Today’s post, the second in our series of “lists of tools” posts, is going to talk about the best of the best social media marketing tools. Social media marketing is heating up, especially when combined with SEO and content marketing strategies, therefore, we thought it would be good to put together this killer list. In this post we are going to address tools specific to marketing on:
Let’s start with Facebook.Facebook Marketing Tools
Canva – Canva allows everyone (not just the graphic designers) to create beautiful graphics to share through Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and more. Users have access to a large library of professionally designed templates to use in their designs or to use as inspiration. Pricing Options: Free, $12.95/month, or priced upon need for enterprise-level customers Facebook for Business – Facebook for Business is their page and ad platform that allows small and large business to build an audience and engage with them on a regular basis. Pricing Options: Dependent on your marketing budget. Usually a minimum of $1 – $5/day per ad. AdParlor – AdParlor is a full service managed Facebook advertising solution for buying Facebook Ads. Pricing Options: SaaS Self-Serve Model or Fully Managed, cost dependent on cost of your ads. Headline Analyzer – Perhaps more so than ever before, headlines are increasingly the only thing read by social media users. Great headlines turn into better conversion rates, and Headline Analyzer will help you create headlines that drive traffic, shares, and search results. Pricing Options: $40 – $2,200/month ranging from Essential to Enterprise options. ShortStack – This does cost $29/month (unless you opt for the free version) but you get access to over 30 widgets and themes, and 90 templates you can used to create social media campaigns. ShortStack’s biggest benefit is in its ability to help you build and create landing pages, special offers, and custom forms. Pricing Options: Free – $499/month ranging from Free to Brand options. Marin Software – Marin Software is a Facebook Ad management and optimization tool for companies with larger ad spends. Pricing Options: Dependent on monthly ad spend. Qwaya – Owaya is also a Facebook Ad management tool that helps you optimize your ads and lower your spend while improving your ROI. Pricing Options: $149 – $349/month ranging from Premium to Agency options. Post Planner – Post Planner is a tool to help you keep content running through your feed at all times of the day which results in more reach, more likes, more leads, and more customers for your business. Pricing Options: $3 – $49/month ranging from Starter to Master options. OfferPop – Offer Pop is a third party platform that helps you build and launch Facebook apps in a matter of minutes. Updated: 10/20/2017 – They are now WYNG, which is a platform for launching social campaigns. Pricing Options: Contact for pricing. WP4FB – WP4FB is run on the WordPress platform. In a nutshell, WP4FB allows you to create highly professional, extremely viral, custom Facebook Fan Page Tabs, and build an audience. Pricing Options: $67 – $197/month ranging from a Single Domain License to an Unlimited License. WordStream Facebook Advertising Opportunity – WordStream has this tool available to help you see if you’re running Facebook Ads as well as you can. It analyzes your potential reach opportunity and what you can do to improve it. Pricing Options: Free analysis. AdEspresso – Hootsuite created this tool to analyze your Facebook advertising efforts. You get a free report that details how effective current campaigns are at reaching your target audience. Pricing Options: Free report. Likealyzer – This app compares your Facebook page to that of other businesses – competitors or brands you admire. It then produces easy-to-digest reports that help you hone your Facebook strategy. Pricing Options: FreeMulti-Channel Marketing Tools
Buffer – This app lets you schedule posts across multiple social channels – Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest, to name a few. It’s a versatile tool that’s a must-have if your audience is spread across multiple channels. Pricing Options: Free to $399/month ranging from an Individual to Large Business Account. Hootsuite – Hootsuite schedules posts across multiple platforms and provides actionable analytics and insights in a single place. Pricing Options: Free to $499/month (along with unspecified enterprise pricing) ranging from Professional to Enterprise. Share – This app from Sumo allows you to easily add social sharing buttons to any page on your website. Pricing Options: Free to $119/month (along with unspecified enterprise pricing) ranging from Basic to Sumo. AdStage – This app gathers all of your advertising data from social media channels and puts it in one place. You’re able to create your own custom dashboards tailored to unique needs. Pricing Options: Dependent on the marketing budget AdRoll – You can use this across multiple touch points to more effectively run retargeting campaigns. AdRoll also supports prospecting and email marketing management. Pricing Options: Based on your ad spend. Contact for specific pricing. Driftrock – This tool connects all of your ad platforms and then syncs all leads from those platforms to your chosen CRM – in real time. Pricing Options: Based on ad spend. Request a demo for specific pricing.Instagram Marketing Tools
Typorama – Canva is a great tool to use when you have access to a desktop or laptop, but if you’re on the go and need to make custom graphics just for use on Instagram, Typorama is your tool. It’s essentially the Canva of the Instagram world and is particularly helpful if your Instagram account is managed by multiple remote employees who all post from their phone/tablet. Pricing Options: Free Later – This is a scheduling app that stands out from the rest because it uses a visual-based template to present your calendar. For an image-based app like Instagram, that’s extremely helpful. It also works with Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest as well. Pricing Options: Free to $49/month, ranging from Individual to Brand accounts. Like2Buy – How often have you promoted anything on Instagram and used the phrase, “Link in the bio!” to try and drive sales? It works – but not as well as Like2Buy. This tool lets users shop your products simply by liking your photos. Pricing Options: Contact for pricing. Ink361 – Each Instagram audience is different, even when you’re comparing your metrics to direct niche competitors’. Ink361 analyzes what type of content generates the most engagement from your followers, analyzes your competitors to see what they’re doing well, and tracks engagement month-over-month. And it’s free. Pricing Options: Currently free, with a Pro Plan price TBD. SocialRank – Demographic information is key to learning more about your audience, and that’s what SocialRank provides. You can segment, filter, and export lists of followers based on any demographic criteria and design marketing campaigns tailored just for them. Pricing Options: Free to $49/month (including unspecified enterprise pricing) ranging from Basic to Premium. Grum – Easily upload photos to Instagram from your Mac or PC with this app, in addition to scheduling out your posts. Pricing Options: Free 3-day trial. Iconosquare – This app boasts simple, easy-to-digest Instagram analytics and other features, all included in a single location. Pricing Options: $9 to $79/month, ranging from Starter to Advanced accounts. Instagram Insights by Facebook – If you’re a regular user of Facebook Ads, you’ll appreciate the similar UI/UX of Instagram Insights. It features comparable data to what you get from Facebook Ads, all contained within the Facebook platform. Pricing Options: Free Olapic – This is a really unique tool that takes your owned, curated, and influencer content and transforms them into visual pieces you can repurpose across multiple channels. Since Instagram is a visual platform, Olapic is a great match. Pricing Options: Request a demo for pricing. Tagboard – If you’re looking for more content to share that’s not your own, Tagboard is a great resource. It gathers content from across the world – based on a single hashtag – and present it in one place so you can share that content with your audience. Pricing Options: $500 – $2,500/event ranging from Starter to Ultimate.LinkedIn Marketing Tools
LinkedIn Ads – LinkedIn Ads are just what they sound like… LinkedIn’s ad platform and are a great way for businesses to connect with individuals meeting the exact criteria of their buyer personas. Pricing Options: Based on your marketing budget. LinkedIn Partner Messages – LinkedIn Partner Messages allow advertisers to deliver targeted messages to potential partners and clients through the InMail messaging platform. Pricing Options: Based on your marketing budget.Twitter Marketing Tools
Twitter Ads – Twitter Ads is Twitter’s ad platform that allows you to promote your Twitter account to gain more followers or promote a specific tweet to gain more retweets. Pricing Options: Based on your marketing budget. TwitterFeed – TwitterFeed is a fun little tool to help keep your update stream full of great content. You can set up TwitterFeed to pull the RSS feed of specific blogs and serve that content through your stream. Updated: 10/20/2017 – Twitter feed has shut its doors. They recommend dlvr.it for pulling RSS feeds. Pricing Options: Free to $149.99/month, ranging from Free to Agency options. Sponsored Tweets – Sponsored Tweets is a similar platform like Twitter Ads, however, they only allow you to promote tweets to gain more visibility. Pricing Options: Based on your marketing budget.YouTube Marketing Tools
YouTube Video Targeting – From the name, I’m sure you’ve already guessed that this is YouTube’s ad platform. This is one of my favorite social media marketing tools as it allows you to target your ads to views of specific videos. You can also target your ads to geographic location, demographics, languages, categories, and others. Pricing Options: Based on your marketing budget, usually starts around $10/day. One Load – One Load is more of a video marketing tool in general, but it’s super cool. One load lets you upload and distribute your videos to several video platforms, including YouTube, to help you get more visibility for your video and business. Updated 10/20/2017: This product is no longer in service. GoAnimate – Animated videos sometimes fit the bill better than live-action, and GoAnimate gives you the tools you need to create your own animation, with no prior animation experience required. Pricing Options: $39 – $159/month, ranging from individual to team accounts. Viewbix – The ability to add interactive ads to videos is as big a revenue generator as buying directly from your Instagram feed. Viewbix gives you the tools you need to create engaging, interactive video ads. Pricing Options: Request a demo.Pinterest Marketing Tools
PinLeauge – PinLeauge is a marketing platform for Pinterest marketers that help you attract more followers and grow faster on Pinterest. They also offer a pretty awesome analytics platform for Pinterest as well. Update 10/20/17: PinLeague is now Tailwind, described below. Piqora – Piquora allows you to easily customize, deploy, and track Pinterest contests and sweepstakes. It also allows you to engage with your followers, uncover their favorite content, while driving continued impressions. Update 10/20/17 – Piqora is now Olapic. Pinstamatic – Pinstamatic helps you create great Pinterest boards in just a few minutes without much effort or any editing tools. Update 10/20/17 – Pinstamatic is no longer operating. Tailwind – A scheduling app built just for Pinterest, Tailwind gives you the best times of day to post based on when your audience most frequently uses the app. Pricing Options: Free Trial PinGroupie – Group boards are one of the best ways to drive revenue to your eCommerce site. PinGroupie gives you tailored insights as to which group boards you need to pin your content to in order to expand your audience and increase site traffic. Pricing Options: FreeGoogle+ Marketing Tools
Google My Business – Any business needs to have their Google My Business page claimed, filled out, and listed. When people search for vendors or products within a certain area, you’ll show up only if your Google My Business account is active. Pricing Options: Free dlvr.it – Deliver It allows you to push your blog content to Google+ and other social platforms without having to login and update your page every time you post. Circle Count – Circle Count helps you better understand Google+ and how certain people engage with content on their platform. Find People On Plus – Find People On Plus helps you locate people with similar interests as you or your business and connect with them. Wow! That’s quite the list. Am I missing any? If so, please feel free to share your favorite social media marketing tools in the comments section below. ]]>
Greg is the founder and CEO of Stryde and a seasoned digital marketer who has worked with thousands of businesses, large and small, to generate more revenue via online marketing strategy and execution. Greg has written hundreds of blog posts as well as spoken at many events about online marketing strategy. You can follow Greg on Twitter and connect with him on LinkedIn.
Greg Shuey
Greg is the founder and CEO of Stryde and a seasoned digital marketer who has worked with thousands of businesses, large and small, to generate more revenue via online marketing strategy and execution. Greg has written hundreds of blog posts as well as spoken at many events about online marketing strategy. You can follow Greg on Twitter and connect with him on LinkedIn.
One Response
Thanks for your article, Greg, you mentioned many tools I’ve never heard of before. I think one great tool, “Quintly”, is missing. I’d suggest to add it to your list, too!