Wakefly BlogHow to Utilize Social Media Tools to Increase Productivity

As social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram grow in popularity, so do the number of tools at the marketer’s disposal to use these platforms efficiently.  There are hundreds of social media tools aimed at providing extensive analytics, finding the appropriate content to share, scheduling posts at the optimal time, or selecting the perfect hashtag.  It is so easy to get wrapped up in one cool aspect of each tool that before you know it, you’re using ten tools to draft and publish one post (trust me, it happens).  Here at Wakefly, we have a couple of favorite tools that help us stay organized, create beautiful content, and maintain the ROI of our social media efforts for our clients.

SproutSocial

SproutSocial is the perfect tool for scheduling posts to Facebook, Twitter, Google +, and LinkedIn at the click of a button.  You can schedule the same post multiple times by using the calendar tool to select multiple dates, which is really handy for job postings.  We also love that it has an interactive inbox where you can respond to Facebook messages, comments, tweets, or just about any other social interaction right from the tool, and check it off when you’re done!  There is a pretty robust reporting tool that provides you with an overall group report and engagement report, combining all accounts you have linked to the platform.  You can also view reports by the specific social media platform.  The biggest perk of SproutSocial is that it allows us to manage all the social media accounts for all of our clients with one login, keeping everything accessible!

Canva

As a marketer with limited graphic design skill, Canva is hands down the best thing in the entire world when it comes to creating visual content with ease.  The tool allows us to create graphics for social media and blog posts, posters, presentations, infographics and much more by choosing from a predetermined list of sizes.  Once you chose what you want to create, you can choose from thousands of templates, stock photos, icons, shapes, and fonts, helping you to create professional-looking pieces. Many of these images are free, and premium ones are a dollar each.  In just a few weeks, Canva is rolling out “Canva for Work” which will allow companies to create content with a consistent brand message, use folders to organize client work, and create standard templates for things like infographics and presentations.

Iconosquare

Instagram itself does not offer analytics, except for the lucky few brands that were invited to participate in their advertising program.  The rest of us turn to Iconosquare.  This platform allows you to view your media, your likes, comments, followers, and who you are following.  It also provides you with statistics such as your follower growth, post density, hashtag and filter usage, the average lifespan of your posts and what times your community is most engaged.  Iconosquare makes it easy to manage hashtag contests, keep tabs on your brand’s hashtag, or search for new followers by typing a hashtag into the search bar.  The tool is currently free, but they are working on tiered plans that will (hopefully) offer more robust analytics.  Our favorite part about Iconosquare is that it is the only way to manage Instagram from a desktop computer.  Aside from posting (which you can only do from the Instagram app on a mobile device), you can like and comment on posts and follow users right from the tool.

Do you need help managing your social media platforms? Give us a call, we would love to help!