Joe Pulizzi is the Founder of Z Squared Media, a content marketing firm specializing in best practices, strategy, and execution planning. Joe’s blog, the Junta42 blog: Content Marketing Revolution, is recognized as one of the leading blogs on business content creation, marketing and distribution. Joe currently serves as a board member of the Custom Publishing Council and was voted as the “Custom Media Innovator of the Year” by American Business Media. Joe is also co-author of the book “Get Content. Get Customers”. You can follow Joe on Twitter or Linkedin. Read the full story

Gemma Went is the Director of Red Cube Marketing, a communications agency integrating Marketing, PR and Social Media. With 10 years experience in Marketing and PR, Gemma is working collaboratively with businesses, large and small, to ensure their communications activities help them to achieve their business objectives, engage with their communities and build brand awareness. You can follow Gemma on Twitter or Linkedin.

G: How and why did you get into social media business?

G: I’ve been in the comms game for over 10 years. I started my career in-house, heading up the Marketing and PR at a number of businesses within the creative sector (an industry I simply love) and later as a consultant. My grand plans to set up Red Cube started in the summer of 2008, originally as traditional comms agency. That plan soon changed as I became immersed in social media. By the time I launched in January 2009, I had started to integrate social media into my offering. Being a bit of a social animal at heart, it seemed a natural extension to me, plus the opportunities it offered my clients excited me, particularly SME’s who get the chance to level the playing field. The transparency and ‘realness’ of social media appealed to me greatly, it works perfectly with my own values and Red Cube’s ‘no fluff, no jargon, just common sense’ focus

G: What is it like to be a real Social Media Citizen?

G: Well, being social is as easy as being ‘me’. However keeping up with social media as part of a daily routine can be tricky to manoeuvre when client work takes over. I start the day by browsing Google Reader, digesting posts that keep me abreast of news and developments. When I find great content, I schedule it to be published on Twitter throughout the day through Hootsuite. My primary goal for social media is to help people, so this content tends to be around Brand, Marketing, PR and of course, Social Media.

I tend to check in on Twitter throughout the day, responding to people, answering questions and retweeting anything I find interesting. I also pop in to LinkedIn and Facebook once or twice a day and engage there. As I run a blog, The Cube, I regularly work on my editorial calendar (which usually runs two months in advance) and know what posts I’ll be writing and publishing that week. I tend to publish 2 per week and book in 3 to 4 hours once a week to write and edit those and any other guest blogs I may be doing. Doing it this way is the only way to keep me consistent (otherwise I’ll just forget).

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There are as many social media tools as there are posts about these tools. At the beginning of this boom I’ve published my own version of tool kit which had over 20, 000 views and  over 400 RT’s and to be honest wasn’t really worth that kind of attention, but today I wanted to share with you a special list which may not surprise you, but  validate your choice of the tools. It is a list of tools which has been used by top social media people generated from the interview series with Top Social Media Citizens.

Free tools:

• Tweedeck
• HootSuite
• Seesmic Desktop
• Google Alerts
• Google Reader
• Alltop
• Techmeme
• Addictomatic
• BoardReader
• YackTrack
• Topsy
• BackType
• Technorati
• Social Mention
• Posterous
• Delicious
• SurveyGizmo
• Wibiya
• Google Analytics
• Compete
• PostRank

Free-to-try tools:

• Hubspot’s Twitter & Web Grader
• Raven
• SM2 Alterian
• Flowtown
• Spredfast
• MailChimp
• Pitchengine

Paid-for tools:

• Radian6
• Synthesio
• Sysomos
• JitterJam
• Networked Insights
• Trackur
• Wildfireapp
• GoToMeeting
• BrainShark