Spending hours learning how to implement the smallest improvements on your social media performance is my biggest source of frustration. Hands down the biggest for me.
You probably understand how important it is to give your visitors a great reader experience.
And to do that, you need to optimize many areas of your social media as well as your blog.
I love to read, learn, and try new things. Like new apps for my smartphone and iPad. Often, I’ll see something that I want to try, save, and connect with other new apps I am using.
Ideas that come from previously unconnected planes of thought.
There are many apps for workers looking to improve social media performance that can be a big help in this regard. And less wasted time? Yes, very good for that also.
Related: 12 Extraordinary Graphic Design Tools You Should be Using
Ponder for a moment … the iPad, Cloud computing, and Apps. A few years ago, they barely existed. Now they’re an integral part of our lives. That swift journey from nonexistent to indispensable seems to happen a lot these days.
But it gives us unlimited access to improve our learning and utility for things like through apps and idea connection.
This makes you think: What social media apps were you not using two years ago that today you can’t imagine living without today?
Here are my favorite of these very essential apps. They will help you either create content faster or create content that wasn’t possible before.
Snov.io is the perfect all-in-one cold outreach automation platform you never realized you needed. With it, organizing your cold email campaign is streamlined to the max.
Snov.io Email Finder will find prospects’ emails on any website or a professional network in seconds – all you have to do is simply add them to the list. An inbuilt email verifier tool checks the emails for validity to boost the delivery rate.
Once your list is ready, it takes only a few minutes to create your first automated email campaign with triggered follow-ups. Snov.io’s Cold Email Sender with a drag-and-drop campaign builder lets you add triggers, delays, goals, and create personalized emails right in the campaign builder. You can watch the campaign statistics in real time: open, click, and reply rates are presented as nice visuals with percentages.
And for email marketers who want to pay special attention to specific clients and know exactly which ones are interested, Snov.io offers an Email Tracker – a forever free browser extension that doesn’t add any signatures, links or logos in the email body, and integrates seamlessly into your Gmail to help you monitor email opens and link clicks. A reminder feature has just been released with the latest update.
Buffer has been one of the first social media marketing tools we have been using on a regular basis and it kind of stuck with us.
Buffer simply is awesome for scheduling tweets. And it has a free version that allows you to schedule up to ten tweets – that will get you far especially when you are just starting out on Twitter.
Buffer can also schedule posts for Pinterest, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. I rarely use this function, however.
Either there are better ways for me to schedule posts for these networks, or I do not use a scheduling tool for them at all.
But for scheduling on Twitter, Buffer is simply the best there is. Also, take a look at the analytics part of Buffer which is great if you want to test headlines or tweet images.
Another one of those simple design tools is Pablo.
This one is made by the same people behind Buffer. Pablo is extremely simple to use but focuses especially on social media images.
However, there’s no reason why you can’t use these in your blog posts as well.
Having images optimized for being shared on social media sites will increase the re-shares and, consequently, the traffic you’ll get.
On the right side menu, you have three sizes of images to choose from. For a blog post, you’ll probably want the “wide” picture or the square one:
Pick the size that corresponds with the image size used within your most important social network. This will change the size of the canvas in the middle.
Next, you’ll want to pick a background from the left side menu:
Finally, you can click the default text and type whatever you’d like.
Social media performance … Canva
Canva is my go-to tool when it comes to creating images for my online marketing. I am a design-moron. I admit it. When I started creating images for Pinterest, Facebook, and co. the first attempts simply were ugly.
And then I discovered Canva and the design templates they provide for free. And I learned a lot from them: About combining different color schemes, typefaces, and images.
Canva sets you up with the right dimensions for many different purposes like Pinterest posts, Facebook adds or Twitter headers.
They provide a couple of templates, some free, some for a fee. You can use a ton of elements in your design process and play around with filters.
The free account of Canva gets you far, if you need more templates or elements for your designs, you can pay for each element as you need them.
If you need more features, the Canva for work option may be for you.
If you need something to get started with designing graphics, you must try Canva’s design school, also free.
ManageFlitter
ManageFlitter is easily the best tool I know for managing your Twitter following. You can find accounts to follow; they help you find accounts you should unfollow.
ManageFlitter is the best tool to use in the follow-unfollow routine and help you grow a targeted audience.
One way to make your content a little bit more exciting is by including gifs.
Giphy is a search engine specifically for gifs (like Google is for
web pages). You can type in any broad term and get many gifs as a result.
If you like one and would like to include it in your post, scroll down to the “share” section, and copy and paste the embed code into your post’s HTML tab:
Don’t go crazy with gifs, but one or two now and then can make your audience smile and enjoy the content a bit more.
Here’s another page speed tool, but it’s a bit simpler than most.
It should be used as a starting point, and then you can dig in further with other tools if need be.
Page speed is one of the confirmed ranking factors in Google. They care a lot about user experience, which is why they made this tool in the first place.
Again, enter your URL into the tool. It could be your homepage or a post:
It will quickly give you an overall score, not just for desktop users but for mobile users as well.
If you get 80 and above, you’re doing okay.
It will show the biggest issues (red – bad!; orange – not as bad) that you should address to improve your page loading speed.
More importantly, it also has a “show how to fix” link under each issue, so you get a little guidance to walk you through the solution.
This tool was designed specifically for content marketers. It has a modern design, and it’s pretty intuitive to use.
There are three main functions, which are clearly laid out at the top of each project.
By scanning a post, the tool will compile a list of relevant contacts you could promote it to.
Then, it will find just about anyone’s email address.
The bottom line
Social media gives us a great opportunity to listen in on what people are saying. We’ve long known that word of mouth is incredibly powerful, now we can actually track it. Social listening tools are still somewhat primitive, but they are improving quickly and are already being deployed to help monitor conventional marketing efforts in real time.
Making your blog the best it can be takes a ton of work, but tools can help you accomplish it faster and easier.
I recommend you start by trying a handful of these tools at a time until you find the ones you have the most success with.
I realize that there are many other great tools out there. Share them in a comment below if I forgot the one that you love.
Need some help in building better customer insights from your customer engagement? Creative ideas to help grow your customer base?
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All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new insights that you have learned.
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Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
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Check out these additional articles on customer insights from our library:
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
Stay curious and keep refreshing what you have learned. Especially tools to enhance productivity. Do you explore and test a lot of new tools on a consistent basis? Perhaps you are a tool addict like me? I am always on the lookout for simple ones that make the biggest difference to enhance productivity on social media.
Through many experiences, I have found this passion is a disability in terms of the time required.
According to the Content Marketing Institute, 9 out of 10 marketers are using content marketing. While more marketers are shifting their content creation efforts in-house, at the same time, the state producing enough quality content is their biggest challenge. And that does create a time drain also.
Marketers certainly need to focus less on producing more content and turn their attention towards producing better quality in their content. And, while content marketing is more than just tools and needs a solid strategy to be successful, there are a plethora of tools out there that can make the job of creating content easier.
Want to learn more about writing productivity tools?
The one tool that will do my job for me. Seriously. I know that it doesn’t exist, but I am always on the lookout, and when I am blocked on a project, I play in the app/tool store. I waste time.
Hunting for the best tools is a game, the addictive kind that robs from my productivity. In the end, I would be better off just writing, mustering up a bit of self-discipline.
When I look for helpful, time-saving tools, I often grab ones that make a difference in one or more of these areas. It’s how I got started with Buffer’s sharing app, and it’s how I’ve tested tools in the past.
Each of the time-saving social media productivity tools I’ve highlighted below is ones I have found most useful. Especially the free ones. Here’s hoping that they can unlock some spare time for you.
Many favorite tools.
Tools to enhance productivity … criteria for best tools performance
An awesome tool strikes a subtle balance that makes you happy but does not waste your time. I have found, in my wandering, criteria for measuring the quality of an app for bloggers. I review the apps to see if they are:
Focusing on the image.
Focusing
The best tools allow you to focus on and spend more time in your content world, writing. Your value as a blogger is your ability to string together words that communicate effectively, and being in a flow state produces your best writing. The best apps do not interfere with your flow in writing but facilitate it.
Tools to enhance productivity … productive
The best tools produce, adding to your skills and abilities without overpowering. Your job as a blogger is to produce quality writing, so the best ones should add to and accent your work. Many tools can be productivity black holes, and you need someone with experience to help you locate the best.
Efficient
While producing and managing your awesome content, the best tools also need to be efficient. They work hard, fast, and accurately. You don’t have to waste time waiting on the tool to work or on trying to fix it. Efficient tools augment your flow in writing.
I expect a lot of my priority tools, and you should too. Your time is your most valuable asset. All of the tools that I share with you here meet the three criteria for a great tool. You can make your social media more powerful by using these tools.
Nimble
I experiment often with CRMs, which I know if not ideal. But my current favorite, Nimble, is for the contacts for which I need to stay in close contact. The tool also is helpful in providing the most information on these contacts as possible. And the automatic social integration is what makes Nimble a great choice.
Tagboard
Tagboard gathers text, video, and image posts to give you an overall picture of what’s being said around a hashtag.
After grabbing relevant conversations from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+ and Vine, Tagboard puts them in a user-friendly interface where you caninteract with the results. A very good research tool that I couldn’t live without.
As a user example, Audi used Tagboard to track their Super Bowl ad for #Bravery in 2013. They were able to pull in tweets, Facebook mentions, and Instagram mentions.
Highlight
The highlight is all about people’s location discovery. It connects to your Facebook and other social networks to identify the people around you. If someone near you also has Highlight, their profile will appear on your phone. Most of the time, this person might be a complete stranger, but Highlight does a good job letting you know if there are any shared interests or connections.
Sometimes it might suggest a person nearby whom you already know, and this provides a great opportunity to reconnect – especially in an age where an increasing number of folks are co-working out of offices and coffee shops.
I find Highlight especially useful at jam-packed conferences because it can quickly tell you who might be present from your network – and, of course, it reminds me of their names!
And all of these templates can be used right in PowerPoint to make it easier to create visual content for us marketers who aren’t comfortable with some of the other design tools. All of this help to reduce the time required to produce awesome content,
Rapportive
This is a pretty simple browser plugin that keeps contact and social details from anyone that sends you an email in the sidebar of your email reading pane. That way when you get an email from someone you know or don’t know, you’ve got some pretty handy information at your fingertips.
If you don’t want any fancy features, are starting out or like to keep it simple, try Buffer. Signing up is pretty simple. They give you four options to log in – Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or email.
The interface is delightfully clean with lots of whitespaces that’s easy on the eyes. The free trial account can sync major social platforms like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+.
I love their “Suggestions” tab that has a list of posts I might like to share with my followers in the categories of marketing, inspiration, lifehack, etc.
Another plus is I don’t have to attach my personal profiles – I can choose to attach a Group on Facebook or a Page on LinkedIn, for example.
Pricing: $10/mo. or $102/yr.
Twibble
With Twibble, you can set up any RSS feed you want to publish automatically to your Twitter feed, complete with a featured image pulled directly from your article. And the fun doesn’t stop with images: You can edit the times that new posts go out, the frequency with which they’re sent, and the text and attribution on each.
You could end up with something like this: Twibble offers filters, too, in case you only want to post articles containing certain words (or want to exclude articles that contain certain words). You can wire up multiple feeds and track clicks and performance, too, all for free.
Price: Free
Also consider: TwitterFeed, TwitRSS, the new Feeds inside Buffer
Read-it-later extensions are a super time saver. Pocket, Instapaper, and Evernote let you save a blogpost or article to read later, and you can do so with a single button click via the extension. I am a big Evernote fan, so I rely on their tool.
Available on Chrome, Firefox, Safari
SiteDrop
Collaborating on your work should be a snap, especially if you and your team are spread out with travel or remote work. One way to keep a project in sync is with SiteDrop, a fun tool backed by the team behind Digg and Chartbeat.
SiteDrop syncs with a chosen DropBox folder pulls in all the files and photos from the folder and display everything in a stream of information that you can easily share with teammates. Each file comes with its own areas for likes and comments, and you can create as many different sets as you like, based on your DropBox folders.
SiteDrop pitches itself as a tool for project management, design, and photography, and my team has applied it for coordinating content research, social media campaign ideas, and more (although we rely predominately on Evernote).
Two of our favorite automation tools—IFTTT and Zapier—can help you coordinate and automate your marketing efforts in a variety of fun, unique ways. See the article about 34 tips to wire up an IFTTT recipe for social media, and anything you can’t figure out with IFTTT, you can try with Zapier.
The former is a free service, the latter gives you your first five free and then switches to paid plans (Zapier has hundreds of connectable apps and services, compared to IFTTTs dozens).
Here are a couple of examples of the way we use each service.
Price: Free for IFTTT, Free-to-paid for Zapier
Riffle
This browser extension adds a whole new layer of information to your Twitter stream. Click on any Riffle icon or Twitter username, and the extension opens up a display of that user’s data, including other social accounts, Twitter statistics, most-used hashtags and categories, top mentions, top URLs, and much more.
Available on Chrome
Typeform
This is an awesome tool for building beautiful surveys. I prefer a survey that doesn’t feel like a survey. Those are exactly the type that TypeForm specializes in.
Typeform surveys ask one question at a time; survey takers move through the survey chronologically via the smooth UI or keyboard shortcuts (e.g., press Enter to go to the next question). Plus, you can add visual components to your questions and that makes it even easier on those filling out your form.
Creating a new survey is a time saver as well. You simply drag and drop the types of questions you want to include, and you can set the color scheme, fonts, and images with just a couple of clicks. And of course, TypeForm provides all the relevant analysis and data that you might need from the survey results.
Animated gifs have slowly but surely found their way onto many major social media networks—Tumblr, Google+, Pinterest, and most recently Twitter. (Facebook is still a holdout.)
With Twitter and Pinterest now supporting GIFs and other social media sites like Google+ and Tumblr enjoying great engagement with them, it’s become increasingly handy to have a pitch-perfect GIF at the ready to express how you’re feeling in your update, reply, or comment.
If creating a GIF seems like a daunting task, rest easy. There’s a tool for that. Gifmaker is one of my favorites for creating a quick and easy GIF from existing photos on your computer. Simply upload your pics, place them in order, and set the timing, and Gifmaker will combine them into a single animated image—for instance, me with Kanye glasses, a tiny top hat, and a mustache.
Looking to select where and how to engage customers on social media? Look no further. For example, I sometimes wonder how I should spend my time on Twitter. Are there particular people I should be engaging with? Which of my followers should I be focusing on?
Social Rank answers these questions with its follower reports, identifying which of your followers have the most influence and which are most engaged with you. The output from Social Rank makes it quick and easy to see some spots where you can focus your Twitter time.
Free accounts are allowed to run a report every month.
Social media moves quickly and your content design has to keep up. The demands of a market that’s evolving by the minute heighten expectations for fresh, quality content on a nearly impossible scale.
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
