Throughout 2011 we have been bringing you five new social media tools each week to show our love for you.

Now that December has arrived, we are bringing you the ‘best of the best’ as we countdown our picks for the top 20 of the year. Instead of giving you the top five today, we’ll start at the other end of the chart and bring you 20 through to 16.

Next week we’ll bring you 15 to 11 before unveiling the last two installments just before Christmas.

Are you ready to find out who rounds out our top 20? OK!!

The 20 most useful new social media tools of 2011 (Part one: 20 – 16)

20. SiteTrail.com – an easy (and free) way to track the performance of competitor websites.

19. Panabee.com – a domain name checker with a twist, helping you brainstorm new ideas based on URL availablity.

18. FBsearch.us – powered by the Facebook Open Graph API, FBsearch.us helps users search across posts, photos, people, pages, groups and events without the need to login or have a Facebook account.

17. Conversocial.com – helps brands manage customer service on a large scale across Twitter and Facebook.

16. Lubith.com – WordPress theme generation tool which is easy-to-use and will save you time (and money!)

15. Unilyzer.com – If you are responsible for measuring how well your social media channels are performing, then this is the analytics hub for you. Simply plug all of your details in (Twitter account, YouTube channel, Google analytics etc) and Unilyzer will give you all of your data on one screen. Check out the full list of product features here.

14. Quixey.com – This is a search engine for apps (Android, Mac, Chrome, Facebook, web and more) which takes the pain away from those endless searches for apps via general search engines. Bookmark this one!

13. GroupHigh.com – If you haven’t tried GroupHigh yet, the next sentence might encourage you to do so. Ready? GroupHigh.com is the best blogger outreach research and engagement tool on the planet. The latest update (version three) makes it even easier for you to discover the most relevant blogs by keyword, style and receptiveness. Brilliant.

12. PeopleBrowsr.com / Kred.ly – PeopleBrowsr is a social media analytics tool which includes 1,000 days of Twitter data at your disposal. Kred, from the same team, is an influence measurement tool that is provides a very transparent analysis of user activity. Both of these tool combined can make your life a helluva lot easier.

11. Knowem.com – This is primarily a social media username checking tool but is also a great place to start when identifying online communities relevant to a subject / topic. Simply visit the networks tab and scroll through the categories to discover new places to be active and / or monitor.

10. The PRINT social media performance analysis service from Sociagility – While this was only launched a month or so ago, its potential in helping brands and organisations make insight-led decisions about social media strategy is plain to see. Your PRINT score is a combination of your social media channel and attribute performance and is based upon data measured against your pre-defined competitor set. It’s a really useful enterprise tool.

9. SocialBakers.com – Another great analytics tool that has leaped into prominence in 2011 is SocialBakers.com. The site features every imaginable social media statistic you’ll ever need and is especially robust when it comes to geographic and demographic breakdowns for Facebook. Superb stuff.

8. Zooshia.com – One of the more quiet tools of 2011, Zooshia allows you to create your own widgets for blogs and websites. You can create a ‘Zoosh’ of your Facebook or Twitter feeds or from a combination of sources. Best of all, embedding the code after you’ve tailored your widget is incredibly easy. #Winning.

7. Pokki.com – Here’s another tool that you may not have heard about in 2011 but you probably should have. Pokki helps you create web apps for your desktop, giving you easy access to your favourite sites without having to open up a web browser. The Gmail desktop app is especially sweet.

6. Contax.io – You may have stumbled across MyTweeple in the past (a Twitter specific contact management system) but in 2011 it evolved into Contax.io and also added Facebook functionality, giving you a central place to manage your fans and followers. It really is a beautiful thing.

5. MyNewsDesk.com – This ‘news exchange’ startup out of Stockholm has become one of the most talked about social media tools of 2011 thanks to its robust analytics system and easy-to-use interface. Try it now if you haven’t already.

4. Wanderfly.com – This is a personalised recommendations engine that helps you discover new and exciting experiences based on your budget and interests. And, it integrates with Facebook to bring all of your social preferences together. This is a great example of niche recommendations portal and what Google+ is aiming to achieve on a wider scale. [See our one-year story on them here.]

3. YouTube.com/create – YouTube has been ramping up is creation tools in 2011 and the animation tools located at YouTube.com/create are a great example. GoAnimate is a great example allowing you to make animated videos in less than 10 minutes!

2. AppMakr.com – Talk about doing what it says on the tin! AppMakr helps you make free apps for the iPhone. Seriously cool.

1. BufferApp.com – It is now time to crown our most useful tool of 2011. BufferApp works by scheduling content you find online and adding into your Twitter or Facebook stream. It then publishes the tweets at regular intervals without flooding your followers. Pure genius.

from The Next Web December 02, 2011 at 09:26AM : http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2011/12/16/the-top-5-social-media-tools-of-2011/