As a marketer in the age of technology making sure that your content is spread far and wide, that you can track the interactions with that content, managing your social media presence, and still somehow build a relationship with your customers can be a daunting task. The great thing about technology is that not only does it give you access to more potential leads than ever before, but it also helps you manage and track everything that is happening. Here are 5 tools that every marketer should be using:
Hootsuite – Management Dashboard
Hootsuite is a nifty tool. It allows you to add multiple social media accounts, track mentions, messages, comments, likes, and pretty much any other analytic you could want. It also has one of my favorite features – the ability to schedule your social media posts. You can schedule your posts based on when you have the most traffic, or do A/B testing to find out when the best time is based on your followers. This is massive tool that can help you dive deep into your data and streamline your workflow.
Price:
Free: Connect up to 3 social profiles, 1 user, basic scheduling, and basic dashboard (tracking) features.
Professional ($19/Month): Free features + 10 social profiles, 1 user, message scheduling, real time analytics, social sweepstakes, and unlimited RSS integrations.
Team ($99/Month): Professional features + 20 social profiles, 3 users, custom analytics, bulk scheduling, team assignments, 6 contest templates, 1 custom branded URL, 1 social media certification, and 15 minutes of 1-on-1 training.
Business ($499/Month): Team features + 50 social profiles, 10 users, analytic data reports, publishing approvals, premium app integrations, custom branded URLs, 4 social media certifications, 24/7 priority support, and 30 minutes of 1-on-1 training.
**There is also an enterprise solution that is custom built and custom priced.
IFTTT – Recipe Builder
IFTTT is an acronym for “if this then that”. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way we can talk about what this kick a** tool actually does. It’s a recipe builder that uses one event as a cue to start another event (hence the name). It’s extremely convenient for those moments when you take a picture of a job, or a client, or whatever and want to share it across social media. For example: You take a picture and post it to your company Instagram account. IFTTT then runs a recipe that posts that Instagram photo as a native Tweet. Then it runs another recipe that posts that photo as a native Facebook post. Then…well, you get the idea. It takes a process that you could spend 30 minutes doing and shortens it into one single post. You can also do some extremely creative actions with it. Like, when a client emails me, add their email to my “to-do” list.
Price:
Free: The entire tool is free. The recipes are crowdsourced (made by trusted users) and you can even make your own recipe all for free.
Google Analytics – Website Traffic Tracker
Google Analytics is a great tool to pair with your current website. Simply sign up and follow the instructions to begin seeing data about searches for your website, backlinks, position status, and a whole range of information that can help you get into the data trenches of your business.
Price:
Free: Again, another free to use tool. It helps Google create the best search engine they can, and you can stay informed to stay ahead of the competition.
Crowdfire – Social Media Manager
Crowdfire is similar to Hootsuite in some ways, but it also has capabilities that are geared specifically toward the growth of your social media accounts. You can add Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and many other social media accounts to your profile. Through this site you can follow people based on keywords, see who followed and unfollowed you, and get your social media “report card” which shows you different statistics about each of your accounts. Perhaps one of coolest features is the share for growth feature. Crowdfire helps curate different articles, videos, and pictures on your various social media accounts to help maximize reach and growth.
Price:
Free: The basic form of the tool is free. Everything listed above is included!
Enterprise: There is a more advanced enterprise level account that includes additional features. The monthly cost as well as details of the features can be requested through Crowdfire Support.
HubSpot’s Free CRM – Customer Relationship Manager
1-to-1 is all the rage and HubSpot’s free CRM toolkit is here to help you with that. Features include the ability to create email templates, build and manage contact records, place calls, book meetings, the ability to hold up to 1,000,000 contacts, and much more. It is one of the most impressive free tools I have seen from a company and is perfect for any business on a small budget. One of the features I like the most is the timeline feature. As you work with a customer all information is logged under their record in the timeline. From calls to emails and reminders all of your information is stored in one central location.
Price:
Free: It’s even in the name! HubSpot promises that this tool will always be free.
Click here to find out how we can use these tools and more to be your personal marketing department and light a fire under your brand.