I am often asked – “How can you possibly have time to tweet and keep up with Linkedin and everything else out there? Don’t you have a job to do??”

First of all, engaging with social media is a big part of my job.  It has provided me both professional and personal returns in a very large way.  (Check out my post on My Social Media ROI).

But having said that, yes it is hard to keep all those balls in the air and be as productive as possible.  Here are the tools that help me manage my social media life without spending all day “being social”.

1)   News sources: I like igoogle for staying ahead of information and having fresh interesting content to share. I have found that utilizing an igoogle homepage with my favorite news sources and industry blog right at my fingertips makes it more productive to quickly scan and read things that grab my attention.

2)   Twitter & your community: I like Hootsuite.  I have tried possibly every twitter tool available.  I was a fan of tweetdeck, but finally switched over to Hootsuite because of the delayed tweet feature.  I like to consistently interact with my community so having the ability to queue up tweets for the day allows me to focus more on my work and checkin with Twitter only periodically.  I don’t like to follow people who send too many tweets at once, which I find helps me keep the more relevant communications at the top.  With the delayed tweet feature you can post several thoughts, but space them out so you aren’t burying people with your info all at once.

3)   Research and monitoring: Again, Hootsuite is great for this.  I create search columns for terms relevant to clients and prospects I am working with.  I also have search columns established for clients and their brands – One of the ways to stay ahead of their online reputation.

4)   Measuring engagement: I like bit.ly’s URL shortener with its easy click tracking, but not sure it is better than any of the others.  I like having a bit.ly account so I can monitor click activity for information I share.  It helps to know what people find valuable and interesting and what didn’t engage people.

5)   Building a quality community: To help me add valuable twitterers to my community I refernce Hubspots Grader page quite a bit.  You can research top twitters by location.  It helps to make sure I am engaging with people in my area that are relevant to my goals and objectives with social media.

There are a TON of great tools out there, and everyone has one that matches their goals, objectives, and personal style.

I would love to hear about all the tools you are using to manage your online presence and why you like them! I may even be inclined to switch .