A friend of mine recently started testing two social media tools, Seesmic and Path. Here is what he discovered:
I would recommend Seesmic. It currently is free only because it is in beta. It will be a pay service when it comes out of beta.
Pros:
-Can post to multiple social media outlets at once (and can easily switch your mix in-message)
-Can handle multiple iterations of the same social media platform (your can connect as many twitter, etc. accounts as you want)
-Can schedule post and reliably deliver at the scheduled time
-Adjusts the “Characters remaining” indicator according to the max of the minimum social media platform (i.e. it shows 5000 char remaining if just facebook and 140 if twitter is in the mix.)
-handles photos, links, and tags accurately and intelligently
-interface is simple, efficient, and aesthetically pleasing; good UX
-has a “save drafts” queue
Cons:
-Only posts to facebook, twitter, and linkedin
-their icon/badge (especially on facebook) looks stupid and will be on your messages viewed on the web
-the cost of service is unknown
-there isn’t a “pending posts” for posts that have been future dates
-setttings management is somewhat limited on the iphone app – some things have to be done on web
-links aren’t auto-shortened (may be too long)
As an alternative, there is Path. Compared to Seesmic, Path’s advantages are:
-free
-can post to tumblr and foursquare also (but not linkedin)
-can be used as one-stop social media manager and public-or-private quantified self tool
-added functionality to tag with people, places, music
As an alternative to Seesmic, Path’s disadvantages are:
-can’t schedule posts
-no characters remaining gauge
-no “saved drafts” page
-can only establish one profile per social media platform (1 facebook, 1 twitter)
-difficult to add new profile once you have it set up
