9 Social Media Tools

For those of us in marketing today, having a hand in managing social media accounts at some level is a part of our day-to-day. You’re curating and creating content for social accounts, managing communities, monitoring mentions and measuring performance. If you’re anything like me, you’re immersed in the social space 24/7.

As social media managers, coordinators, marketers, specialists or whatever your title may be, we take on a huge number of tasks. Don’t get me wrong, working in social is a nice gig, but there’s no doubt that it can be overwhelming 98% of the time. Because of this, you need the proper tools to keep you sane.

Here’s a small list of nine of my personal favorites. These tools help me accomplish my daily social media tasks and more:

1. Sprout Social – Almost a complete social media management tool. I rely on Sprout Social to keep me sane. Why? Not only does Sprout Social offer a beautiful interface, but it brings tasks like monitoring daily activity, publishing content, community outreach, measurement and reporting together into one platform. Oh, and did I mention it provides Instagram analytics?

2. Buffer – This is another great tool for scheduling and sharing content. Buffer is extremely easy to use and includes an extension that allows you to share any Web page, photo or text excerpt. Oh, and Buffer has a wonderful blog so I highly encourage you to check it out.

3. Feedly – One of the best applications for catching up on blog posts and news stories.

4. Scoop.it – Discover, curate and publish content.

5. Trello – Four stars for Trello! If you’re a visual person, or if you’re looking for a tool that allows you to organize content and projects by progress stage, than Trello is for you. I use Trello to organize my content ideas, client projects and to-dos.

6. Tweetdeck – For intense Twitter management, I use Tweetdeck. Monitor mentions and keywords for free! My favorite way to use Tweetdeck is during Twitter chats. It’s easy to manage and anyone can use it, even the PR professionals on my team.

7. Shortstack – The Shortstack app is nothing short of awesome. This tool allows you to easily create social media contests, sweepstakes, forms, coupon offers, surveys and much more.

8. BuzzSumo – Simply search keywords and BuzzSumo provides you with the most shared content and key influencers. Analyze what type of content performs best for any topic and find key influencers to promote your content. This tool is the champion of content and influencer discovery.

9. Canva – Wondering who made the graphic above? Yours truly. How did I do it? Canva, the tool that makes graphic design super simple for everyone. Create designs for Web and print, social post graphics, Facebook covers, flyers and initiations. Canva really is the easiest design tool out there (Note: This tool does not replace Photoshop or the job of those talented creative, but for simple design tasks, Canva offers a helping hand.)

There you have it, my favorite tools for social media management and content creation. I’d love to know which tools are your favorites, too!