The social media tool you decide on depends on your businesses resources and target audience. The three main social networks that social media experts will recommend are Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Facebook and Twitter currently are the two most popular social networks right now, and it is highly likely are your target audience is actively engaging on these social sites.

Facebook provides Facebook pages for businesses to help companies build a loyal and engaged following, and Twitter will soon offer brand pages for businesses.

If you are new to social media, LinkedIn is fantastic for its networking opportunities (to build solid relationships with other businesses and professionals, as well as grow your customer base) and to seek out helpful information from others who are more established.

This is particularly effective for B2B businesses. Many social media tools will aid you in Facebook management and Twitter management. It is always perfect has your company blog.

This enables you to build your industry expertise without any limitations that the social network sites present. Blogs will help you in many ways including helping build brand awareness and familiarity to offering you SEO benefits (this means it will help you rank more highly in the major search engines for related keywords). The gaining of the YouTube subscribers is essential for the business person as it will increase the sale. The use of the right tools and management is important. For further information, a link is provided and the interested person can check it out.

Always include an RSS feed and mailing list so readers can automatically have notifications emailed to them when you write a new article. Some social media tools include:

• Social Networking Facebook management and microblogging Twitter management tools such as HootSuite, SocialMotus, and Tweetdeck

• Blogs such as Tumblr and Blogspot

• RSS such as Feedburner and Feedage

• Photo Sharing tools such as Flickr and Photobucket

• Social News and Bookmarking such as DIGG and Reddit

• Video Sharing such as YoutTube and Vimeo

• Wikis such as Wiki docs

Social media management also involves social media monitoring, that is, monitoring what users are saying about your business. Most also allow you to automate content to different social media sites simultaneously, allowing you to broadcast content across the internet easily.

With the constantly evolving needs of social consumers, it can be an incredibly difficult challenge for business to convert their followers and fans into customers and advocates, but remember when you get Social CRM right, the results are incredibly rewarding.

Whether your company decides to use social media actively, it is highly likely your target audience is already on popular social media sites discussing your business and products.

For this reason, it is imperative to monitor and engage with your target audience to capitalize on positive comments (and move interested potential customers into customers or encourage existing users to re-purchase), as well as negate any negative comments publicly made about your brand! So that my friends, answers your question what are social media tools. There are great Facebook management and Twitter management tools out there so always keep your eye out for new tools coming into the market.