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Jan 08

Essential Social Media Tools: 2019 Report

Social Media Management and Your Business

In an age where people are reliant on technology and heavily consumed by social media, social media management is vital for any business to grow and succeed. It involves creating engaging content, scheduling posts, interacting with the audience, and analysing the data these interactions provide.

This helps you improve and maintain your brand’s personality and reputation, whilst increasing your brand’s reach and influencing conversions. The ability to monitor what’s being said about your brand and make improvements will allow for continuous growth.

Social Media Tools – Do I Need Them?

Operating on multiple social media platforms can be time consuming and overwhelming. If you wish to say ‘no more’ to hours spent creating the perfect posting calendar or setting reminder alarms, then the answer is yes!

Regardless of what platforms you’ll be using, in order to easily schedule posts, maintain an engaging social media presence and effectively measure your outcomes, you’ll need social media tools that you can rely on.

Utilising these tools will help you reach your audience, gain followers, increase engagement and ultimately grow your online presence, in a smooth and efficient way. So here are the best social media tools to use in 2019.

  1. Buffer

Buffer is one of the most respectable and user-friendly tools of choice for many businesses when it comes to social media management. It makes handling multiple social media accounts and platforms manageable and stress-free.

Buffer not only allows you to schedule, queue, and share posts, but also provides you with optimal times to post throughout the day based on follower activity. Gain a better understanding of what’s working and why, with detailed insights and data analytics about the performance of your accounts.

Its most notable feature is the option to “buffer” and share content at any time, through their browser extension.

  1. Hootsuite

As the longest standing social media management tool, Hootsuite boasts over 15 million users worldwide and connections to over 35 social media platforms.

Similar to Buffer, its simple yet powerful features allow for both beginner marketers and large organisations to simultaneously manage multiple social media pages. This all in one tool makes bulk scheduling, running campaigns, and measuring your platform’s performance easier.

  1. Sprout Social

Sprout Social is similar to Hootsuite and Buffer by providing scheduling and analytics for multiple accounts and platforms.

However, what separates Sprout is its widely praised, powerful, and highly visually appealing data analytics. Sprout also provides a full profile of your customers to better understand and build stronger relationships with them.

This tool is also equipped with a Unified Smart Inbox to prioritise and streamline your social engagement.

  1. AgoraPulse

This tool features the same scheduling and analytic capabilities as the previously mentioned tools, to increase efficiency across your platforms. However, it also gives you the ability to measure your social media marketing campaigns against that of your competitors and run quizzes and competitions.

  1. CoSchedule

This scheduling application allows marketers to organize their entire marketing calendar or multiple calendars. Sometimes you just need to see the bigger picture, which is what CoSchedule is widely appreciated for.

Organise all of your projects, schedule posts, and manage content, tasks and events all in one place. Track performance analytics and use CoSchedule’s ‘ReQueue’ feature to find the most optimal posting times.

  1. BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo is one of the top-tier tools to keep up with industry news and discover fresh and trending content on the Internet. It’s not only a huge time saver, but also a great place to gain new ideas for social media campaigns and content.

Its search bar makes it easy to find links on the Internet and social media, relevant to your search words. It’s also incredibly valuable to find the most trending and industry relevant influencers to help your brand’s growth.

Feedly is another excellent application for content discovery. Follow specific influencers to keep up with their blogs and industry news, in one feed.

  1. Animoto

If creating gorgeous, professional and stimulating marketing videos is a hurdle for you, Animoto is a fantastic investment. Use it to promote announcements and product launches, or to simply catch the eye of your audience.

Not being able to create engaging and eye-catching visual content is an extreme disadvantage for any business. This is especially true for Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, where videos and photos are the primary forms of communication with the highest levels of engagement.

Animoto will make a substantial difference in the quality of your videos, with its surprisingly fast and easy video making capabilities. Increase the performance of your social media platforms by taking advantage of Animoto’s abundance of editing tools, templates, text overlays and stock music.

  1. Canva

Increase your brand’s visibility and following by creating impactful visuals with Canva. When it comes to keeping up with the pressure of generating beautiful and influential graphics, Canva has your back.

This application will leave you spoilt for choice, with a wide selection of icons and templates, and a whopping 2 million + library of graphics. Even with limited experience, you’ll feel like a seasoned visual content creator with an easy to use interface, design tools, and tutorials to guide you along the way.

  1. Planoly

Plan and visualize how your Instagram will look before actually posting, by mimicking your layout with Planoly. This tool will help you create a seamless feed, to stay true to your brand’s image and theme. Simply upload your images and drag and drop, to swap and re-arrange your images before scheduling your captioned posts in advance.

  1. TweetDeck

TweetDeck is a platform specific tool for businesses who’s Twitter conversations are critical for their success. It’s also perfect for the management of multiple Twitter accounts.

TweetDeck helps you analyse your audience’s interests to release suitable Tweets and grow your organic following. It also allows the scheduling, queuing and monitoring of tweets, and makes Twitter an even more lucrative platform to engage on.

In Conclusion

These are truly invaluable social media management applications for any marketer to efficiently keep on top of their accounts. Take advantage of these tools in 2019 to create an effective social media presence and improve your brand’s visibility and overall business success.