Social media has become a crucial aspect of marketing across industries, leading to intense competition for attention on various platforms. To enhance your social media presence and effectively promote content, you need all the assistance you can get. Here are 24 tools recommended by experts and innovative marketers to boost your social media strategy:
MORE: Our Best Social Media Marketing Tips of All Time
1. Infogr.am
This tool simplifies the creation of visually appealing infographics in minutes.
While extensive customization might be limited, the platform offers numerous graphics and drag-and-drop vector art, making it suitable for users seeking simple yet high-quality infographics.
The free plan allows infographic sharing and website embedding, while downloading requires a paid subscription. Similar alternatives include Piktochart and Easel.ly – explore these options too!
2. HootSuite
HootSuite is a well-established social media management platform with a proven track record. It enables post scheduling across multiple networks, provides feed streams for real-time updates, and offers performance analysis tools.
3. Bit.ly
Primarily, bit.ly shortens lengthy URLs, making them concise and clickable. However, it offers additional features like saving “bitlinks,” organizing them into “bundles,” and tracking click-through analytics through a free account.
4. Mention
Mention efficiently monitors specific keywords across various websites. By tracking brand mentions or other relevant keywords, it generates a feed displaying mentions from across the web.
Connecting your social media accounts with Mention allows for easy engagement and response to brand or keyword mentions. It offers a 14-day free trial and starts at $30 per month. Consider Google Alerts, for a budget-friendly alternative that aggregates keyword and brand mentions.
5. Buzzsumo
Buzzsumo helps you discover top-performing content and influential figures online. By searching a keyword, you can view the most shared articles and their corresponding social media engagement metrics.
It offers a valuable free plan and paid options for setting up alerts, exporting data, and accessing content analysis and domain reports.
6. Rebel Mouse
Rebel Mouse, a digital publishing platform, aggregates social content and showcases it in a customizable layout. It shares similarities with Paper.li but provides more customization features.
However, Rebel Mouse’s functionality might not be immediately apparent, requiring users to navigate and explore its features independently. The platform’s strength lies in creating visually appealing, high-quality pages comprising various content formats like videos, images, and articles. These pages can be integrated into blogs, web campaigns, or newsletters.
Exploring different applications of Rebel Mouse is recommended if this aligns with your needs. While it demands time investment to understand its intricacies, it offers the potential for impressive outcomes, particularly for specific campaigns. [Free and Paid Versions]
7. Tint
Tint, similar to Rebel Mouse, aggregates social content but boasts a more user-friendly interface, further aided by a concise explainer video.
Tint — Social Engagement Anywhere from Tint on Vimeo. While not entirely groundbreaking, Tint effectively gathers brand-related conversations, making it beneficial for large brands or major events. For instance, using the #Inbound2014 hashtag with Tint would aggregate various discussions, images, and posts from a recent conference.
Although similar results can be achieved by directly searching hashtags on platforms like Twitter, Tint and Rebel Mouse aggregate content from multiple social networks, offering a centralized view. Moreover, their visually appealing aesthetics enhance audience attraction and engagement.
However, Tint’s pricing starts at $250 per month for a basic account, with the highest plan costing $1000 per month. While a free version exists, its limited functionality restricts content aggregation primarily to user-generated posts, excluding hashtag-based aggregation, a paid feature.
Free Guide >> The 30 Best Ways to Promote Your Business8. Share As Image
This user-friendly text overlay tool simplifies image editing. Select an image from your collection or the built-in stock library, utilize the Chrome extension, and explore various text overlay options to create unique visuals.
In today’s visually driven online landscape, text overlay images hold significant value. Customize text, add filters, and share your creations on social media or save them for future use. Research suggests that photo tweets are 94% more likely to be shared compared to text-based tweets, highlighting the importance of leveraging this tool effectively.
9. IFTTT
This automation tool enables the seamless integration of various social media tools and channels through automated connections called “recipes.” These recipes facilitate countless combinations, such as automatically updating Pinterest posts to Twitter feeds or scheduling Instagram pictures through Buffer. Explore the endless possibilities this tool offers.
10. Buffer
Buffer provides a streamlined approach to scheduling social media updates across multiple platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and App.Net.
Additionally, Buffer offers story suggestions and integrates with RSS feeds for simplified sharing. It includes a robust analytics feature, while Buffer for Business enables team collaboration and contributor moderation. It’s a highly recommended and long-standing favorite.
11. Slide Share
SlideShare allows you to repurpose existing PowerPoint presentations into engaging slide decks for your social media audience.
It serves as an ideal platform for adapting and reusing content across different channels and audiences.
12. Pixabay
Pixabay is a valuable resource for finding free, high-quality images for commercial use without attribution requirements.
While platforms like Flickr offer Creative Commons licensed photos, sourcing and crediting each image can be cumbersome. Pixabay simplifies the process by providing a wide selection of royalty-free images searchable by keywords.
Several other websites offer similar attribution-free image libraries. In addition to Pixabay, explore:
- MorgueFile:: Another source for high-resolution stock photos.
- Gratisography:: Images from photographer Ryan McGuire, ideal for general-purpose high-quality photos.
- New Old Stock:: Vintage photos from public archives.
- Unrestricted Stock:: Free vectors and icon collections.
- Little Visuals:: Receive seven new high-resolution images weekly via email or browse their collection on the site.
While the selection might be limited compared to paid options, these websites offer valuable resources for free, professional-quality images.
13. Canva
Canva, sharing similarities with Share As Image, provides a broader range of stickers and stylish text accessories. It’s an excellent tool for designing vibrant text overlay images to enhance social media posts.
Canva’s standout feature is its customizable size presets for different social networks, allowing you to create visually appealing cover images with pre-set dimensions.
While Canva’s free plan offers a wide array of options, paid elements are integrated seamlessly, potentially leading to unintended purchases. Nonetheless, it’s a valuable tool worth exploring.
14. Click to Tweet
Click to Tweet simplifies the creation of shareable links that prompt users to tweet pre-written text. It goes beyond standard social media buttons, encouraging content sharing.
The free plan offers a limited number of Click to Tweet links, while upgrading to the paid plan provides unlimited usage.
15. Nutshell Mail
Nutshell Mail, a free tool from Constant Contact, delivers a consolidated summary of your social media activity across various networks directly to your inbox. While not revolutionary, it serves as a helpful monitoring tool, particularly for those with demanding schedules seeking a concise overview of their social media performance.
16. Pocket
Pocket simplifies content saving for later consumption. Whether it’s an interesting article or a news piece, Pocket allows you to save and access it conveniently across various devices and platforms.
Pocket’s integration with over 500+ apps, including Buffer and Flipboard, sets it apart from other bookmarking tools. It streamlines the process of discovering, saving, and organizing relevant articles for future social media posts and schedules.
17. Circloscope
Circloscope helps identify and connect with influential Google+ users in your niche. By engaging with these users and leveraging their reach, Circloscope promises improved content visibility and engagement. [Price: $47/year]
18. Cayzu
Cayzu optimizes customer service efforts by providing instant notifications for customer complaints across platforms like Facebook and Twitter, enabling swift issue resolution.
Additionally, Cayzu facilitates the creation of self-service portals, empowering customers to resolve issues independently. It also tracks customer service metrics to ensure customer satisfaction and enhance service quality. [Free and Paid versions]
19. PowToon
PowToon simplifies animated video creation, which can be shared on websites, YouTube, or other social media platforms. Given the value of video content, PowToon is worth considering for creating engaging explainer videos, how-to tutorials, or product/service demonstrations.
20. Manage Flitter
Manage Flitter helps optimize your Twitter following by identifying and unfollowing inactive or irrelevant accounts. It allows you to unfollow users who don’t reciprocate, filter out potential bots lacking profile pictures, and remove inactive followers. [limited free options and paid options]
21. Edgar
Edgar streamlines social media posting by allowing users to create, categorize, and schedule posts based on subject matter.
Edgar’s key feature is its automated reposting capability, ensuring that past content reaches a wider audience over time. By cycling through a library of categorized posts, Edgar maximizes content visibility and prevents posts from becoming obsolete. [starts at $50/month]
22. Tweriod
Tweriod analyzes your tweets and identifies the optimal times for posting to maximize exposure and engagement. This free tool proves invaluable when used in conjunction with social media scheduling tools like Edgar.
23. NeedTagger
NeedTagger utilizes custom filters and keyword research to identify Twitter users most likely to be interested in your products or services. This targeted approach simplifies lead generation and expands your Twitter network.
24. Feedly
Feedly stands out as one of the most popular RSS readers due to its sleek interface, user-friendly features, and cross-platform compatibility.
It allows you to stay updated on industry blogs and discover relevant content to share on social media.
25. Rapportive
Rapportive, a Gmail plugin, syncs email addresses with social media profiles, providing access to a contact’s Twitter handle, LinkedIn profile, Skype info, and more. It facilitates a more comprehensive understanding of your contacts and strengthens online connections.
This list compiles a wide range of social media marketing tools, but there are always more to discover. Feel free to share your favorite social media tools in the comments! MORE: The Top 10 Paid Social Media Hacks of All Time