New season, new tools, new updates…

I’m back from a perfect honeymoon in Maui and ready to roll as usual, with the only difference being that I am now writing officially as a married man. Feels nice.

One thing I noticed upon my return was the amount of changes to my everyday social media tools of choice. Leaving the online space for two weeks feels like a year when you’re used to everyday engagement. Here are a few popular tools and apps that have recently been updated (plus three new ones). Be sure to get the latest version(s) if you haven’t already.

• Tweetdeck: New Tweetdeck Directory and ability to drag and drop links into your tweets. Also has improved integration with Twitter and MySpace accounts. Still my dashboard of choice for all status updates.
• iTunes: Completely new iTunes Store interface and Podcast directory. No more popularity index. Very useful podcast search engine though. Still quite slow on the PC platform when compared to an equivalent Mac.
• Twitter.com: The main landing page has been updated to reflect Twitter’s most powerful feature, search! Good move. Better late than never.
• Google Wave: The long awaited Google Wave has officially launched (by invitation only at this point). I’m not ready to offer a review at the moment but be sure to request an invite on their website to try it out yourself.
• Google SideWiki: Another tool launched by Google that will grow very quickly in my opinion. Basically it’s a sidebar wiki, which allows users to make comments on any web page. Why do I think this will be popular if many existing plugins already offer this functionality? Hmmm, how about the fact that this one belongs to Google!
• Klout: A great new tool for analyzing and comparing your Twitter stats and level of influence. There is a one time wait of at least 30 minutes for your profile to be analyzed.

Let me know if I missed any big ones.

Social Media Monitoring – 10 Free Tools

Last week I had the privilege of presenting my third session at the Canada School of Public Service (CSPS) - Armchair Discussion Series. This time, the topic was Social Media Monitoring – 10 Free Tools For Finding Out What People Are Saying About Your Organization. I chose to present this as a follow up to my “Social Media 101″ and “Social Media & The Canadian Government” topics. I figured it was time to give people some hands-on examples of how to “listen” to the social media “conversations” occurring all around them. More importantly, I wanted to show public servants that they can use these tools right away, for free! I have posted up the presentation on SlideShare (embedded below) and provided the URL’s to each tool that was demonstrated live during the session. Note that even though I have listed ten tools, they are not necessarily in order. I didn’t want to provide a “Top 10″ list since at the end of the day, the best tools depend on what the objectives are. Without knowing these, only broad suggestions can be provided. That being said, I did point out during the presentation that Google Reader (for aggregating content) and Twitter Advanced Search (for real time discussion monitoring) are my two personal favourites. Which monitoring tools do you swear by?

Crucial Podcasts for anyone interested in Social Media Marketing

Someone recently asked me if I have a favorite Marketing/Social Media Podcast. I thought about it for a second and realized that I can’t say I do. Each one I listen to adds something unique. I have set them up to automatically download the latest episode as soon as it comes out. How do I find the time to listen to all of them? Easy. I listen to them on my way to and from work, as well as at the gym on my iPod. Here are my Top 8:

• Across the Sound
• Canadian Podcast Buffet
• The Client Side
• For Immediate Release
• Inside PR
• Managing the Gray
• Six Pixels of Separation
• Internet Marketing Voodoo

You can easily subscribe to these and listen to them for FREE by downloading iTunes and searching for them in the Podcast Directory (note: you DO NOT need an iPod or MP3 player to listen to them).