Small and Medium Businesses should have some form of Social Media presence to help grow their online reputation and increase their brand awareness. Whether that is Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram or any other Social Media tool, growing an online presence is a sound strategy for building a business. The key to successfully growing an online social presence is to maximise the investment in time spent on social platforms. And to do this, there are some great tools available to give a helping hand.

1. Bitly – Bitly is a URL shortener. It enables users to get a shorthand version of a long URL, perfect for character-limited Tweets. But its functionality isn’t limited to shortening URL’s. Bitly enables users to track click-through rates for shortened links, providing great insight in to which links get great engagement and which do not.

2. Hootsuite – Hootsuite is a great tool for Twitter users. It’s functionality includes the ability to manage multiple Twitter accounts (if you have them), is cross-platform meaning it can be used on web, and mobile devices, and it enables Tweeters to schedule posts in advance, a great time-saving feature.

3. Buffer – Buffer is a really useful Social Media tool, particularly for Twitter. Where Hootsuite is great at managing conversations and interacting, Buffer offers better scheduling options, using algorithms which flow content to social media platforms at optimal times, allowing users to forget about micro-managing the times when content is posted.

4. Google Sheets – All businesses need a tool to help them manage their content strategy. Creating a social media content plan for your business is an important way of ensuring that you get the right messages out on your social media platforms at regular intervals. And with Google Sheets, you have a solution that enables you to save a file virtually and edit that file wherever you are, and on any device.

5. Facebook Pages Manager – This app, available on iPhone and Android, is a really useful tool for managing Facebook activity whilst on the go. It enables users to view messages, posts, reviews and all manner of Facebook activity, without getting distracted with your personal Facebook account!

6. ScheduGram – ScheduGram is a great tool for scheduling content on Instagram. Instagram has it’s limitations, one of which is the inability to schedule posts. It is perfect for drip-feeding imagery through Instagram, which is a rapidly growing tool, and might have a slightly different demographic than Facebook and Twitter, allowing your business to access a diverse audience.

7. Google Alerts – Staying up to date with current trends in your industry is vital, and it’s a useful way to gather content for your social media plan. Google Alerts is an easy way to get alerts on keywords across the web, on that day. Search for your industry keyword and Google will trawl the web for recent content that might be of interest.

8. Tweetdeck – Tweetdeck is a similar tool to Twitter, in that it enables users to schedule content, manage conversations and interact on Twitter. Its functionality is not quite as strong as Hootsuite, but where it does have one advantage is its Geography based search feature. Hootsuite’s Geo search feature isn’t working particularly well at the moment, whereas Tweetdeck is right on the money, enabling users to seek out conversations on Twitter in a particular area, and interact.

9. Crowdbooster – No social media strategy is complete without the ability to measure results, and Crowdbooster is one of the best tools available. It’s not a free tool, but it’s good value. It enables the to ability to measure the most vital stats like reach, engagement and impressions through Facebook, and it also has some useful functionality to help analyse when the best time to post is, enabling business owners to tweak their plan to help maximise return.

There seems to be a Social Media tool for everything nowadays! If you are still struggling to get your head around Social Media, or if you struggle to find the time to manage your Social Media accounts, then click here to contact the team and to work with onefoursix.