Are you ready to kick your social media marketing into high gear this year? With more and more Americans turning to social networks to learn about products, services and a company’s values, it’s more important than ever for local businesses to use social channels for promotion.
Nearly two-thirds of American adults use social media, according to Pew Research. Between 2005 and 2015, social media use has jumped tenfold. Those numbers can’t be ignored.
However, creating content and posting it to multiple social accounts is time consuming; and time isn’t something many local business owners have.
To help, we’ve created a list of 9 time-saving tools that you should start using this year:
1. Buffer – Schedule, manage and analyze posts
Buffer is well-known all-in-one social media management tool. It’s popularity stems from its easy-to-use dashboard that houses all of your social accounts. You can schedule posts on any platform, and track the results of specific social media campaigns.
Price: Plans vary. Pricing tiers include free, $10, $99, $199, $399/month.
2. Everypost – Schedule and curate posts
If you’re looking for a social media management tool that includes a curation component, Everypost is the winner. Everypost gives you the ability to create and schedule your own posts, but it also suggests posts from other sources that are relevant to your audience. These curated posts are great for days when you’re a little light on original content.
Price: Plans vary. Pricing tiers include free, $9.99, $29.99, $49.99, $99.99/month.
3. Commun.it – schedule, manage and identify key audiences
If you rely heavily on Facebook and Twitter, Commun.it is a handy management tool to investigate. Like other management tools, you can schedule and analyze posts, but Commun.it also identities key audiences for you. It shows you who shares your content, suggests others to follow and encourages you to send messages to segments of your audience.
Price: Plans vary. Pricing tiers include: $19.99, $24.99, $34.99, $117.99/month.
4. Picktochart – infographic builder
Visuals can make or break your social success, with infographics leading the charge. Share complex data in a visual way by creating an infographic yourself through Piktochart. You don’t need design knowledge to use this tool, instead you’ll use pre-made templates. You can even share it to your social channels within Piktochart.
Price: Plans vary. Pricing tiers include free, $15, $29/month
5. Woobox – social contest tool
Interested in running a social media contest that looks sleek and professional? Use Woobox. You can host giveaways, offer coupons, create polls and quizzes, host photo contents and more. There are ready-made campaigns that you can start with and customize, and you can collect customer information like email addresses with Woobox too.
Price. Plans vary. Pricing tiers include $30, $200, $500/month.
6. Brandwatch – social listening tool
Understanding your customers is vital to market and sell your products. Rather than shell out a bunch of money for market research, why not get the ball rolling with Brandwatch? This social listening tool monitors the conversations on the web and tells you what people are saying about specific products or topics. You can even receive alerts when certain keywords are mentioned online. Brandwatch is a new breed of social media marketing tools used to listen social sentiment in the same way Google Trends aggregates search information.
Price: Prices aren’t available on the website, you have to speak with a representative to get a quote.
7. Buzzsumo – keyword tool
To make sure your content reaches its maximum audience, you should include keywords in your blog content and social posts. You can use BuzzSumo, a keyword tool, to help you hone-in on the words you should use. You can search for keywords by topic and filter the results based on categories like date or content type. It’s a great planning tool for businesses.
Price: Plans vary. A limited number of searches are free. Pricing tiers start at $99, $299, $699/month.
8. bitly – link shortener
Just about every social media post includes a link, but you don’t want a ridiculously long hyperlink to take away from your character count or muddy up the appearance of your posts, so shorten your links before you post them with bitly.
Some management tools have an automatic link shortener built in, so this tool is more for the do-it-yourselfer with one or two social accounts.
Price: Free
9. Lastpass – password manager
Tired of entering a different username and password into every social media account that you operate? Forget scribbling passwords on Post-Its, use Lastpass instead. Simply enter all of your login information into Lastpass and it will automatically enter your username and passwords as needed. It can even create stronger passwords for you to make sure your accounts are secure.
Price: Free
Wrap up
Using social media marketing tools to promote your product or service to an interested audience is an important component of modern marketing. That said, you can’t devote every minute to social media marketing, so use the tools above to zap the time spent in front of your accounts.
What social media tool do you use? Share your must-have tools in the comment section below.
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