Get started right with these online starter tools…

Special thanks goes out to Joe Pulizzi of Junta42 Blog for this list of Social media starter tools. Check it out at his blog .

I’ve put the full list below…

The Basics

• LinkedIn – Start the practice of connecting with every business card you receive from contacts.
• Facebook – Consider a “Facebook Movement” – creating a topic or trend in Facebook outside of your personal or brand fan pages.
• Twitter – A staple for all of us. Here’s a must read basics of Twitter article.
• Google Profile – This is a Gold rush here.  Secure and verify your personal name (i.e., Joe Pulizzi – Content Marketing Expert), before someone else gets it.
• Plaxo – organizes business contacts via the web.

Conversations and Listening

• LinkedIn Answers – Listen and answer.
• LinkedIn Groups – Find groups that make sense for your business.
• Yahoo! Answers – Listen and answer questions. Position yourself as the expert.
• Google Alerts – Get updates on who’s talking about you, your industry, your customers.
• Google Groups – Find the group relevant to your job and get active.
• Alltop – The digital magazine rack. Find the alltop for your industry – here’s content marketing.
• Google Reader – Organize RSS feeds from media sites and blogs.
• Backtype – Follow and share comments on the web.
• Ning – Create your own social networking site.

Twitter Management

• Tweetdeck – The ultimate Twitter management system.
• Hootsuite – Manage multiple twitter accounts from one dashboard.
• Twitterfeed – Set your RSS feeds to post automatically on Twitter.
• Twitter Search – Find anything on Twitter real-time. For tagging, use the # (hash) tag (#magsu event)
• Tweetmeme – Find what’s hot on Twitter.
• Twilert – Twitter search alerts via email.
• Yammer – It’s Twitter for inside the company walls
• Tagalus – Directory of Twitter hash tags
• MyTweeple – Manage tweets and followers. Especially good for managing multiple profiles
• Twitter Facebook App – Updates Facebook via Twitter
• Selective Twitter Facebook App – Updates Facebook only when you use #fb
• Seesmic – Managing with multiple accounts

Content Sharing

• delicious – Share your content through bookmarking. Great way to share with teams
• Slideshare – Upload your PowerPoint presentations for all to see.
• YouTube – The #1 video sharing site.
• Vimeo – an alternative to YouTube
• Tubemogul – Distribute your video to them and they’ll spread it to other video sharing sites for you.
• StumbleUpon – Randomly generates content for users by interest area.
• Digg.com – Content sharing site (great for tech and news).
• Marketwire/PRWeb – Distribute your content using social media online news releases.
• Google Custom Search – Set up your own niche search engine on your site or blog.
• Scribd – Share original writings with others
• Squidoo – Set up your own targeted vertical content lens

Blogging/CMS Tools

• WordPress – My recommendation for a blog CMS platform.  Our custompublishers.com blog uses WordPress. I also recommend using this CMS for any small-business website
• TypePad – Set up and blog in just a few minutes. This blog uses TypePad
• Joomla – Another option for blogging/CMS platform.
• Technorati – Blog directory.  Find the blogs in your industry so that you know which ones to listen to.
• IceRocket – Search for blogs and blog posts by category. IceRocket’s Trend Tool will tell you how “hot” your keyword is.
• Google Blog Search - First rate blog search tool.
• Tumblr – Post anything quickly and easily.
• Zemanta – Great for adding additional content and links
• Posterous - Post to a blog by sending an email
• Tipjoy – Simple social media payments

Measurement

• Google Analytics – I recommend using Google Analytics even if you have a paid analytics service
• Hubspot – I’m a customer. I use Hubspot to track the performance of my keywords and competitors’ keywords
• Compete.com – Excellent comparison tool for web analytics-type information.
• Quantcast – Provides good overview of analytics and site demographics
• Woopra – Analytics on steroids

Operations

• Google Apps – Runs all email and calendar functions through one place.
• Google Docs – Share Word documents, spreadsheets and presentations via secure invitations. Great for editing a document with multiple people involved.
• Microsoft Live Workspace – Like Google Docs but with Microsoft. 5GB free space
• Teamwork Project Manager – Easy-to-use project management tool.
• BaseCamp – An alternative to Teamwork Project Manager. Also very easy to use.
• aMember – Handles paid memberships for websites
• Junta42 Match – Finds expert providers for web content projects.
• Freemind – Open source mind-mapping software.
• Mindmanager – One of the best mapping software programs around
• Mindmeister.com – It’s like Google Docs for mindmapping
• Box.net – Save everyday work files…access from anywhere
• ExpertMagnet.com – Free service to find professional service providers.

Other Cool Online Tools

• Blinkplan – Creating flatplans for magazines
• Jing- To create screenshots for clients when something needs to be explained
• Gimp - Quickly edit images from Flickr
• VisualCV – Online social media resume

Go to Joe Pulizzi’s blog if you want to add anything to the list.