Mediaboss Marketing

November 28, 2012, 8:40 AM PST

Takeaway: Having the proper tools allows you to keep your business on top of social networking and keep you one step ahead of the competition.

Businesses cannot escape the fact that social networking has become a necessity. Not only to spread the word about your product or service, but for keeping your own finger on the pulse of the consumers in your market. Its free PR with serious payoff.

Heres the problem - the standard browser-based clients dont always offer all of the features you might want or need. From aggregation to easy photo posting, in order to make the most efficient use of your social networking efforts, you need clients that make the job easy. I have found five desktop social networking clients that are not only easy, but free too.

This blog post is also available as a TechRepublic Photo Gallery.

Sobees is an incredibly powerful tool that not only allows you to update your status across multiple account types (or multiple Twitter accounts), it also offers a powerful search tool, and even allows you to edit the layout of the client. The ability to assign different social networking accounts to different sections of your layout, makes Sobees really stand out. It can also be viewed in columns or in tabs. Finally, Sobees allows you to update all of your accounts in one go. Sobees is available for Windows only.

Tweetdeck is one of the most popular Twitter desktop clients available and theres a reason for that. Tweetdeck allows you to schedule tweets, manage multiple Twitter accounts, manage your facebook accounts, and get notified about new activity instantly. Tweetdeck also allows you to customize the interface and automatically shorten URLs. The client is available for Windows, Mac OS, and as a Chrome extension. Tweetdeck is free and is no longer based on Adobe Air.

Gwibber is a Linux-only desktop client that allows you to monitor and update Twitter, Facebook, Google, Identi.ca, Digg, and Flikr. What is unique about Gwibber is that it integrates seamlessly into the desktop notification system. Gwibber features URL shortening, theming, multi-column user interface, combined stream for all accounts, persistent message caching, a built-in search tool, and optional support for integrated spell checking.

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Five easy to use and free desktop social networking tools