Introduction
Are you wondering where you could get various types of social media tools? Or are you on the look out for free tools for social media marketing? There are many factors to consider when choosing the best tools for social media marketing. Not only should they help you manage your channels, but also help grow your online business.
Buffer
Want to Tweet 24/7 from your social media account without having to be on Twitter at all times? Buffer is a great social media marketing tool for that, it makes that possible across all your social channels via scheduled posts.
Price: Free for one user, 3 channels, and ten posts/day.
Paid plans are $15-99/month.
Pros:
- Browser integrations make it easy to share content you find online.
Cons:
- High per-user cost.
- Analytics are just okay.
Image: Buffer
CoSchedule
A simple social media platform with social media post scheduling as the main feature and WordPress integration. A lot of nifty advanced features available as well for SM pros.
Price: $29/user per month.
Pros:
- Perfect for bloggers who want to schedule content across social channels.
Cons:
- Most small businesses don’t need advanced content calendars.
Liinks
Liinks helps creators design and build pages in minutes and it offers more customization options than other link-in-bio tools. It helps ensure that no two pages are the same. It’s great for brands, creatives, and personalities who want full control over the look and feel of their page.
Key Features
- Unlimited basic links
- Profile picture and bio at the top of your page
- Social icons for quick reference
- Add images to your links and choose between 6 awesome different layouts, including Grids and Carousels
- Customize the colors, fonts, background, and more to match your brand.
- Add Media embeds (Youtube, Spotify, etc.)
- Connect to Instagram to automatically update your Liinks page with links from your post captions
- Collect emails in Mailchimp with a Mailing List block
- Animate your links to draw attention or schedule them to show and hide at a specific time
Pros
- Easy to use
- Lots of customization options
- Great for individuals and teams
- Low cost
Cons
- Doesn’t support custom domains yet
Difficulty Level
- Suitable for everyone
Pricing
- Basic: Free
- Premium: $3.99 per month
- Team: $14.99 per month
Premium and Team plans offer a 14-day free trial.
NapoleonCat
NapoleonCat is a full-service platform to manage all aspects of social media marketing, from publishing to tracking conversations and analyzing the performance of your social media efforts. It allows you to drive pre-sales conversations, answer typical inquiries automatically, and reduce response time on social media.
By automating your campaigns, NapoleonCat allows you to increase efficiency and cost savings by up to 70%. Being an official Facebook Marketing Partner, NapoleonCat can be trusted to offer reliable marketing solutions.
Want to know the best part?
They offer a 14-day free trial, no credit card information is required. Sign up today!
Top Features
- Social Inbox to manage all social media interactions in one place, in real-time.
- Numerous collaboration features to help establish a clear workflow, even when your team works remotely.
- Scheduler to queue and auto-publish content across multiple platforms and profiles.
- Auto-moderation to remove spam from post and ad comments on Facebook and Instagram.
- Advanced analytics module for gathering competitive intelligence.
- Automated social media reporting to keep you in the loop at all times.
- Help Center with stats, articles, and video tutorials for new users.
Pros
- Unified inbox.
- Advanced options for collaboration and community management.
- Proactive customer service via chat, email, and phone.
- Frequent updates.
- 2-week free trial.
- Pay only for social profiles you use.
Cons
- Limited competitor stats.
- Minor delays in synching new accounts.
Difficulty Level: Intermediate
Usability: It can be used with ease by solopreneurs, SMBs, enterprises, agencies, ecommerce stores, and content creators.
Pricing
- Standard: Starts at $21/month.
- Pro: Starts at $42/month.
- Custom
Case Study
CCC, a European footwear retailer, was facing a challenge with maintaining their 496 Google My Business listings. Their customer service team was spending hours accessing and answering the 1000+ client reviews gathered in their scattered listings on a daily basis.
After using NapoleonCat, the CCC team is able to respond to reviews from a single inbox. In addition, they can analyze customer sentiment and tag reviews as positive, neutral, or negative. By reducing response times, they are able to get higher customer satisfaction and eventually repeat sales.
Pro Tip: To save time and effort, set up automatic replies to routine questions/comments about delivery times, store location, and hours of operation. For complex inquiries, set up automated redirects to designated team members.
The one-and-done social media online marketing tool with a post scheduling tool and analytics and monitoring features.
Price: 1 User for $49/month, 3 Users for $129/month.
Pros:
- Informs scheduling with insights and analytics.
Cons:
- Hootsuite is good at a few things but not great at any one thing. You may still opt for the simplicity of Buffer even though Hootsuite has a scheduling feature.
- Pricey.
Ann Handley, chief content officer, MarketingProfs
“Instagram is my favorite social network because of its social storytelling simplicity. From fun personal accounts – like Small Chalk and Adam Padilla – to corporate brands, it connects more immediately and deeply with people than any other platform. I still haven’t forgiven them for introducing an algorithm. (Chronological was so much more in line with the ethos of the platform.) But I can’t quit you, Insta.”
Tweepi
Tweepi, aside from having an awesome name, is a really easy way to grow your Twitter following.
As you can see from the image above, Tweepi allows you to:
- Find relevant users who would be interested in following you
- Engage with those users by sending them relevant content
- Unfollow anyone who isn’t engaging with your brand
- Find influencers to help you grow your brand
I asked Amer, the founder of Tweepi, for some extra tips on getting the most from the platform. Here’s what he said:
Tweepi helps hundreds of thousands of marketers grow their brands on Twitter for the fraction of the cost of conventional Ads. Tweepi does that by facilitating searching-for and finding relevant Twitter users, then engaging them by following them, adding them to list, or mentioning them. If your Twitter presence is significantly relevant, this process helps grow your number of Twitter followers in a fast, targeted and organic manner.
BuzzSumo
Neil Patel, entrepreneur and influencer, NeilPatel.com
“With BuzzSumo you can see what is hot in your space on social media and what isn’t. From there you can craft ideas on the type of blog posts you should write to generate traffic and leads. The best part about BuzzSumo is it shows who has shared the content so you can reach out to those influencers and ask them to share your content as well.”
Joe Pulizzi, founder, Content Marketing Institute
“I use social media as almost a pure response vehicle. And I won’t start any new social media app, platform, or tool until I’m 100% committed to it. My goal with Twitter is to keep in touch and communicate my appreciation to those people that support me. Once I built an audience on those platforms, my goals and execution changed.”
Facebook Ads Manager App
Starting off with something simple, but practical and incredibly useful, we have the Facebook ads manager app. You can get it for iOS or Android.
With this tool, you can:
- Track ad performance
- Edit existing ads
- Revise ad budgets and schedules
- Receive push notifications
- Create ads right from the app (using your Facebook posts and photos, or images from your device)
All this, right from your phone. The best part is that Facebook designed the app for small- to medium-sized businesses, so you don’t have to be a massive corporation with tons of capital to make the most of it.
If you’re new to Facebook, check out this Facebook advertising guide to learn more.
Conclusion
You’ll be able to blast past your competition and grow your eCommerce sales. While social media advertising doesn’t require tools, they make a smart marketer even more efficient. In fact, these tools will allow you to take your game to the next level.