Seesmic, Tweetdeck, Ping? Choosing the Best Social Media Tool for You

Twitter. Facebook. LinkedIn. Google Buzz. These are just a few of the social networks that exist on the web. Each has its own community, rules for interaction, standards of etiquette and social constructs. I have a presence on each one of these networks. However, I have distinct audiences on each, and what one audience may want to know, another may not. Conversely, there are some things that multiple audiences will want to know. Being able to quickly and simply define what to share and where to share it is more difficult than it may seem at face value. There are many applications available to help sort through this information - which one is the right one for me?

To answer that question, the first steps I took were to define my audience and content goals. Clearly stating these would help me narrow my focus and guide my choice of tools.

Judging by my Twitter follower list, the majority of the non-spammer followers want to know stuff about gaming – specifically, what's going on with Star Wars: The Old Republic and the fan site community. My Facebook friends want to know what I'm doing, where I'm going, and who I'm doing it with. My LinkedIn connections only want to see updates about business-related issues - business opportunities, company happenings, job movement, etc. And my Google Buzz followers want an eclectic mix of everything.

So, if I find an interesting article about MMO gaming, I might want to tweet that and possibly share it on Facebook, but I would want to keep it off of my LinkedIn. Likewise, if I want to share pictures of a family get-together, I might want to post that only to Facebook. Or I might want to broadcast a major personal milestone across all channels. Selectiveness and flexibility are both keys for my personal social media interaction strategy.

With a clear understanding of what I want to say and to whom, I can begin evaluating available tools. There are a plethora of tools out there, so knowing what I want to get out of them is important. I began by searching for tools to use that supported my four major networks. I wanted some method of both aggregating posts from my networks as well as simultaneous posting to some/all of them. Some of the contenders that caught my attention:

1. Ping.fm
2. Seesmic
3. Tweetdeck
4. Selective Tweets & LinkedIn API for Twitter
5. Twitter connections for other networks

Each one had pros and cons with regard to my needs. Let's examine each one:

Ping.fm can post to the widest array of social networks with ease. It requires some effort to set up your different "posting groups" to define which networks will receive updates and when, but after that it's as simple as input text, select posting group and click send. Ping.fm can interface with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Buzz, GTalk Status, AIM Status, Blogger, Tumblr, Wordpress, Yahoo Profiles, Flickr, Photobucket – heck, it can even share my Google Reader shared items to any other networks. Its simplistic design and wide net makes it the most versatile broadcast option by far.

But there's one catch - Ping.fm can't read.

For all its superiority in interfacing with the status update portions of the networks, it lacks any status update aggregation features. Using Ping.fm, you cannot see what your friends/connections are saying online. "Say It," certainly, but you can't "hear it." So, Ping.fm is a partial solution at best. However, it is one of the few options that can post to LinkedIn without much fuss, so there's that.

Seesmic is an "all-in-one" solution that spans multiple platforms. They offer a browser-based web app, mobile apps for all major smartphone operating systems and a desktop application that uses uses Microsoft Silverlight. All of their applications can support multiple Twitter logins, Facebook and Google Buzz at the least. Their web and desktop apps can support LinkedIn, Foursquare, and several other networks like Salesforce Chatter and Ping.fm integration (Seesmic owns Ping.fm).

I concentrated on the web app as my main focus, as I prefer portability - I can log into the web app from anywhere. The web app had some great features that caught my attention:

• Post scheduling - compose it now, schedule it for later.
• Bit.ly integration - any shortened links would be added to my bit.ly account and tracked.
• Trending topic tracking
• Saved search tracking
• List support - I can manage my lists in the app, without having to go to Twitter's site to add/remove lists members.
• Retweet column - I could create a column in the app for retweets of me so I can keep track of which ones of my thought nuggets are retweeted. I'm narcissistic, I know.
• Klout.com integration - I can see what sort of influence Twitter users in my columns garner on the interwebs without navigating away to another site.

With the Seesmic Web app, I could sign in from anywhere, post to just about any network, and track a lot of information on Twitter. It is HTML5 enabled, so it can give me desktop pop-up notifications when I'm @ mentioned on Twitter on any of my tracked accounts. Additionally, it has the ability to filter content out of any column - you can create filter rules for each column individually.

It is not without its faults, however. Their Facebook integration is still a bit buggy as it is fairly recent, but they're actively working on it.

Seesmic is feature-rich and allows me to post to and read all of the social networks on which I reside.

Tweetdeck is a direct competitor to Seesmic. They have applications for desktop, iOS and Android, as well as a Google Chrome extension. The desktop application runs on Adobe Air and can support multiple Twitter accounts, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Buzz, Foursquare and MySpace. Their Chrome extension is limited in comparison, however: it only supports Twitter, Facebook, Buzz, and Foursquare - no LinkedIn or MySpace.

The main advantage to Tweetdeck is its Combined Columns feature. Instead of separating networks out into separate feeds, it creates a single timeline into which all networks feed. On Chrome, the "Home" column shows Twitter updates, Facebook posts, Buzz and Foursquare check-ins all in time order, while the "Me" column displays Twitter @ mentions and Facebook replies/comments on my content. The Android application has the same functionality, which I like. However, neither the Chrome extension nor the Android app support LinkedIn, which was an issue for me.

Tweetdeck's desktop application supports LinkedIn, but it doesn't have the Combined Columns - each network is separated into its own column. It does have post scheduling, saved search tracking and the ability to view Twitter lists, but it isn't as feature-rich as Seesmic Web nor as portable.

Both the desktop and Chrome apps have desktop notifications so I know when I've got new content or I've been mentioned on Twitter, so I can browse elsewhere and be kept in the know of what's happening with my connections. They both allow me to post to most of my networks, as well - selectively or all at once.

Despite its faults, though, Tweetdeck's Combined Columns is an excellent feature which is a major selling point on Chrome and Android.

There are applications which allow selective posting across networks. Selective Tweets is a Facebook application which connects to Twitter. Whenever I post to Twitter, my Facebook account will poll my Twitter account. If my tweet contains a "#fb" hashtag, it will re-post to my Facebook news feed. LinkedIn has a similar connection feature - posts with "#li" or "#in" would be re-posted to my LinkedIn profile.

The advantage of these applications is selective posting - I only need to post to Twitter and add hashtags for the additional networks I'd like to post to. It is lightweight, non-platform dependent, and simple.

There are a lot of drawbacks to this strategy, however. Each hashtag on my tweets eats into the 140 character limit, which becomes an issue for info-rich tweets. It also uglies up my tweets with non-conversational hashtags. Lastly, this is also only a posting solution - reading each social network's feed still would require going to each network individually.

Twitter can connect to other networks to re-post tweets automatically. There is an official Twitter Facebook application which will take all tweets and re-posts them indiscriminately. Likewise, the LinkedIn connection feature can be set to re-post all tweets regardless of hashtag contents. Google Buzz also allows for Twitter account polling to re-post Tweets, albeit on a delay.

The advantage of this strategy is it requires no thought whatsoever - post to Twitter and everything else will automatically update. It is even lighter and simpler than the Selective Tweets option, as well as still being applicable via any platform.

The drawbacks are obvious, however – I would not be able to modulate which of my thoughts end up on each network. It also only solves the posting problem, not the reading issue.

This was obviously a lot to take in, so I gave each solution a try. Seesmic and Tweetdeck came out as front-runners, as they had reading capability across several networks. The Tweetdeck Combined Columns feature in their Chrome extension was real tempting, but in the end I went with Seesmic Web. It has a ton of additional functionality above the shared features with Tweetdeck, plus it can post to LinkedIn without any fuss.

I kept my Ping.fm account active, though, since I still don't have an acceptable posting solution for my phone. None of the applications I know of for Android have LinkedIn support, so the only way for me to broadcast to all my networks while mobile is via Ping.fm. Additionally, Ping.fm auto-posts my shared items from my Google Reader shared items feed to my default posting group, which is Twitter & Facebook.

So the solution I have cobbled together is Seesmic Web with a side of Ping.fm. So far, it's working fairly well. For my mobile application, I vacillate between Seesmic for Android, Tweetdeck for Android, and the official Twitter/Facebook apps in combination with Ping.fm. Seesmic's Android app is prettiest of the bunch so I want it to work for me, but it still isn't perfect. Louis Gray has a great rundown of his experience with the Seesmic for Android application if you want to know more about it. Also honorable mention for mobile Twitter apps is Tweetcaster by Handmark, for which the lead iOS is a very cool dude.

What do you use to interact with your social networks? Do you use a 3rd party application like Seesmic or Tweetdeck, background applications like Selective Tweets, or post to each network individual?

Share your thoughts in comments!