Social Media Marketing For Dummies is a fast, easy, and fun way to get up to speed on this powerful marketing trend that has changed the way consumers connect with all kinds of businesses. Packed with information covering everything from Facebook and Twitter to YouTube, Yelp, Pinterest, Instagram, and more, you’ll gain the knowledge you need to create an effective social media plan for your business. This book tells you what works, what doesn’t work, and how to make social media work for you.
If you want to get started with social media marketing, but you’re intimidated and don’t know where to start, Social Media Marketing For Dummies is your guide. Written in an easy-to-follow, step-by-step format by two successful social media marketing experts —and filled with expert advice from across the web — this friendly guide will help you create social profiles for your business on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube and LinkedIn.
Hootsuite
There are an abundance of social media management systems across the internet. They are designed to help users manage multiple social media channels from one place. Hootsuite is one of many, and widely received one of the most efficient social media tools for this purpose.
Without logging in and out, users can jump from account to account with the click of a mouse. This enables you to view multiple ‘streams’ of tweets, posts and interactions all from the comfort of one screen. It offers users the ability to cross-post across multiple media channels, add in their mobile app and you’re looking at as accessible a tool as you will find. Hootsuite offer analytical reports sent via email on a weekly basis. They summarise everything from link clicks to follower growth.
Hootsuite is one of the most recognised social media management systems, empowering users to monitor multiple accounts at the same time. Perfect for a business that has a wide reach.
The free plan suits one person perfectly. It allows you to integrate three social media accounts and track them with basic analytical insight. Users can schedule up to thirty social media posts at any one time, in addition to two RSS feed integrations. Hootsuite provide an online help centre that answers practically any FAQ you may have.
Bitly
Link ‘shorteners’ take long URLs and convert them into neater, tidier options. We find that using shortened links helps with the look and feel of our social media content. This is especially important if we intend to drive traffic to an extended URL.
Creating a link using Bitly is incredibly simple. Users paste a full URL into a box, then sit back as Bitly processes it in a matter of seconds. These links can be branded and optimised to suit your objectives. As you will see, we’re all about social media tools with an emphasis on speed and convenience.
Bitly is more than just a link shortener, it is a social media tool that allows users to track content performance.
Being able to track and compile click data is very useful in terms of campaign analysis. Bitly’s Enterprise service has been built to serve businesses who operate their campaigns on an organisational scale, but the free version should do you just fine if you’re starting out.
Stencil
The team at Stencil boast that their social media tools are the ‘the fastest way to double your social engagement.’ It’s easy to see why. They offer users a platform to create quick images for social media sharing. The entire product has been designed with ease of use in mind, and Stencil comes packaged with literally millions of free background photos for users to browse.
This works particularly well if you need a nudge in the right direction, as there are hundreds of templates for you to fill with your desired text copy.
With over 2,000 free Google Web Fonts and an integrated Chrome Extension, it’s hard to look past Stencil when it comes to creating clean images for social media.
Stencil advertise their free version as one ‘For The Hobbyist’, which lends itself perfectly to anyone starting out in the world of social media marketing. Without paying a penny users can expect to create up to ten images per month, but Stencil do limit access to the wealth of stock imagery and icons. As you would expect, the paid versions open up wider ranges of features for users to explore.
Nimble
Nimble is a social media tool that makes it possible to manage your e-mail, contacts, social media messages, and more all in one central dashboard. The company was founded by the developer of one of the most successful customer relationship management (CRM) tools, GoldRush, and is designed to bring a sales management focus to social media.
With Nimble, you can integrate your contacts and then read, write, and organize all your communications across Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and more in one program.
Nimble allows you to try it for free for 14 days, but then the cost moving forward is $15 per month.
Sprout Social
You can use Sprout Social to manage multiple social media accounts from one program. Use it to coordinate your social media activities and then to review the results. This tool handles both management and analytics.
Using Sprout Social, you can track conversations, follow specific keywords, and assign tasks to different team members.
Sprout Social offers a few plans, each of them available through a free trial. The three plans are
- Standard: Basic Sprout Social tools for up to 10 profiles ($39 per month).
- Deluxe: Deluxe users may include up to 20 profiles and receive enhanced reporting ($59 per month).
- Premium: This option allows users to manage up to 50 profiles while receiving enhanced reporting and training ($99 per month).
AddThis
On well-designed websites, you’re likely to find a row of links to the most popular social media sites. That’s where AddThis comes in. After you register for this free online service, you can use the service to add social media icons to your website or blog.
Simply choose the size and design of the social media icons you want to use, copy and paste a little code from the AddThis site onto your site or blog, and you’re done.
AgoraPulse
Do you want to see how people respond to different social media posts? AgoraPulse can help. This free social media marketing platform provides users with insights on their websites, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Quora. AgoraPulse also offers a social media feedback tool to optimize your existing social media content and create new content to drive traffic and engagement. You can even create custom reports to find out what people are saying about you and your brand. The analytics also have a specific suite to measure website traffic, online property reputation, industry reputation, and sentiment.
Conclusion
Whether you’re a marketing executive, IT professional, small-business manager, journalism student, teacher, or just starting out in marketing, Social Media Marketing For Dummies shows you how to move beyond the basics and implement social media programs that work.