Social Media Marketers: Resources to Enhance Your Social Media Strategy

This blog post will help any social media marketer and / or business owner find tools and resources that should maintain order and a modicum of control with a marketing strategy. It’s not exhaustive, however and I only outline tools I have some personal experience with or have heard good things about. They will have a * next to them if recommended by others.

There is another section you can add here called Influencer Monitoring, but I personally have no knowledge of this so can’t write about it!  Anytime you want to work with or better understand Influencer Marketing my go-to would be Sinead Carroll of Irish Blogger Agency.

Social Media Management Tools

Hootsuite*

Hootsuite is a social media management platform that allows you to schedule posts, monitor engagement, social listening, and analyses performance across various social media channels. It’s got powerful analytics and has been a favourite among social media managers for a number of years. It’s ideal for established businesses.

Buffer*

Buffer is also a social media management platform that can schedule, publish, and analyse posts. It’s better known for beginners to navigate around as it’s relatively intuitive. Another paid for platform.

Feedalpha*

This Irish based social media management company shares similar traits with the other businesses providing comprehensive analytics, post scheduling, AI Assistant, and visual calendar.

Agorapulse

Agorapulse can do all of the above and has a very good reporting tool. It can generate a Powerpoint presentation depicting all the data in an easy-to-understand presentation that you can customise and personalise with your branding. It also has social listening.

‍

Content Creation and Visual Design

Canva

Canva is a graphic design tool that enables users to create elaborate visuals without needing advanced design skills. With its drag-and-drop interface, you can easily create social media graphics, infographics, banners, and more. Canva offers a variety of templates for different social media platforms, ensuring your visuals are optimised for maximum engagement.

Adobe Spark*

Adobe Spark allows you to create professional-quality visuals and videos. Its suitable for a wide range of content, from social media posts to promotional videos. Adobe Spark's integrated design tools and templates help you produce eye-catching content that stands out on social media.

Unsplash and Pexels

I have used both Unsplash and Pexels and are excellent resources for high-quality, royalty-free images. These platforms provide a vast array of photos and videos that you can use to enhance your social media posts without worrying about copyright issues.

‍

Social Media Analytics and Monitoring

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a free tool for tracking the performance of your social media efforts. By setting up UTM parameters, you can monitor how your social media traffic contributes to your website's overall performance. Google Analytics helps you understand user behaviour, track conversions, and make data-driven decisions to optimise your social media strategy. My go-to for this is Amanda Webb of Spiderworking.

Social Mention*

Social Mention is a social media monitoring tool that tracks mentions of your brand across various social media platforms. It helps you better understand the sentiment around your brand, identify trends, and engage with your audience. Social Mention's insights enable you to stay ahead of the competition and maintain a positive online presence.

Google Alerts

This is yet another FREE tool from Google. You need only set up words or phrases for it to monitor and you then can get either daily of weekly emails to your Gmail address with messages they have found that match your parameters.

‍

Social Media Advertising

Facebook Ads Manager

Facebook Ads Manager is NOT the same as Facebook Ads, it goes deeper and offers more choice and iterations. It’s an all-in-one tool for creating, managing, and analysing Facebook and Instagram ad campaigns. It has detailed targeting options that allow you to reach your ideal audience, while its analytics provide insights into your ad's performance.

Google Ads*

Google Ads offers a variety of advertising options, including search ads, display ads, and video ads on YouTube. It also has an integration with Google Analytics that ensures you can track the performance of your campaigns and make informed decisions. Google Ads' versatile platform enables you to reach a broader audience and drive traffic to your social media profiles and website. You will likely need a larger budget to make this work for you. My go-to for this is Orla Hays of Dream Digital.

LinkedIn Campaign Manager

LinkedIn Campaign Manager is used for running ads on LinkedIn. Although it shares a similar name – it doesn’t operate in the same way to Facebook. It does however offer targeting options based on job title, industry, and company size, making it ideal for B2B marketing. LinkedIn Campaign Manager can be a little on the pricey side in comparison to other tools, but it is targeting a more “professional” audience.

‍

Whatever tools you use at the beginning, many of them have either free or low cost options for starter marketers. However, please don’t be afraid to move up to more expensive and expansive tools later, as they can drastically save you time – and time is money.

Having a budget for these tools and a further budget to use them is essential. Organic marketing can only go so far and using ONLY social media is thoroughly insufficient. Part of your ongoing strategy is to also include other areas like podcasts, networking, radio, press releases and more. Please use the search button on my website to find information about all of this and more.