5 Tools You Need to Thrive on Social Media

4.2 billion people in the world have social media accounts. And if you are trying to reach a portion of this number (no matter how little), it is important to put your best foot forward by investing in the right social media tools.

This counts for every social media platform from Facebook to Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok and Snapchat among others. 

Every idea, image, social commentary, or news you share on these platforms should show that some effort went into it or your content might not get any interaction from your audience.  

But putting your best foot forward on social media requires juggling multiple balls: design, post timing and good grammar.

All these can be time-consuming, but there are tools that make the process easier and help you achieve great results.

From our experience with handling social media for high-growth enterprise and SaaS companies, we have put together a list of 5 tools you need to thrive on social media and exactly how they can be really helpful to you.

1. Social media scheduling tools

Remembering to post consistently on different platforms can be a chore. But social media scheduling tools are a good shortcut.

Scheduling makes you really efficient. It allows you to reach your target audience at the times they’re online, especially if the time is inconvenient for you. It also helps if you are sick and can not access that platform at that time because the posts have already been scheduled and would surely go up.

There are so many different ways to schedule posts for social media. Facebook and Twitter have options to do that, but platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn do not. Fortunately, there are great third-party tools you can use like Later, Hootsuite and Buffer.

With these social media scheduling tools, you can upload your image, create your caption, include hashtags and choose the time you want to post. From there, the tool does the job of uploading that post at the time you choose.

When creating a content schedule, here are a few things to consider:

• How frequently do you want to post?: If you decide on one post a day, then take time to create posts that will resonate with your followers before going ahead to schedule them.

• Keep an eye on your insights:  This will help you analyze what’s working and what’s not so you know if you need to adjust anything.

• Stick to the guidelines of that platform: Make sure to pay attention to things like image size and word count when scheduling your posts so they do not get rejected.

2. Design tools

Posts with relevant images get 94% more views than posts without images. Relevant can mean many things but a big part of it is that the image looks good and stands out.

Every image on your social media platform, from your profile picture to your posts, must draw people in.

A good checklist you can go through is this:

• Does the image look professional?
• Is it an image that strongly represents your brand?
• Will the image captivate people’s attention?
• Does it improve your brand recognition?

Creating images that tick all these boxes for social media are easier than before with the arrival of tools like Canva, Crello and Snappa. These that provide you with ready-made templates which you can use and adjust as you like.

With these design tools, you don’t have to be a design pro to make your social media look professional and visually impressive. And the best part is that they significantly boost your brand recognition and success.

READ: Is influencer marketing what you need right now?

3. Analytics tools for social media

Analytics help you learn a lot about your social media audience. It gives you insight into their habits and what they enjoy or do not enjoy.

Taking some time to carefully study and understand your social media analytics can help you in so many ways. For example, it can help you determine the best time to post, as timing is very important with social media marketing. 

If you post when your audience is online, it increases your chances of getting better engagement and traffic. It can also show you what kind of content performs well.

With Analytics tools, you can accurately determine metrics like:

• Impressions: The number of times a post shows up on the timeline
• Reach: The number of unique viewers a post has. 
• Engagement: How much the audience is interacting with your content.

Most social media networks let you easily monitor these analytics through their built-in analytics tools. If that does not provide the information you need, you can easily check out third party analytics tools like Hubspot and Buzzsumo.

4. Grammar and spell check tools

There is no excuse for bad grammar on social media. If you want to write grammatically correct content and ensure that there are no errors, a safe route to go will be grammar and spell check tools.

Bad grammar and spelling can affect you and your brand credibility in several ways. It can put your audience off and discourage them from visiting your page ever again.

Good grammar plays an important part in the quality of your content. That is why it is important to go the extra mile and use grammar and spell check tools to improve your online content.

You might say, “It is not that deep, grammar and spelling is not a big deal…people will get the message.” 

But that’s wrong because you don’t want people to have to think too hard to understand what you are saying. They won’t want to come back another time.

With flawed grammar, your message can become confusing, difficult to understand or misleading. But with tools like Grammarly, Prowriting Aid, and Hemingway app, you can get rid of bad grammar and syntax.

5. Image editing tools

If you want your image to be shared a lot, you have to make sure it is very visually appealing.  

Visual communication is key to a successful social media strategy because most social media platforms are visual-centric. This means that, not only do they allow you to post images, they actually encourage you to post good images or videos. 

Editing the images you post can attract more attention, especially in a sea of social media images. In order to make your brand easily identifiable, you need your posts and images to stand out from other posts. Image editing does that by allowing you to include distinct colours, styles, borders, logos, or watermarks that set you apart.

If you are a brand or business on social media, image editing tools are essential because they help you build your brand identity.

They are a lot of editing apps you can try out that are also very easy to use e.g Snapseed, Adobe Lightroom and VSCO Cam. You should try one out today.

Conclusion

Even though the above tools help you generate more leads and sales on social media, you need to make sure that you are using the best of these tools.

You have to carefully evaluate every tool you use and ensure that it is one that gives you the best results.

We can help you to create images and grammatically correct content which you can schedule to ensure that your clients keep coming back.

Which other tools would you recommend for social media management? Drop them in the comments below.

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We have worked with over 24 startups to drive conversions through increased community presence and relevant blog posts that we help distribute. To understand our process, book a 15 - 30 minutes meeting with us.