It’s hard to deny that the advent of social media has forced an evolution in PR. Some in the field see this as a natural and inevitable evolution for the industry – and so, as a PR pro it is important to know how to integrate social media strategies and manage online community activities.

Last month, we blogged about an informative Cision-hosted webinar on “community management” and we wanted to dig a little deeper into some of the useful and cost effective tools mentioned during the session that are designed to help you manage, monitor and analyze your social media presence.

If Twitter is your go-to social media tool, Topsy, a Twitter-certified partner, is a real time search engine that allows you to search, set alerts and analyze tweets posted on the microblogging site in order to more effectively track user sentiment and identify influencers on issues or subjects of interest. This is a free tool.  Youcan also use the tool to measure the effectiveness of Twitter ad campaigns. Apple acquired the company in December 2013.

For Google+ enthusiasts, Circloscope and SteadyDemand are tools worth checking out. Circloscope is a free tool that allows you manage and expand your Google+ circles. SteadyDemand provides a broader audit of how your Google+ activities appear in Google searches. While this isn’t a free service, the tools allows you to jump-start your Google+ brand.