a number of little-known tips for using TwitterSearch. For instance, to see what people are saying about your competitors, search with to:competitor or from:competitor. Replace "Competitor" with that company's Twitter handle.

To uncover top trending topics search that topic plus –rt filter:links. For example, "digital marketing-rt filter:links". That code will remove all of the retweets from the search.

Who should use it and why: Anyone who wants to use and search Twitter more effectively should brush up on his or her TwitterSearch skills. And knowing what's trending on Twitter can be a useful way to generate ideas for your business blog. When you see trending topics, you can create a blog post with content relevant to that discussion.

8. Traackr
One simple way to find and follow people who are influential in your space is to use Traackr. It allows you to identify the "authorities" in your industry who can mean the most to your business or your client's.

What's also useful about Traackr is that you can watch how social media leaders are responding and contributing to content you are sharing. An ad agency, for example, can see who it should target to help social media campaigns get off the ground, build its engagement strategies based upon Traackr's unique intelligence and then see results of those campaigns.

Who should use it and why: Traackr can be a useful tool for either advertising agencies or brands that want to build social media campaigns that improve over time and show how they pay off in the end.

9. SocMetrics
The Topical Influencer platform by SocMetrics is a web-based tool that allows you to identify influencers, understand who these people are, interact with them and then monitor your campaign.

The "Competitive Influence" feature allows you to specify brands and drill down for detailed influencers. What's slick about this tool is that you can narrow your search to a long-tail keyword, seeing who is truly influential.

Who should use it and why: Any marketing professional who wants to build an effective social media campaign based upon influencers in a specific industry should give this a look. SocMetrics can help you harness the power of thought leaders, which in turn can help you build your brand and sell more.

10. Social Scope
For BlackBerry users who've longed for an app that combines Twitter and Facebook on one screen, such as TweetDeck for your desktop, consider trying Social Scope.

And on that same screen you'll see a thumbnail image if someone shares something from TwitPic. It also has a built in retweeting feature, hash tag search and will also let you see the entire URL to know where a truncated URL is pointing.

"How The Happiest People In The World Spend Their Money"

People can feel trapped by their careers--whether it's because they're earning too little, are waiting for a big payout, or have grown accustomed to a certain lifestyle. Laura Vanderkam's new book, All the Money in the World: What the Happiest People Know About Getting and Spending, offers a new approach to finances for a modern, more flexible reality.

Increasingly, the stories people tell me about their work and life choices break the conventional mold:

• A twentysomething entrepreneur starts a business while holding down another job and living on friend’s couch.  He’s trading financial insecurity today for work he feels passionate about and a distant promise of a future payoff.
• A fortysomething father of two with a stay-at-home wife walks away from a lucrative legal career without knowing what his next step will be because he can’t tolerate the stress and relentless hours any longer.
• A single mother of three gets laid off and decides to start a not-for-profit instead of finding another job in advertising.

Their unique journeys not only challenge the traditional wisdom about the path we “should” follow with our work and careers, but they also challenge the standard rules about money. And yet, they raise plenty of practical concerns: How is the entrepreneur who spends his 20s scraping by supposed to buy a house and two cars his 30s? How is the fortysomething father supposed to send all of his children to private, four-year colleges and fully retire at 60 years old? How is the single mother going to afford weddings for each of her three daughters?

Work, life, and money are intertwined intimately, and yet they’re rarely addressed together. As the traditional boundaries that used to define “work” and “life” disappear, the conventional beliefs related to money must also evolve.

This is the message of Laura Vanderkam’s new book, All the Money in the World: What the Happiest People Know About Getting and Spending (Portfolio, 2012). By taking on outdated money beliefs, Vanderkam offers a new approach to finances for a modern, more flexible reality. Some of the changes she advocates include:

Be more mindful about what your money could buy. Make purchases that improve your happiness.  For many, that means spending on experiences, not things.  Using the example of the money we have traditionally paid for expensive engagement rings and weddings, Vanderkam calculates how many trips, periodic bouquets of flowers, date nights, babysitters, and hours of housecleaning that money could buy over the years.  These are services and experiences that, in the long run, could bring more enjoyment to a couple than a big ring and wedding.

The single mother who started the not-for-profit may not be able to pay for a lavish wedding for her daughters, but they will see their mother doing work she loves. This will not only set an example of happiness that will hopefully inspire the professional choices of her daughters, but help them prioritize how they want to spend their money.

Challenge the big house, big yard, two car "American dream."  Vanderkam points out that these purchases often come with a longer commute by car, more responsibilities for lawn care, and housekeeping.  Studies show that none of these activities increase happiness.

Maybe the twentysomething entrepreneur won’t buy a sprawling house with a big yard and a three-car garage.  Instead he’ll choose to buy only one car because he bought a smaller house closer to public transportation.  But he’ll be free to invest in and grow his business while having money left over for activities and experiences that have greater meaning to him like travel or eating out with friends.

Don’t just scrimp and save. Find ways to increase your earnings.  Yes, the increased flexibility in work and careers can be scary and unsettling, but it also provides new, exciting opportunities to make more money.  Vanderkam calls it the “1099 mindset.”  Even if you have a more traditional job, think about work the way freelancers or contract workers--people who get 1099s--do. If you are a teacher, tutor. If you’re interested in a topic, start a blog that you monetize. Be creative.

The fortysomething father who walked away from his lucrative legal career was approached by his firm to consult on projects. He’s now thinking of other similar channels that will allow him to make money but give him the flexibility he wants to spend time with his children and enjoy the parts of his life he had no time for previously. Also, his formerly stay-at-home wife is exploring a number of different opportunities to bring in additional income.

Rethink retirement. In other words, don’t expect to ever retire.  Instead, embrace a second or “encore” career. This is what the single mother of three is doing with her not-for-profit. She sees herself leading this effort well past traditional retirement age.

Yes, work and life have transformed over the past two decades. With All the Money in the World, Laura Vanderkam is showing us that we have to update and evolve that way we think about money as well.  In addition to the book, you can connect with Vanderkam on her blog, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

What do you think?  How have you found yourself rethinking the way to approach and manage money as your work and career have become less traditional and more flexible?