Social Media Marketing Tools

In case you haven’t heard, social media marketing is all about engagement. And guess what? Blindly scrolling through your feed and liking or favoriting articles and posts doesn’t count as engagement.

If you’re going to maximize your return from social media marketing, then you’re going to need to put more effort into the process. 

Your goal shouldn’t be to simply “like” or “favorite” as many posts as possible. Instead, you should view social media as a networking event that never ends. What’s the best way to network? Develop trust and nurture relationships by providing solutions and opportunities.

The same goes for social media. 

The most successful social sellers and social media marketers aren’t focused on shouting about their own products and services. They’re focused on helping others.

But the question remains, what are the best tools to help increase your social media engagement?

Top 5 Social Media Marketing Tools

1. eClincher

eClincher is an all-in-one social media management tool that puts all your social media accounts in one, easy to use location.

Social media management tools seem to be popping up everywhere. Personally, I’m a fan of eClincher for a number of reasons. First, it’s the best dashboard around and makes it easy for you to see your different feeds, as well as others for mentions and keywords. eClincher also has a Unified Social Inbox where you can easily see and respond to all messages and notifications. No more bouncing between all your different accounts.

But the best feature in my opinion, is the Auto Post Scheduling. This feature allows you to make different queues, with different posts under each. Then, instead of having to take the time to schedule individual posts for different days and times, you can simply schedule to post from a queue. That way, you know your account is always active. 

2. Buzzsumo

I’ve mentioned Buzzsumo in my post about the Top 10 Tools for Digital Marketers, but I need to mention them again. This is one of my favorite sites and I use it many times a week, if not daily.

Buzzsumo allows you to find social shares across all platforms for different articles. You can search for articles from a specific URL, a topic, or even by author. This is a great way to see what’s trending in your field so you can stay up-to-date. It also can help you decide what’s a good topic to post about on your own site.

There are two other great ways to use Buzzsumo. One is to compare social shares to your competitors. What are you doing better than them and vice versa? The second is to track your prospects. What are the strengths of your potential clients? Their weaknesses? Find out using Buzzsumo!

3. Social Rank

Social Rank allows you to sync your Twitter account and show you the influencers in your network. These are the influencers relevant to you based on your tweets and profile. After syncing, Social Rank shows you the most valuable followers you have (based on the number of their followers) and your relationship (whether you both follow each other or not). 

One of the coolest features is that you can filter the results for most engaged, most followed, and best followers. You can also filter with Bio Keywords, Location, and many others. 

Social Rank is a quick way to see your most valuable followers so you can interact with them. Among many other added features, the paid version also allows you to follow an influencer directly from your list, among many other added features.

4. Post Planner

This tool integrates directly with your Facebook and Twitter accounts. And best of all, according to Rebekah Radice, the company's Chief Marketing Officer, they're expanding to other platforms very soon. Definitely something to keep an eye out for because the tool makes posting to Facebook and Twitter much more effective.

Some of Post Planner’s many different features include scheduling bulk posts ahead of time and finding trending content on Facebook based on keywords. One of the coolest features however, is the fact that you can target specific countries, time zones, or even specific users. That means you can rest assured your posts are being seen by the people that matter to you.

At times, the amount of data available can be overwhelming. But Post Planner shows you the data relevant to you so you can quickly switch the order of scheduled posts to maximize impressions and engagement.

5. M3Jr Growth Strategies

M3Jr Growth provides social selling training that teaches your sales leaders and reps how to leverage LinkedIn and other social networks to develop and nurture the relationships important to your business.

There are many facets to social selling. Whether a large corporation or a small startup, you can benefit from learning how to create value by providing solutions to the problems your potential buyers are facing.

This training includes transforming your LinkedIn profile to optimize for specific keywords and for the modern buyer, learning how to connect with the decision makers you need to know, and using LinkedIn Sales Navigator to exceed your sales quota.

Leveraging the Social Media Marketing Tools

8 out of 10 small and medium sized businesses use social media marketing as part of their growth strategy. To get the best returns possible on your campaign, you need to use the tools available to you. 

Don’t shout about your products and services. No one is listening. Instead, focus on engagement and providing solutions. There will be plenty of time to sell later. 

If you’re still feeling lost, learn how to Develop Your Inbound Marketing Strategy or contact me.

Michael O’Brien combines his creativity and storytelling skills with business acumen to tell your company’s unique story through Content Marketing. This helps position your business as an authority in your industry. To learn more about his SEO Content Writing, visit his site mikedobrien.com. And to get the latest news on Inbound Marketing Strategies, follow him @mikedobrien.