The social media space is as jammed as an LA freeway. From design and creativity tools to ad technologies and analytics, there’s a whole lot to consider, and a crowded field of tools vying for your attention. This infographic above was produced last year by research firm Gartner Group, and it does an outstanding job of showcasing how chaotic this world really is.
So what’s a marketer to do? To blast through all the clutter, a little research is a must. If you’re on the hunt for tools and services that truly help you get a leg up in social media, but don’t have time to take them all for a test drive, feast your eyes on the list below. These apps and teams have solved significant social challenges, and the tools are truly useful to your overall strategies.
Sysomos: Truly Powerful Social Monitoring
The heart of social media lies firmly in audience engagement. Yet monitoring the myriad of blogs, social networks, social media tools, and community forums is a meticulous and laborious task indeed. That’s where Sysomos comes in.
Sysomos aids small to medium companies in their quest to document all the details of their brand’s social presence. Features include comprehensive data collection (with excellent spam filtering), meticulous data analysis, and hyper-smart data processing. What makes Sysomos stand out is their intelligent algorithms that help make sense of the robust information. This is a tool that will help you fully understand your target market, giving you the power to craft social media campaigns that blast your brand into the stratosphere.
Sprout Social: Superior Feed and Team Management
For most of us, the biggest problem when adopting a new tech tool is the associated learning curve. Sprout Social is a welcome exception. The interface on this feature rich management tool possesses an outstanding intuitive, visual design. Considering the long list of functionalities, this is an impressive feat indeed.
Sprout Social offers the ability for marketers to monitor mentions, feeds, shares, and all the various social signals. It also provides a single publishing platform to send blasts out to all the various sites. But what Sprout Social really does best is aggregation and team management. From one beautiful UI, you can access nearly every single feed you own and operate. Additionally, Sprout lets managers create teams and related assignments, granting the power to review posts before a team member shares it with the world.
SocialFlow: Because Timing is Everything
If you haven’t yet discovered the exact days and times that your audience is most likely to interact with your content, you absolutely need SocialFlow. This well designed tool has a built-in and optimized algorithm that connects to Facebook and Twitter feeds. SocialFlow analyses three critical factors regarding your social campaigns:
- Messages – It determines which of your relevant messages are most likely to actually connect with your demographic.
- Audience – SocialFlow can indicate which segment of your audience is currently online, giving you valuable insight into real-time posting.
- Timing – Finally, the tool will help you determine the right time to send each and every blast.
Tweepi: Master the World of Twitter
For many social media experts, Twitter is the toughest platform to excel on. Consequently, there are dozens of Twitter-centric tools to help conquer the many challenges. If great Twitter management is your goal, it doesn’t get much better than Tweepi. Tweepi helps users take on tasks that are otherwise very time consuming, like flushing unfollowers, cleaning up inactive lists, reciprocating other followers, and keeping tabs on intriguing new tweets. With memberships for as little as $7.49 a month, Tweepi’s affordable to boot. If Twitter is a mainstay for your campaigns, then Tweepi will an invaluable tool for you.
Everypost: The Free, Must-Have App
If your marketing budget doesn’t hold a dime for additional tools, then Everypost should be your new favorite app. Free to use and download, Everypost helps social experts to post updates across various networks from the convenience of a phone or tablet. In addition to connectivity of platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google+, Everypost lets you email your sends to your mailing list as well. There are other fun features, like a tweet tool that automatically shortens posts to 140 characters or less.
Crowdbooster: Know Your Audience
While Crowdbooster doesn’t cover every social platform, it gives you essential insight into the worlds of Facebook and Twitter. Since these are the two most popular social sites, this may be just the tool to solve your analytics issues.
Crowdbooster shares insights into the segments of your followers that interact with images and videos, full impression analysis, and total reach + engagement across your demographic. In essence, Crowdbooster demystifies your campaigns, showing you clearly what’s working and what has missed the mark. The tool will even alert you to new Twitter members that would likely be interested in your goods or services. Starting at just $9 a month, Crowdbooster is a great bargain for the myriad of features and benefits.
Did your favorite social media tool make the list? If not, please tell us about it below!
