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The top six social media tips to know before you leave the office.

The size and growth of social media can be imposing to those less familiar with how to use this space to both monitor and engage the online conversation. Luckily, there are members of this digital community who are constantly working on new tools to help everyone from individual bloggers to Fortune 100 companies better listen to, and learn from, the conversations taking place on numerous social media platforms.

At this year’s Blogworld and New Media Expo, many of these vendors shared their new or recently updated tools. In this week’s Six @ Six, we share a few of the products that we think have great potential for companies seeking to better engage in the online space.

1. Lijit.com

As companies begin using social media platforms such as Twitter, blogs, YouTube, and others, it becomes more difficult for customers to easily search for content across their various online profiles. Installing a simple Lijit.com search box enables your customers to search not only your corporate website, but also your official presences on social media channels. By providing a unified search, you can maximize your online content to show customers your company is actively engaged in the relevant discourse. The service also provides analytics that can be used to learn more about your customers and their interests.

2. Yubby.com

There are dozens of video sharing websites online today. Almost everyone has heard of YouTube, but are you also tracking Vimeo or DailyMotion? Online video – no matter where it is posted – can affect your reputation. Yubby.com aggregates videos from more than 30 online video sharing services. Use Yubby to privately monitor for new videos related to your keywords or build a public channel that you can use to collect positive mentions of your brand. The tool enables you to re-tag and rename videos so you can dictate what keywords are associated with your channel’s content for better search engine optimization. Best of all, your company doesn't have to worry about hosting more content or adding complicated code to its site. Yubby enables you to profit from what is already online by adding a simple widget to an existing website.

3. PeoplePond.com

This emerging service provides a paid verification service and SEO tool that allows for linking profiles across various social media platforms – such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter – and registering those profiles as the authentic voice of individuals and companies. Using this tool, your company can quickly establish a trusted online profile for brands and executives who may be in the public eye. Search engines are increasingly lending authority to PeoplePond.com, so organic search engine rankings for content registered on the site are on the rise.

4. Regator.com

Trying to find the right blogs to engage on specific topics is much like searching for a needle in a haystack. Enter Regator.com, a blog catalog that sorts and validates blogs on more than 500 topics. The site’s content editors have reviewed all of the blogs listed in their catalog and claim an 85 percent rejection rate. Use Regator to discover new and authoritative online voices discussing the issues most relevant to you. It’s a great place to identify the most important blogs to monitor and engage. Using the site’s iPhone application, you can receive updates from your favorite bloggers anywhere, any time. You can also register your blog and submit it to the site’s editors for inclusion in their directory.

5. Zemanta

More and more companies are adding their voices to the blogosphere. One of the most time consuming aspects of such online engagement is finding images, related third party commentary, and popular keywords for each blog post. Zemanta’s WordPress plug-in helps bloggers find the content they need by identifying related photos in the public domain, suggesting keywords found in posts by other Zemanta users, and listing links to authoritative sources and other related blogs. In addition, Zemanta provides exposure for your blog by adding your posts to its directory which is viewed by other plug-in users.

6. RedLasso.com

Even in the age of social media, what’s being said by traditional media sources is important to share with your online audiences. The most significant barrier to sharing this content on your corporate site or blog has long been redistribution rights. RedLasso has done the work of getting permission for you. Add content from RedLasso.com to your site or blog with confidence that you won’t be asked to pull it down later because of copyright violations. Currently, the site’s relationships are primarily with local affiliates in both large and small markets, but they are regularly adding new stations and networks.

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Patrick Kerley is a member of the Social and Digital Media team at Levick Strategic Communications, the nation's top crisis communications firm, and a guest author on BulletproofBlog. Connect with him on Twitter: @pjkerley.