19 Jan 2014

5 Tools Everyone in Social Media Should Be Using



By Ben Harper at Social Media Today:

Social media is becoming more and more of a data game in 2014.  Those in the know can optimize and dominate those who aren't running their campaigns in a data-led way.  Combine this with the ever increasing usage of social, the fragmentation of audience by platform, and the trend towards paid reach on some platforms and many social media managers will be at a loss as to how to manage their social presence in a sensible way.  Fear not though, we've put together a handy guide on 5 of the tools that everyone in social media should be using to help you survive and thrive in an ever-expanding marketplace!


Socialbakers (www.socialbakers.com)

Socialbakers are a company providing a whole suite of tools, including listening, posting and ad analytics.  However, their key tool is Socialbakers Analytics.  This tool allows you to compare your social profiles to your key competitors, seeing all publicly available social metrics alongside each other.  This allows you to benchmark your performance versus the competition & in the market, and see which parts of your content strategy are performing best, allowing you to optimise your content accordingly.

The ability to fully use data to optimise your content is really helpful, and allows you to consistently deliver better results from each Tweet & Facebook post based on your learnings.


Kuhcoon Ads (www.kuhcoon.com)

This tool is a relatively new one that we've started using here at Datify.  Kuhcoon is a tool that allows you to create, manage and monitor your ads, but the key point here is that you can do all of this from your iOS device.  About 70% of social media usage from the social media manager perspective is on mobile, however the one element we have struggled to control when on the go is advertising management.  Kuhcoon Ads solves this problem with a handy app that allows you to monitor campaigns on the go in terms of their performance, and pause and restart adverts and campaigns from your smartphone.

This means no more having to drag the laptop out at home to double-check how things are going and is a real time saver.



TweetDeck (tweetdeck.twitter.com)

TweetDeck has been around for a number of years now, but is still one of the top 5 tools that I believe everyone should be using for their Twitter management.  TweetDeck allows you to pull in all of your accounts, organise columns to track various keyword terms that are appearing in other Tweets and track competitors feeds.

Another advantage of TweetDeck is that you can schedule content for different dates and times for your profiles, to allow you to build out your content calendar quickly and easily.

For interacting with customers and people who may potentially be interested in your services, TweetDeck is an amazing free options that allows you multiple options.


Optimal Social (www.optimalsocial.com)

Optimal Social is a really interesting tool that I'd definitely recommend everyone checking out.  Optimal run an advertising optimisation platform, but the most interesting part of their tool is the Analytics section.  This area allows you to start in depth audience analysis by searching for people who like and dislike certain topics, by location and by platform.  Searching for those who like 'football' for instance shows you the total potential reach, the gender split, and what else those people are interested in.



Graphics like the above show the kind of insight it can pull out in terms of income of people who like different brands, and there is a real wealth of data in the platform to explore.  Some elements are paid, but there is plenty of data in the tool that can be found for free that will come in handy for your planning and strategy.


Topsy (www.topsy.com)

Topsy is a massively useful tool for social listening purposes.  Topsy is a relatively cheap tool to use the full social analytics section.  This allows you to search for multiple keywords over specified date ranges.  From this you can graph the Twitter mention data, and see sentiment scores.

Topsy is also great for link tracking when you have a blog post or other content that is being shared widely - the free version of Topsy allows you keep a track of this very easily so that you respond on Twitter as required.

There are literally thousands of social media tools that are worth investigating these days; however, the above five are all essentials that you must have in your locker ready to use when you need them.  They make our job a lot easier here, and I'm sure they will for you too.

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2 comments:

  1. You got a definitely helpful blog I’ve been right here reading for about an hour. I’m a newbie and your accomplishment is quite a lot an inspiration for me.

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  2. Hi….Thanks for sharing this knowledgeable article about social media. Your article is really very helpful for me. Keep sharing more…..

    ReplyDelete