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Social Media Solutions for Business Owners

At MarketKeep, the digital marketing agency for small businesses, we understand the importance of social media for businesses. Social media is a great way to build reach new customers, build customer loyalty, and staying in front of your customers. The problem is, social media requires constant upkeep and attention. Why? Because social media requires you to listen to how your target audience speaks not only about your brand, but your competitors, your offerings, and their specific needs and desires. If done correctly, social media can build engagement, loyalty, and customer advocacy. That is why we have compiled a list of social media solutions that can help power your business, and maximize your social media strategy. These social media solutions will cover everything from design the analytics, so make sure to read the entire blog (it’s pretty long but informative!) 

 

Social Media Solutions: Design

The first step to an awesome social media strategy is engagement. What better way to create engagement than with killer social media graphics! Here are 8 tools that any business owner can use to create better social media graphics!

1. Canva – With over 10 million users worldwide, Canva is the go-to tool for creating social graphics without hassle. This online platform provides you with thousands of free templates and visual assets to help create the perfect social media graphics. It also offers a simple drag and drop interface so it is easy to use at any skill level!

2. Piktochart If you broadcast them correctly, and they have enough merit infographics are some of the most shareable media around! However, they can be a pain in the butt to create. Piktochart takes the hassle and costs out of creating killer infographics for your business. Like Canva, Piktochart is free to use, and they have a range of templates to use. 

3. iStock Editor Finding high-quality images for social media is a battle. Free templates can only get you so far. With iStock Editor you can create visual content that stands out and can be used on various social media platforms.  

4. Snappa An online tool that creates very simple, shareable images for you quickly. Snappa comes with a library of templates and pre-set sizes you can use when in a pinch. Whether you choose the free or paid versions you can create social media graphics that are easy to share, and more importantly easy to create. 

5. Word Swag – An app for the business owner on the go. Word Sway is a simple and effective app that helps you to create stylish text to your images on your iPhone. You can use their endless supply of free stock images, or upload your own. Know that is costs $4.99 for the iOS and $3.99 for Android users.

6. Infogram – Similar to Piktochart, Infogram is designed to make infographic creation simple. With over 35 different types of charts and maps to choose from, you can style your infographic in many different ways.

7. Pablo – Pablo by Buffer is a minimalist image editor that helps to create simple, effective, and minimalist style social media graphics. You can add up to three text boxes and each image you create.

8. Over – Over enables you to create simple, and effective social media graphics from your phone. Only available for iPhone users, Over helps you add a variety of shapes and graphics with just a few taps, swipes and adjusts to your preferred colors, fonts, and spacing.

 

Social Media Solutions: Social Media Calendars

Designing social media graphics is the 1st step in a strong social media presence, however, the daily grunt work is the hard part. Here are 8 social media solutions for helping you to plan and schedule your daily social media posts.

1. Buffer – Buffer is an intuitive, streamlined social media management platform from the entrepreneur to the Fortune 500 companies. Buffer comes with a suite of products for publishing, engaging, and analyzing your social media performance. If you have a team of social media coordinators it also allows for team collaboration.

2. Hootsuite – Manage all your social media in one place. Hootsuite is used by over 15 million people because it is an all-in-one platform that allows you to curate and schedule content, measure your ROI, and run social media ads all through the platform itself.

3. Sprout Social – Similar to Hootsuite, Sprout Social combines several social media tools into one platform. That means from scheduling to reporting you can do it all within the Sprout Social Platform. Where this platform excels is in its reporting.

4. Agora Plus – Social media solutions simplified. Agora Plus is an all-in-one social media platform that enables you to schedule, respond, and build customized reports from your social media campaigns.

5. Sendible – Mainly used by Agencies, Sendible is a social media management tool designed for multiple cleitsn. Sendible also integrates with Canva and YouTube search so you can save time by avoiding repetitive tasks.

6. eClincher – Similar to the social media solutions listed above, eClincher allows you to schedule, publish posts, respond to messages, and analyze your social media performance online.

7. Social Pilot – A simple and cost-effective social media management tool for teams and agencies. Social Pilot also curates and suggests content for several industries to help develop content easily.

8. CoSchedule – More than just a social media solution, CoSchedule helps to manage and collaborate with your team to create social media posts, content, events, and tasks. It is a great resource for marketers looking to organize all of their projects.

 

Social Media Solutions: Analyzing Social Media 

You created killer graphics, you have scheduled your content, now it is time to analyze your social media performance. Here are the top social media solutions for analyzing the performance of your social media campaigns.

1. Buffer Analyze – With their Facebook and Instagram Analytics tool, you can make informed decisions about your social media strategy and measure your results effectively. The great thing about Buffer Analyze is that you can view your Instagram Stories Analytics, receive recommendation on new posts, and generate professional reports in just a few clicks!

2. Sprout Social – As a cross-channel listening platform, Sprout Social helps you perform a contextual and qualitative analysis of topics, hashtags, and keywords for your business. You can also analyze your paid campaigns, get reporting on your social media profiles, and analyze your social media team’s performance. 

3. Hootsuite – Offering a great combination of social media management, listening, publishing, and analytics, Hootsuite has everything you would want for your social media solutions. You can customize your social media reports using over 200 different metrics to report on. You can measure your team’s response time via platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. You can also track your mentions on social media to help respond to new customers and old.

4. Zoho Social – A CRM system that offers you the ability to track your social media success. Zoho Social helps you understand your social media audience and how they engage with you. Through the platform, you can create reports to monitor your social media campaigns. Develop a breakdown of the content forms, and compare it to what you have published in the past. You can even compare fans and other people based on the content you have shared in the past!  

5. Sendible – A content management tool that also provides you with monitoring, listening and reporting features. Sendible uses insights int your posts and engagement to help you understand how well your social media campaigns are performing. 

6. Keyhole – Track and monitor your events, campaigns, and influencer activity all through keyhole. Predict your campaign’s performance thanks to their machine learning capabilities. Receive a detailed analysis of people’s sentiments as to when they engage with your posts. Manage your influencer’s accounts and permissions, and track their performance all from one place. 

7. Google Analytics – Mainly used for website traffic, Google Analytics can help you analyze the impact of your social media campaigns, and where the source of traffic from your website is coming. You can even check out how many visits your website has received from each of the social media networks you have. This can all be used to help your bottom line, and increase conversions.  

8. Facebook Insights – Facebook Insights shows you the full stats behind your posts, your fans, and your reach. You can also receive information about the performance of other Facebook Pages you manage as well.

9. Instagram Insights – If you have an Instagram business profile, you have access to Instagram Insights. Offering a comprehensive range of data regarding your profile, posts, stories, and ads, this information will help you find the best times and days to post. 

10. Twitter Analytics – Twitter provides you with a 28-day summary of your profile and how it has performed. It also provides you with data about the number of impressions per tweet, the details on your engagement, and the ability to publish reports based on this information.