You still tweet using Twitter? You still Facebook on Facebook? How embarrassing.

Chin up; the Business Record just recently began utilizing one of the many emerging third-party applications that can help you manage multiple social media accounts more efficiently.

The applications – Hootsuite, Seesmic and Tweetdeck, to name a few – essentially allow users with several social media accounts to monitor, respond and message all of them from one location.

But don’t worry, tweeting from Twitter isn’t that bad a faux pas in Des Moines business – it’s just inefficient.

“I think these tools still aren’t being used by everyone,” said Jarad Bernstein, senior analyst of social media consulting firm Catchfire Media. “You take these tools away, and you look at Twitter for example, and there is not a whole lot there. It is this great platform, it is an open platform, but it is not very efficient.”

Ryan Hanser, senior vice president at Hanser & Associates, said that according to the Business Record/Hanser & Associates Social Media 2010 Survey, 72 percent of local businesses are using social media. Yet, only 8 percent said they were using a monitoring tool.

Bernstein said one of the biggest concerns potential clients have is that engaging in social media is going to take a lot of time.

“Well, it doesn’t have to,” he said. “If you are using Twitter.com to tweet, it doesn’t take so much time to tweet, but you can’t schedule things out; you are not going to be able to efficiently use the feed capabilities.”

Businesses still have many questions about using social media, and Bernstein said the emerging trend of companies putting out management applications is a response to those questions.

“What are we going to do? How do we engage? How do we communicate with our target audience? How are we going to listen? How are we going to make money?” Bernstein said. “These are really important questions that some of these tools are actually starting to try to answer.”

Hootsuite just recently added a variety of collaboration tools that could help save the valuable time often lost as members in a business scuttle about trying to determine who will respond to messages or post their own. Hootsuite now allows an account to assign an owner, who can then invite other coworkers to become team members. This allows the whole team to work in tandem using one account.

Hootsuite is far from alone in this area. Multiple applications are continuing to try to find the best way to bundle all the potential features.

“From our perspective, it’s like everyone has been clamoring for these tools,” Bernstein said. “It’s like this has got to happen. We know it’s possible. It’s just a matter of these companies saying OK, we figured out how to do it and here you go.”

Here are some of the ways using a third-party applications can help you be more efficient. The tools have different drawbacks and advantages, but knowing the ways you can be more efficient will make it easier for your business to identify which application might best suit your needs.

Manage and monitor:

Most of the application options have made it possible, as previously discussed, to monitor and manage multiple primary accounts. Using these tools can allow a user, instead of checking several Twitter accounts, Facebook and a blog, to go to one place.

Nathan Wright, founder of social media consulting firm LavaRow, said he has found that he can more easily monitor searches for mentions of brands or topics on Twitter. Instead of doing a search for a certain topic, @socialmedia for example, he can use Tweetdeck or Hootsuite to set up a column that constantly follows any mentions of @socialmedia.

“I have five columns up right now where I am watching mentions of myself, my business, my clients and my direct message inbox,” he said. “It is just all right there.”

This can be especially helpful for businesses that want to see what is being said about their brands or products.

Scheduling:

Some of the tools actually allow you to schedule out postings to different social platforms. This can be particularly helpful for a business that wants to reach an audience during non-traditional business hours. It can also eliminate the need to continually log in to make a new post because users can schedule multiple posts for different times of the day. Careful, though; don’t become a robot.

Assigning tasks:

Some of the non-free tools offer the ability for the account owner to assign a task to a team member. So, for example, if a customer tweets about a specific product your business offers, the owner can assign another team member who is more equipped to handle a response to respond back.

“It is kind of important when you are working in that larger office environment, especially with a larger client where there is a ton of stuff to manage,” Bernstein said.

Hootsuite has said it will soon add the capability to assign team members tasks.

Multiple postings:

As the tools evolve to make it easier for multiple people to post and schedule posts, it becomes important to make sure your business isn’t overlapping or sending out the same message.

“(For a business with) people in multiple locations that have access to the account, it is critical that you have this kind of access,” Bernstein said. “Otherwise one person could be scheduling something for 4:30 p.m. today, but the other guy doesn’t realize it and just goes in at 4:30 p.m. and also sends something out.”

Beyond annoying your followers and wasting time and effort, it could even affect credibility, according to Wright. He said one way to avoid the problem is to have a plan as to who is responsible for what and to document responses.

“If no one is sharing that information, you are going to have a duplication of efforts,” he said.

Response consideration:

Wright and Hanser both stressed that because the tools allow for better monitoring, it can become tempting to respond to every mention of your business.

“Not everything is on fire,” Hanser said. “But you are going to catch it all and then you can scale your response appropriately.”

Wright thinks businesses can train themselves to be more efficient in determining whom to respond to.

“Are they important? What is their reach? Is it a controversial issue?” Wright said. “You don’t need to be responding to everything. I think a lot of people get tricked into that, that they need to respond to every single mention or case out there.”

The tools give you the capability to more easily monitor and make those decisions.

Seeing Results:

Some of the non-free tools – Radian6 for example – have extremely robust monitoring functions that are getting better at actually showing a link between social media efforts and traditional responses. Bernstein said Catchfire Media pushes its clients to set up an editorial calendar so they can better track responses from their messaging. This way some of the tools can actually visualize traditional responses such as website visitors or even products that are purchased.

“What if you are a retailer that targets people that are in high school?” Bernstein said. “When are you going to send out your messaging? Should you send it out at 10 a.m. or at 3:30 p.m., when they get out of school?”

Knowing where you stand can help your business be more efficient in its efforts to use social media to address a problem – that’s the benefit of the more expensive monitoring tools.