The seven most useful new social media tools of 2011 (so far)

It's almost June which means crowning the year's biggest and best social media tools is a little more acceptable than it would have been in January!

The following new tools are truly the cream of the crop, allowing you to save time and money in the creation and delivery of digital content.

And, once you have given these a go, share your experiences with us in the comments section at the end.

Ready?

7/11 - Useful Tools Special

1. AppMakr.com - A free 'drag and drop' tool to create your own mobile apps on iPhone, Windows and Android. This is a game changer and might signal the full arrival of mass mobile media.
2. IconSeeker.com - Social media icons come in all shapes and sizes but finding the ones to suit your site can sometimes be a challenge. IconSeeker solves this problem in a simple and clean way. Nice.
3. Panabee.com - This allows you to search for available web domains by desired address or via associated keywords - so, so handy!
4. Quixey.com - This delivers a 'Google for apps' search engine, narrowing your search results down by mobile, web and social network app solutions.
5. Vanity URLs - This neat tool helps you check out the availability of Facebook URLs in a matter of seconds. Lovely.
6. Bufferapp.com - The increasingly popular Bufferapp tool makes the process of sharing great content on Twitter really simple by automatically queuing up your tweets for distribution in your behalf.
7. PeerIndex.net - When used properly (i.e. when trying to get an initial feel of key conversation drivers in a particular field) PeerIndex is a pretty handy tool that is worth having in your toolkit.

Are there any others you'd add to that list?

A client disclosure grading system for Twitter

There was an interesting discussion doing the rounds on Twitter yesterday sparked by Arik Hanson about client disclosure.

A few people got involved, including the PRSA's Keith Trivitt and one of the issues that came up was the complexity associated with disclosure.

For example, one of our clients is Coca-Cola, Europe.

Now, when we are actively doing work for that particular client I will stringently disclose my association with the brand and any associated activity by using a "(cl)" in tweets, status updates etc.

But, Coca-Cola is one of the biggest brands in the world.

When someone at the Coca-Cola HQ in Atlanta puts a story our about how they intend to use mobile more in 2013 that is interesting to me as an observer.

Let's say I want to tweet that out and share it with my community, do I disclose my affiliation with the brand?

To be on the safe side, I probably would, but I am no more connected to that piece of news than anyone else.

There are a bunch of other examples where affiliations with brands aren't an simple as a "(cl)" disclosure statement.

I also feel a bit uncomfortable about attaching a (cl) to a tweet about a project that has been activated by someone else, especially if that project is something really clever or amazing - does my (cl) inadvertently imply I had something to do with that idea? This brings up another ethical debate.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, here's a system I'm going to trial over the next few weeks and thought others might want to consider it too.

The client disclosure grading system

(CL1) aka Client Level 1 - I'm going to use this when I or the agency I work with has a direct involvement in the client subject matter being communicated e.g. active projects that I / we are working on

(CL2) aka Client Level 2 - I'm going to use this one when a client affiliated with us is actively promoting something but our involvement is minimal e.g. a new product launch but one we aren't directly involved in publicising

(CL3) aka Client Level 3 - I'm going to use this one in the example I gave earlier where I brand I / we might be affiliated with has done something cool or interesting that I've discovered without any 'inside knowledge' or agenda. In other words, a 'related' client mention.

I have no idea how perfect / imperfect this will be until I test it out.

It would be hugely beneficial if you could share your feedback with me and the people who visit this blog via the comments section below.

And, feel free to test this system out too - it might trigger some ideas for something we can all adopt down the road.

Adam