Social media tools that make life easier

In today's fast moving, information-rich world it's difficult to keep up with everything, particularly social media, where it's so easy to get drawn in and lose an hour or two or more.
Whilst I don't advocate being a 'broadcast only' user of social media, I do think that some of the tools that allow you to stay visible are really useful.  These are some of the tools that I've found helpful.

Hootsuite. com - this is a social media management tools and even their free account allows you to post to any combination of your social media accounts, including Twitter, Facebook, your Facebook Page, Linked In, Mixi, FourSquare, WordPress and MySpace.  You can choose five of these to post to - more if you pay for the Pro account (which is only about $6 a month).

Hootsuite also allows you to schedule posts so you can put in a whole batch at one time to save you having to remember to keep going back and posting.  This is great for tips, advice, hints and PR, but doesn't replace a regular session actually interacting with your friends and followers.

You can set up searches for your keywords so you can stay up-to-date with the buzz on your specialist subject.

Tweetdeck.com - this is a very similar tool and fulfils the same purpose, but will only post to Twitter and Facebook.

Onlywire.com - this is an online 'one-stop' posting platform.  If you have many social media accounts it allows you to post to all of them at once.

There were 40+ different platforms available at the last count and it not only allows you to schedule in advance, but also has an automated system for flagging up when a Captcha entry is needed for a small additional fee.  There are various levels of account for both single and multiple users starting at $10 per month for up to 1000 submissions.

Seesmic.com - this is a collaboration between Seesmic and Ping providing three levels of account.  The free one allows you to post 10 posts per day to 3 different social media platforms.  The next level offers 50 posts a day to up to 10 platforms for $4.99 per month and the top level is unlimited posts to unlimited platforms, but costs $49.99 a month.

These are really useful tools - providing you are willing to spend the time setting up your systems and using them properly.