Nate Riggs on Social Business Strategies + Social Media Strategist | Consulting – Columbus Ohio

One the the coolest and most helpful blog posts I’ve read recently came from Jason Baer, covering 39 of the tools he uses on a regular basis for his business and online life.  Since then, I’ve started using Flowtown and actually had the chance to speak with the founders, Dan and Ethan.  Another tool from his post that has become a mainstay in my personal arsenal has been Skitch for very easy image editing.

I want to build on his list with my own tools.  It’s a good idea, and maybe you can as well with your own tool set.  If you do, please link to Jay and I so the list keeps growing!  Cool?

Ready. Set. Go.

1. Hootsuite – Browser-based Social Media application that I use daily and recommend to clients.  It’s great for scheduling tweets throughout the day, aggregating multiple accounts, listening for keyword-based conversations and making Twitter manageable.  I heart Hootsuite.
2. Topify – This is a great add on tool to Twitter that beefs up the information you recieve via email about new followers.  Topify gives you the ability to see lots of information on then riight from you inbox.  And if you want to follow someone back, just hit reply and send the email.  topify does the rest.  This is a great time saver.
3. Seesmic Desktop – My very favorite desktop social media aggreator.  It’s clean and very flexible
4. Twellow – This director is the Yellow Pages of Twitter.  Users submit and classify their profiles into categories.  Twellow then allows you to search by those categories and follow interesting users by vertical, geographic area and keywords in their bio.  Great tool for using Twitter to prospect.
5. TweetStats – Best tool around for looking at twitter users usage statistics.  This tool not oly allows you to benchmark your own use, but you can also see how your contacts and prospects use Twitter to find the best times and means to tweet with them.
6. Tweetshare – This is a new tool I’ve started using that allows you to easily share various forms of media via Twitter.  Pretty slick little application.
7. Foursquare – My very Favorite location based application.  There’s been a big debate about who will win the location based application race.  I’ve written tons on Foursquare, and how it applies to business.  The big players today are Gowalla, Foursquare, Yelp and BrightKite.  Right now, Foursquare is smoking the competition.  But Facebook will release their own version of a location based app soon.  Stay tuned to see what happens with that one.
8. LinkdIn Answers – In my opinion, this is one of the most powerful features that LinkedIn provides.  Here’s a few strategies on how to use LinkedIn Answers to build your network.
9. LinkedIn Tool Bar for Outlook – this is one of the very best tool bars ever developed and will become a critical tool that helps you get the most out of LinkedIn while making it easier to stay focused on growing your network.  The bummer is that it’s only for Outlook.
10. Diigo – Delicious just got antiquated.  Diigo is a social bookmarking tool that lets you do everything from highlighting text on a web page, annotating web pages with comments, tagging your articles and so much more.  Diigo is so great it even emails you with a summary of the notes you’ve annotated on articles.   This one has changed the way I research and develop presentations.  Oh, and by the way, I’ve started a Social Business Strategies Diigo Group so that you can see what I’m reading and where I’m finding new information.  I’d love to have you join.
11. Digsby – My favorite chat client.  I like Digsby because it integrates social media, Facbook chat, GChat, and much more.  Sadly, this is another one that’s lacking a mac application.
12. SEO All in One Pack for Wordpress – killer plug-in for your Wordpress blog that makes optimization easy.  Jake Stoops also has tons of ideas on even more Wordpress plug-ins you can use at Agent SEO.
13. DailyMile – my favorite Social Utility.  DailyMile provides a niche social network for runners, cyclists and triathletes while also providing a training log tool to track your workouts.  If you like to train, this one is a must.
14. Yammer – Internal micro-blog tool to help make internal communications easier and reduce email clutter.  I’ve used Yammer in three companies now and it’s so powerful.
15. SocialCast – This is the same premise of Yammer for internbal communications, but it’s structured more like a Facbook wall.  SocialCast also provides organizational communications metrics (for a price).  If you want to study the true social graph in your company, SocialCast is you weapon of choice.
16. Speakersite – Artie Isaac and Rob Emerich’s project.  Speakersite is another example of a powerful niche social network that connects speakers with other speakers and speakers with audiences.  If you want to speak for fun or professionally, sign up for Speakersite.
17. Free Conference Call – I’ve been using this for years to manage my conference calls.  It’s easy, free and works every time.
18. DimDim – Presentation and desktop sharing software that is going to give GoTo Meeting and WebEx a run for their money.  Just use this yesterday in a session with Audio Messaging Solutions and it rocks!  It’s also very affordable, and there’s a solid 30 day trial to get your feet wet.
19. Involver – Want to add some customization to your company’s Facebook Page?  Involver has the code for you.  There’s some apps you can use for free and if you want to get more, you can subscribe at different levels.  Everything is plug-and-play and easy to install.  Check out the YouTube channel integration tab. It’s great!
20. Facebook App Directory – Before you spend money on Involver, check to see if you can find a free Facebook page app in the directory.
21. PollDaddy – We’re using this Facebook application with Incept’s Facebook Page to get feedback from their CME’s on policy changes and events. It’s available for free in the application directory.
22. Dotster – I buy all my domains from Dotster because the customer experience is much better than the dreaded high pressure selling environment of GoDaddy.
23. Shoeboxed – The cheapest and best document imaging software out there today.  Shoeboxed allows me to snap iPhone pictures of receipts and automatically store them for expense reports.  Tax time would have been a much bigger hassle without Shoeboxed.
24. BatchBook CRM – this is how I manage my database of all of you. You can learn more about why I love Batchbook  here.
25. Freshbooks – this is my business accounting software.
26. MindMeister – This is mind mapping software that I’m using to outline social network analysis inside organizations.  Very flexible for brain dumping on the web.  So far, so good.
27. Scribbed – Scribbed allows you to host, share and embed documents like PDF’s on the web.  It’s easy to use and very powerful.
28. Clearwish – Another local Columbus Start Up, Clearwish is an online gifting site that I use to keep a list of things I want to purchase or have purchased for me, as I’m surfing the web.  It’s also socially integrated with Twitter and Facebook and has a nice browser plug-in.
29. TubeMogul – great for mass video distribution and video viewing analytics across multiple platforms and a BIG time saver.  I recommend TubeMogul to my clients.
30. Google Wave – Great for collaboration with teams and for projects.  Leave a comment if you want an invite.  I still have about 100.  Here’s ideas on how to use Google Wave to get the most out of attending conferences.
31. Tungle – My favorite application of 2010.  Tungle makes scheduling appointments easy, clean and quick. I use this 4-5 times per day now.
32. YourMilton – I just got a demo of this new (and wonderful) small business CRM application last week.  Columbus native Eric Ralph is the mastermind behind the concept.  BETA is coming soon and you can sign up here for info.
33. Meetup – If you’ve not yet joined your local Meetup groups, you should.  It’s a great tool for staying on top of neat events and gatherings in your area.
34. MockingBird – I learned about this one from Mr. Joe Payton.  If you’re building a new website for your business, MockingBird will allow you to layout the wire frames fast, easy and for free.
35. Tubmlr – an alternative blogging platform that makes media publishing easy.  Tunblr also seamlessly integrates with Faebook, Twitter and other social networks for cross platform content publishing.
36. KeepIt – This is a great little browser plug-in that lets you grab YouTube videos and save them to your desktop ina  few different file formats.  Very handy.
37. Quantcast – This is a great tool for looking at traffic to websites.  The free version is all that I use, but it’s enough to get basic information on how popular a site is.
38. Compete – Similar web traffic measurement tool to Quantcast with a few different options and better visual displays.
39. Google Finance – Why buy Hoovers?  Google Finance will give you all the data you need on companies.  I use this for business development research.
40. Innoblogs – Developed by Tom Williams, Innoblogs is a collaborative blog work folw system that will change how corporate blogging is done.  If you’re company wants to get better at blogging, check out Innoblogs.

Did you find anything you might use?  Anything to add to the list?  Will you write your own “tools I use” post and share it with the world?

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