In the last few weeks I’ve had several partners, property managers, colleagues, and friends ask me for recommendations for (internet) tools that I use to make life easier. Here are some of my answers:

Resources to check out:

“How do you find time to twitter? and how do you get it on facebook?”
For the twitters out there that have mobile phones it’s time to download TwitterBerry (http://www.orangatame.com/products/twitterberry/). It’s also worth downloading twirl for your desktop. It saves time, energy, and organizes your twitter life quite nicely. Regarding getting your tweets on Facebook, just download the Twitter App (on facebook) and enter your ID and PW. Pretty simple http://apps.facebook.com/twitter/. Of course, if you don’t tweet then you probably don’t care. If you’re wondering what Twitter is then check out my profile on the site http://twitter.com/McFads.

“Any secrets in writing blogs?”
In terms of content, that’s up to you. As far as writing/posting blogs, download ScribeFire (for firefox) and I quote ‘post to your blog without ever leaving Firefox.’ Warning: you might start blogging too much because it’s that easy! Please note I’m writing this blog from the ScribeFire tool.

“How do I know about my SEO?”
There are many tools out there to check out your SEO. I’m a big fan of SEO Quake (also for Firefox). It embeds a toolbar in your browser that displays critical information about every site you view. It was developed for webmasters but I think everyone that has a business presence online should have it. SEO Quake “allows user to obtain and investigate many important parameters of the internet project.”

There are also several good articles and resources available at SEO Tools (http://tools.seobook.com/).

Lastly, if you don’t know who Matt Cutts is then you’re missing the boat. Just check out his posts on SEO/Google (http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/type/googleseo/)

“What Social Networking sites should I be on?”
First, it depends what you want to do on these sites. If you just want to maintain friendships then I’d highly recommend Facebook. If you’re looking to attract, interact, and impact existing and future clients then you need to create a profile on LinkedIn (click to see mine) and a company page on Facebook. Just the other day I received an inquiry for a vacation home in Santa Barbara through Facebook. One of our partners, Palm Springs Rental Agency, booked a home through Facebook too. You can check out their FB group.

Now depending on your target and vertical there are several other social networks that you should join. For example, if you’re targeting boomers make sure to get on Eons. Just google your target and add “social network” to the end and see what comes up. As a test I googled “moms social network” and I got back a list of the top ten according to nofullstop. Check out the results here: http://www.nofullstop.com/2007/09/17/10-everpink-only-for-moms-social-networking-websites/

Please leave a comment with tools that you often use…