A social media marketing tool is an online platform that helps with business related functions of managing social media networks for companies. These tools simplify the process of managing multiple accounts more than one at a time. They come with different features that vary based on the purpose they serve, their compatibility with various social media networks, and costs of using them.
There are so many social media marketing tools today that it’s hard to know where to start. Each has its strengths and weaknesses, and no one tool can do everything a business might need. And because the number of social media tools keeps growing, it helps to start your search with an overview of social media marketing tools to find out what’s available.
Biteable
Creating content for social media is an essential part of the game. Visual content gets three times more engagement on Twitter than plain ol’ text, so good visual content can help you take it to the next level.
With Biteable, you can easily create engaging, entertaining, and informative short videos to share on social media.
With a host of free video templates, footage, music, and animated scenes, Biteable is a godsend for anyone who wants to create studio-quality quickly without needing expensive resources like film or sound recording equipment.
Biteable was created to be super easy to use and one of the cheapest tools of its type on the market. Most features are available even with free accounts (it’s pretty cheap to upgrade to Premium anyway) so why not add a bit more excitement and spark to your social media content by creating some short, super-shareable videos?
Buffer
Buffer started off as a scheduling tool for Twitter. Today, it supports all the major social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Google + (for the one person who still uses it.) Let’s take a look.
You can do some pretty neat things with Buffer:
- Use the chrome extension to add articles and content from the web to your Buffer queue or share content on the go.
- Automatically shortens links you share. If you’re Bitly user, you can connect your accounts.
- Upload custom photos and videos (or use ones pulled from the article you shared).
- Access complex analytics to track your content’s performance.
- Create a posting schedule so your content gets spread out throughout the day.
- Reply to posts from inside Buffer.
- Add team members.
A social media dashboard like Buffer helps you fill your social media feed with relevant and exciting content without spending half your life logged in to Facebook and Twitter.
Buzzsumo
Research is a crucial part of marketing. If you want to do well and leave your competitors in the dust, you need to understand what they’re doing and if what you’re doing is working or not.
Buzzsumo is a research tool which tells you how your content is doing and who’s spreading the word.
Sometimes when you sit down to create content, you’re on fire. Other times it’s like pulling teeth and you’re just grateful to have met a deadline. It’s impossible to guarantee success, but a tool like Buzzsumo can help you increase the odds.
One of the most powerful research tools on the market, the functionality includes:
- Find content that’s most shared on social media channels – you can enter your own or someone else’s domain and see what’s been shared socially.
- Find influencers related to particular topics.
- Get alerts based on keywords, brand name, links, author name, or domain.
- Track competitors and do an analysis based on their content.
- Use it to research keywords and trending topics your audience is interested in. You can use it to find interesting new posts to share or to search for content ideas based on what’s performing well.
- And, if you’ve got some cash to splash, Buzzsumo Pro is a powerhouse for competitor research.
OptinMonster
OptinMonster is a powerful lead generation tool that lets you engage visitors at exactly the right moment. It has a drag-and-drop template for building visually stunning lightboxes, popups, and landing pages that capture leads. Everything from growing your mailing list to recovering abandoned carts can be solved using OptinMonster’s amazing set of tools.
Ready to hear something really cool? OptinMonster can now be part of your social media marketing campaign. Simply use the new ChatBot element to connect to ManyChat. Once you’ve done that, you’re ready to share your best-performing optins over Facebook Messenger. That way, you can bring the optins to your leads. Not the other way around.
RafflePress
RafflePress is the best giveaway plugin for WordPress. With its drag-and-drop giveaway builder and viral giveaway templates, you can quickly create a fun online contest for your audience.
Where RafflePress comes in handy for social media marketing is with the verified bonus actions feature. This feature lets you reward users with extra contest entries for performing specific actions like:
- Following you on Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc.
- Viewing a Facebook post/video
- Visiting your YouTube channel
- Sharing your giveaway on social media
- And much more
RafflePress is the perfect tool for boosting your social media following and engagement. Plus, it can also help you drive more traffic to your site, grow your email list, and even increase sales.
Hootsuite
Manage all your social media in one place
Prices: Free plan, $29, $129, $599 per month, and enterprise pricing (with a 30-day free trial)
Description: Hootsuite, probably the biggest social media management tool, is used by over 15 million people and more than 800 of the Fortune 1000 companies.
There’s a good reason for their success: it’s an all-in-one platform that allows you to curate and schedule content, measure your social ROI, run social media ads, and more.
Unique value: Being such a comprehensive platform, there are several things that people love about Hootsuite: being able to monitor multiple accounts and keywords, connect with over 35 social networks, and bulk-schedule social media posts.
Conclusion
A booming market with endless opportunities, social media marketing solutions continue to gain in popularity. Business owners can utilize social media to access an international audience, including thousands of users who speak different languages and hail from different countries. This guide explores the various types of social media marketing tools available to business owners, including applications designed for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs and more.