The following are 5 tips that internet marketers and web professionals in general should use in Social Media Management.
Use Social Media Management software (e.g Seesmic)
There are a number of software that allow a person to control multiple social media site accounts primarily multiple accounts in Facebook and Twitter. A good example of such software is Seesmic.
Use social bookmarking websites (e.g FriendFeed)
Websites such as FriendFeed allow a person to automatically update multiple accounts on Facebook and Twitter, amongst others, via feeds. All you have to do is have an account and then post one update that is automatically posted to all the other sites in your list. FriendFeed
Use Analytics
Many social media websites and through a number a tools provide analytics. You can then use these analytics to draw up reports and look at trends or even use such data to determine which social media websites are more important (in terms of traffic) and thus focus on such sites.
You can also use analytics to determine which websites are used more by your competitors you can then focus more on these sites
Interact and Communicate
Don't simply setup profiles or pages on social media sites interact with users in such places. Post updates or even post a casual statement, a joke or an anecdote. You can even make general comments on anything. Answer questions that users may post and always be curteous.
Some paid services
A good paid service (with a free option) is SocialOomph it's best features are the ability to set up scheduled updates (send a post at a later date) and even setup auto responses for a number of social media sites.
And this pretty much includes some 5 tips for effective social media management.