What is the best platform for managing various social media networks?

I can make a couple suggestions regarding what is popular in the market right now:

1) ArgyleSocial.com (huge disclosure, I am a co-founder of ArgyleSocial) - We built this tool to help people to manage their social media identities across multiple platforms. Right now we support multiple accounts on twitter and facebook, along with the ability to schedule posts and share log ins without giving out passwords.

A large part of what makes Argyle powerful is that analytics are baked into it, allowing you to understand and improve the effectiveness of your social media efforts and see how it impacts your revenue.

2) TweetDeck - This is very common and works well with facebook and twitter. It's not a web client, but that has it's pros and cons. TweetDeck supports twitter, facebook, LinkedIn and a number of other networks in beta. TweetDeck doesn't provide anything really by way of analytics. Seesmic is very similar to TweetDeck but it has a web and desktop client - all the other solutions listed here are web based.

3) HootSuite - You already mentioned it, but it bears repeating because it is used by so many people. Hootsuite does support a number of different networks and has some simple analytics available.

4) Postling - This is a great service that allows you to manage the conversation across twitter, facebook, & blog. This is more about publishing and managing responses than it is about feeds or analytics.

Check out sproutsocial.com - the founder/CEO (Justyn Howard) has posted on here before as well. Its super slick UI. I have been using it and I really like it.

I'm thinking of moving to twaitter.com, but Seesmic works pretty good right now.

This is a great question! I am happy to know I don't have to manage all of this myself. I have a website that will be launching very soon, and I was most concerned with the social networking aspect since that is where the majority of my traffic will come from. It is strictly an information only site right now, but in the future, I will be offering a service.

I would like to know, however, if anyone has experience with both HootSuite and SproutSocial in order to tell me which one is better (in your opinion). I need the heaviest emphasis on marketing, but I still need analytics/stats. I saw that HootSuite can be accessed via iPhone app, but I did not see anywhere on the non-member accessible pages of SproutSocial where this was a feature. Not sure how often I would use it, but I like the option.

Also, HootSuite looks like it feeds more social networks than SproutSocial. Is that a correct perception?

I really like CoTweet, although it's Twitter-only right now. I'd stick with something that seems like it has reasonable funding and momentum - I've been burned too many times by bootstrapped tools that disappear in the middle of me using them.

I have been online for nearly 20 years, and deeply involved in Social Media since its inception, so it is hard for me to get excited about any variation on Social Media software. However, in this instance I was blown completely away. The software is called "Objective Marketer," and it is the first truly "one-stop-shop" for Social Media. Perhaps all that needs to be said is that it is the software that Guy Kawasaki (one of the most recognized thought leaders in this discipline) uses to manage his Social Media exposure. Visit the Objective Marketer website and search for the speech by Kawasaki and you will be very impressed.

Michael R. H. Stewart, President Jericho Technology, Inc.

We have found TweetAdder to be helpful for Twitter marketing and administration.