Top Social Media Tools for Small Business: A Quick Review

Mashable recently released a preview of the front runners for the “Top Social Media Tools for Small Business” in this years Mashable Awards. These results are hevaily influenced by user data, and feedback they gather from real small businesses. Their preview of the early favorites is an exciting opportunity to see what’s going on in the small business social media, and learn about what and how the masses are using social media for business. I chose to highlight four from this list, but the fact that this list contains 7 amazing tools designed for/or used for small business marketing just goes to show that small business social media really is here to stay. Social Media is the new small business PR.  The world of social media for  business is adapting to this need with a bevvy of awesome products to make social media measurement and social media ROI as efficient as possible for busy small business owners. Whether you just use the New Twitter, or you’re thinking about investing in social media software for small business, check out these awesome (mostly free!) tools that other small businesses are raving about.

Winner: (Communications Service for Small Business) Twitter

It seems that Twitter beat out their closest competitor facebook as the most lauded tool for small businesses to do everything from “quickly and effectively enhance customer service, business development, public relations and even lead generation…” to “humanize their brands, making them seem more friendly and approachable.” Still wary of the minimalist platform? Check out this quick and easy video which tell you everything you know to get started using twitter for your business.

Winner: (Video-Sharing Service) YouTube

Long have we at WorkingPoint extolled the virtue of videotape as a Social Media Tool for small business ( “Small Business Marketing & Management: Video“) and we boast our very own WorkingPoint Youtube channel, where we host all of our awesome videos, how to’s, product feature explanations and more.

Winner: (Location-Based Service) Foursquare

We think location based services are going to be a boon for location based businesses, and that early adapters will rate great rewards. Check out “2 Emerging Social Media Platforms You Should Be Using Right Now” if you’re considering throwing your hat into the LBS ring!

Winner: (Social Media Dashboard) TweetDeck

I just signed up for this platform after reading this review. I plan to take it for a test run ASAP, so check back for a more detailed review! For now, I can say, I am already in love with how easy they make it to select which platform (I currently have it set up for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Foursquare) and how they can autoshorten URLs after you’ve already put them into the post. My current favorite URL shortener, (something I do about 25 times a day as the curator of the WP Twitter account and Facebook page) is Goo.gl which has a button you can click right in your browser bar to shorten and copy. However, I’m already loving this function for when I forget to shorten and don’t want to switch back or have closed the window! I can’t wait to check out the corresponding iphone app as well!

What are your favorite tools for Small Business Marketing and Social Media? Let us know!