Strategy gives you direction, but tools help you get there quicker, says Ian Cleary, founder, RazorSocial at Social Media Marketing World. Once you have a strategy, then you need tools to help you save time and provide value.
Twenty-six percent of marketers spend 6-10 hours a week on social media. Let’s explore twelve possible problems and the tools that can help solve those problems and make you more productive.
12 problems and the tools to solve them
1. People not seeing your content? Consider using PostPlanner, which was just a Facebook planner up until it recently added Twitter. You can –
- Schedule content
- Decide what type of content to share
- Discover new content
- Allows you to create a queue of content
- Reschedule each post
2. Not sure which posts will rank? Consider InboundWriter, which helps you determine the success of your topics before you put pen to paper. It will tell you what words in your title are important and suggest additional terms.
3. Are you Twitter followers not growing quickly enough? ManageFlitter will help you manage your Twitter account. It can help you make it tidy, find relevant people to follow, do a super advanced search, save the search and then have it gradually follow people over a period of time. Cleary reminds us not to be creepy and follow hundreds of people at a time.
4. Not enough followers on Google+? Consider Circloscope, which will provide a list of people in different communities. Cleary says, despite recent rumors, Google+ is going to be around for a long time.
5. Video is becoming more and more important, and difficult to produce. You can easily create videos with Directr, which also includes tons of storyboards to help you organize your video.
6. Having problems selling on social media? Use Cart from Heyo, an app that automatically responds to a comment within a link to help people buy products on Facebook. It works great for low-cost products. People will buy if it’s a good product and you have a good relationship with your followers says Cleary.
7. Blogging takes too much time. You need to have an organized process. Plan your content ahead of time with Coschedule. It allows you to schedule social media outposts within WordPress. And, don’t just share once, but multiple times so people will see your content. The app will show you your top posts from older content, so you can re-share them over again.
8. and 9. You can’t find great content to share.
ContentGems will dig through the dirt and find great content for you to share. It also –
- Integrates with Buffer
- Expands your interest groups as defined by keywords and other search tools
- Allows you to set criteria for each interest
- Allows for added preferred and trusted sources you want to add
Nuzzle, for Facebook and Twitter, tells you when your friends are sharing a piece of content and emails you with the details of the latest posts.
10. Do you find it difficult to reach your Twitter Audience?
SocialBro will show how your followers online are interacting. Cleary is using it for direct message campaigns to let his followers know about webinars and other opportunities. He encourages setting up really good filters and finding the best people, because no one wants to be a spammer.
11. Need help managing Pinterest? Tailwindapp.com integrates with Canva, a graphics app. You can then schedule your post. It also includes very useful analytics.
12. Not tracking your competitors? Check-out Uprise.io, where you can enter keywords or choose a category to see a list of popular articles in your area. It’s great for researching competitors and find out what’s popular. Once you find an idea from your competitors, you can write a better story on the same subject!
Buzzsumo is very similar and will also let you research your competitors, top subjects and compare your posts to those of your competitors.
Invest the time to find the right tools to help you get to where you need to help you optimize your strategy. And then, promote it correctly.
What tools help you meet your goals? Please share, so we can expand the list.
