Social Media Tools

There are many tools available for both the computer and our smart devices.  The reason that many companies have emerged and developed these tools is to help make our social media life easier, especially with the many social media platforms that are available for us today.  I decided to do a little research and found an interesting article on the Top 50 Social Media tools available.  Along with that article plus other supporting resources, I am going to provide an overview of tools that I deemed most useful and give a brief comparison.

The first tool that I am going to look at is HootSuite.  This is an awesome social media management tool that helps social media users communicate across the board to all their social media accounts.  I like this tool mainly because it provides me with audience identification tools and reports.  I personally use this tool to manage my twitter, Facebook and Linkedin accounts.  The great thing about it is that it is free.

Alternatively to HootSuite, is a paid tool that users can get called MarketMe Suite.  This is a tool that is very similar to HootSuite because you can manage all your social media accounts within one application, but this tool also provides geo-targeting and scheduled updates.   I like the scheduled update feature, because if you’re a business owner and you want to update your entire social media accounts at a certain time regarding a sale or special – you can schedule that update and have it done while you are working on something else.  The only thing about this tool is that it is not free; you do have to pay for it.  If you can afford it, I deemed MarketMe Suite more useful, especially if you’re a business owner – but if you’re just a crazy social media user than you could get away with HootSuite.

Although I compared two tools, please be aware that there are many tools out there.  I decided to compare these two tools because of the type of business that I am associate with.  I have a need to a management tool that will allow me to update all my social media accounts within one dashboard.  I currently use HootSuite for that, but when I am able to afford to use MarketMe Suite, believe me, I will be using that tool.  I would love to hear about the tools that you use for your social media platforms, especially from you internet marketers out there.  Let’s learn from each other and teach each other.

The ugly cost of obesity…

According to a recent an article released by the CNN Health. The direct and indirect cost of obesity “is as high as $147 billion – YES BILLION a year to deal with obesity, suggesting that obesity has become an epidemic affecting not only the adult population, but about 1/3 of the children in the nation.According to an article that was written by the Associate Press, the New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli says that expenditures, for their state, are caused by 1.4 million overweight and obese children which account for $327 million spent in 2011. The costs rise significantly as they get older.  Dinapoli said the responsibility of combating obesity falls on the parents, schools, and community groups. Government officials agree that they must help to address this rather costly problem to avoid future costs. BUT HOW ?

According to the 2011 estimate over $4.3 billion has been spent on obesity related treatment that include conditions such as diabetes, and heart disease according to the data private health insurers and Medicare paid an estimated $7.5 billion.