If a search for social media optimization landed you on this page, then you already know how crucial Facebook and other platforms are to business in 2014. With 72% of all online adults using social media, helping generate over 700 billion minutes of Facebook usage a month, according to Statistic Brain, it should be no surprise that 83% of marketers believe social media is integral to their efforts, as statistics from Social Media Examiner show.
Like every other marketing effort you make to increase your website traffic and eCommerce revenue, small business social media marketing is a multifaceted conundrum. If you’re among the majority of small business owners who are finding social media marketing management a nightmare, here are four social media tools you can use to make your efforts easier and more effective.
Four Social Media Tools You Need to Use
- Mention
- Buffer
- Facebook Insights and Other Built-in Analytics
- A Great Writing Team
Mention, as the name implies, gives marketers the ability to track their company’s mentions on Facebook, Blogger, Twitter, and pretty much everywhere else online. Why is this important? The more you’re mentioned, the more you’ll be found in search results, the more visibility you’ll have online, and the more successful your social media efforts will have become. This is a simple, refined analytics tool designed with the singular purpose of letting you know how popular your company is among the web’s two billion-plus users.
Like Mention, Buffer is a powerful social media analytics tool. Beyond that, it’s arguably the best syndication solution among all social media tools. Using this application, marketers can easily schedule updates via Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and other services. As Inc. writes, this tool also provides detailed analytics on what times in the day the most readers see content, where those readers are located, and other important bits of data. What you’re left with is a tool that can help you better define your target audience.
While social media platforms’ built-in analytics tools have taken some flack for being unreliable, the fact is they remain free to use. When you add to that the fact that recent updates to services like Facebook Insights have rendered these site-specific social media tools far more effective, you have a perfect combination for marketers looking for free options. Social Media Examiner points out that new benchmarking, audience comparison, and user demographic tools have rendered Facebook’s Insights one of the best social media tools out there, and you don’t even need to pay a dime to use it!
Despite the advances in social media tracking software, the most powerful social media tools can’t be engineered. If you want to have a successful campaign on Facebook or elsewhere, you need a great content production team. Well written content with punchy titles and engaging, informative text is the key to having content shared and generating new traffic everywhere online, including on social media. When you consider that, according to Inbound Writer, 61% of web users say they’re more likely to make a purchase when a company publishes engaging, custom content, this becomes extremely evident.
Social media marketing is crucial to the success of your business in 2014, but using it properly doesn’t have to be a chore. With these useful social media tools, you can improve your social media marketing efforts and reach greater levels of success in the future.
