Guest Blogger, Lina Poka: “Lina built a very successful marketing career in Toronto, Canada before moving to Edinburgh and holds a BBA & an MBA from the prestigious Schulich School of Business at York University in Toronto, Canada; and for the past six years Lina has run her own marketing consulting company. Lina’s career has enabled her to manage teams of up to 50 people, build numerous websites and apps with millions of visitors & downloads, work on a project for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, broker deals with huge American & Canadian retailers and receive numerous international marketing awards.”
For many small companies utilising social media to advertise their products and services is an easy and inexpensive way to communicate with clients. When you are starting out in social media or as you try to grow your following and interactions you might be confused with the myriad of social media management tools on the marketplace.
It may be a seem intimidating and challenging to pinpoint the right social media management tools to use, which is why we have created this guide with some digital skills training, teaching you some of our favourite social media management tools we enjoy using.
Finding the right social media management tools is like having a personal assistant that is with you at all times and can help you organise your communications simply and effectively.
Here are our favourite 10 Social Media Management Tools in no particular order:
Buffer
Buffer is one of my favourite social media management tools, and I have been using it for many years. I find that it is easy and simple to use; you schedule your posts as you see fit and they are shared at the time you set them up.
SocialBee
SocialBee is another personal favourite social media management tool. It is straightforward to use, it helps you with engagement on your social media platforms, and you can easily put your content into categories. Further, SocialBee helps you by providing curated content. It is important to highlight that SocialBee offers a free trial and they set up a call to discuss your needs and explain how best to use it to reach your goals.
HootSuite
HootSuite is another great tool and personal favourite that I have been using for many years as well. HootSuite makes it easy to schedule posts and add multiple accounts and users. Moreover, HootSuite offers good training not only on how to use their platform but also on how to best to navigate and utilise different social media platforms as a whole.
Hubspot
Hubspot is a great tool because it helps with publishing, monitoring, and reporting on which channels and posts are the most successful in driving leads and sales.
TweetDeck
TweetDeck’s multi-column layout makes it a great social media management tool to share and follow many conversations on Twitter simultaneously. Moreover, TweetDeck is available free of charge.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a great tool that can guide you on the best type of content to create and share. By examining your Google Analytics you can easily and quickly access which content drives the most traffic and sales, so you can focus your time and energy on creating content that best helps you achieve your goals.
Content Calendar
Creating a content calendar on a monthly basis helps you prepare for holidays, announcements, and special promotions and events. You can strategically prepare the content in advance, and you won’t have to worry on a daily basis about what to post. Using a Google Sheet or a Google Doc can help you to easily and quickly plan your content calendar in advance, and share with other people on your team.
Iconosquare
Iconosquare is a great tool for those using Instagram. You can easily monitor and share content and Iconosquare offers in-depth analytics as well.
SocialFlow
SocialFlow analyses the behaviour of your social media followers and then optimises the content so that it is posted at the best time to increase interactions, expand engagement and maximise revenue.
Raven
I like Raven because it gathers information from your social media channels, pay-per-click (PPC) and Search Optimization campaigns (SEO). Further, Raven combines all the information that it has gathered to create custom reports that can be helpful when planning your social media calendar and content.
Overall, there is not just one social media management tool that is best to use. I encourage you to try different social media management tools and through trial and error assess which one(s) best suit your needs.
