Posts

tools for entrepreneurs blog image

As an entrepreneur, it is important to find tools to help us stay organized, creative and on top of our social media. In this video, we will go over 10 tools to help you save time, work smarter, not harder.

Interested in learning more? Take a look at the following videos:

Creating the Right Mindset as an Entrepreneur

Setting your Social Media Goals

Core Values, Why They Are Important To Your Business

It goes without saying that apps are a Social Media Manager’s BFF!  They help us plan, analyze, stay creative, efficient, productive, curate content and SO MUCH MORE!  One thing is for sure, we couldn’t survive without them!

When challenged to share our favorite 5, it was tough to choose!  There are so many quality apps available today and new ones are emerging every day!  Below are 5 of our favorite go-to apps that you will want to get your hands on right away!  To grab these apps, head over to your devices app store to snag them.

Get Creative with These Apps

As a Social Media Manager or anyone who manages a brand’s social content, you need to be creative.  One of the goals of the content you post is to “Stop The Scroll”.  This requires interesting and engaging posts.

  1.  Adobe Spark Post!

Why We Love It:  

This app is great for creating anything from a social media post graphic to posters, and custom sizes.  Not only does this app have loads of size options available, its library of free stock photos is HUGE!  Not only does Adobe Spark Post make amazing images, it also animates images.  Fun Alert!  Once you start with Spark, you may not be able to stop!

  1.  Animoto

Do you have a bunch of pictures that tell a story about your brand, service or product?  Let’s face it, sometimes static images just won’t do the job.  Our solution…Animoto!  Animoto is a great resource for turning images into animated video.  Not only does it create a great video but it also has amazing stock music to help you hit the right vibe.

  1. Typorama

A good Social Media Manager knows that you can’t just have one resource for creating social media graphics.  If you only use one tool, your posts become predictable, and, well…boring.  To create a wide variety of post types, you need to have a wide variety of apps.  We love Typorama because it has a large selection of font styles you can use for your graphic posts.  

Pro Tip:  Check you Typorama’s sister app, Videorama.  This is a super cool app that has a large selection of stock video for you to use.  Get creative with Videorama by adding text overlays, music, and filters to your videos.

 

Get efficient and save time with these apps.

4 & 5.  Yes, we said “these”.  

There are two time-saving apps we adore which wouldn’t allow us to choose just one.  Here’s why…Social Media Managers are a busy lot!  We are always creating content, posting and tracking the engagement of our posts.  In order to be effective at all of those things simultaneously, we need a tool to help us.  

So, numbers 4 & 5 on our list are Buffer and Hootsuite.  Both of these apps have web-based and mobile device platforms which are designed to help you schedule the posts you create.  

We love Buffer for its ease of use when it comes to scheduling posts on multiple accounts.  Hootsuite rocks when it comes to monitoring the social conversation surrounding your posts.  Both have similar functions.  We encourage you to dive into each to decide which is the best fit for you or maybe it is a combination of the two!

Honorable Mentions

Yup!  It was hard to pick just 5 favorites.  We couldn’t leave these out because they help to keep your posts and feeds uber interesting!  Make sure you check out:

  • Boomerang for repetitive, looped animation.  Try it once and you’ll be hooked!
  • Ripl – Great for animated video
  • Hyperlapse – Speed up a long video using this time-lapsed video app. Great for instructional type videos
  • Vont – Edit and trim videos right on your smartphone with this easy to use video editor

Pro Tip:  One of the best things you can do for your social media accounts is to keep them fresh and exciting.  Take the time to get to know new and different apps to help you achieve this.

Have fun and stay social!

 

Aside from your website, social media provides an effective way to increase your web presence. It provides a way to generate PR for your company, build your brand and drive traffic to your website. You need to be active on social media if you are serious about achieving these goals. After all, you can’t expect any results if your page is inactive. The problem is that, social media marketing takes time.

If you are a business owner, you can’t afford to spend all day hopping from network to network, managing your social media accounts, planning future posts and checking analytics.

Are you looking for a better way to manage your social media posts? Here are 4 social media tools to add to your arsenal.

Hootsuite

Hootsuite is one of the most robust social media management tools around, and social media managers swear by it. The tool has a feature called Autoschedule. If you have multiple accounts, you can use this feature to manage your posts and make sure that they don’t appear on different channels all at the same time. It also shares your updates at the best possible time of the day to give them the greatest chance of being seen. Hootsuite also allows you to monitor and analyze your performance on your main social networks.

Buffer

Buffer allows you to easily distribute your content across multiple accounts. Just drop your updates to your Buffer queue and you don’t have to worry about when it will be posted. These posts will be posted for you well spaced out throughout the day.

Buffer also allows users to schedule up to 10 updates at once. The paid version, on the other hand, allows unlimited scheduling.

SocialOomph

Twitter has become one of the must-have marketing channels for any business. If you are interested in automating your Twitter marketing, SocialOomph is the best tool for you. It has a feature called Twitter unlimited, which allows you to manage your Twitter followers and direct messages box from within the app. The free level also allows you to work on up to 5 Twitter accounts. It helps you track keywords and schedule tweets.

Sprout Social

Sprout Social allows you to manage all your relationships, interactions and customer support from a single dashboard. This tool also analyzes your audience to determine the optimal times to deliver content. Because it’s not free, this is recommended for larger businesses that are looking for an all-in-one solution to manage their social media presence.

They say on February 14th love is in the air. But is it in your social media relationships? This time of year is about love and generosity. Make sure that that love extends to your online network. Take Valentine’s Day as a reminder to the real reason you are on social media in the first place.

This day typically has people evaluating the relationships that are important to them. Use this holiday as a way to show your users that you care and that they are important to you and your company. Share content that would be helpful to somebody today.  Share a romantic idea, a funny love story, singles inspiration – get creative. Let your followers and social media friends in on the love that is in your company. How did your company start? Probably with a passion or love for your product or service – share that.

Managing social media is about long term relationships. Companies and brands are at a point where they are trying to figure out the “secrets” to unlock social media success. In doing so, tools that track metrics are gaining popularity. Although these are important tools, social media is not just all about numbers. It is wonderful to follow users, add friends and get “Liked.” But more than that it is about following through, having meaningful conversations, and building real communities. Make sure that while you are keeping track of data, you are still keeping track of conversation. If your content is not getting reposted, don’t worry. Instead acknowledge the people that did respond. Reply to their comments and continue the conversation by asking another question. The people that comment on your content are users that are actually engaging with your brand – they may be interacting with you for more than just a discount deal or coupon code.

Cherish and nurture the social media connections you already have. Whether your users are married, in a committed relationship, have a crush or are celebrating love with family and friends – Valentine’s Day will is sure to be on their minds.

 

 

 

 

After playing with social media for a few hours, it’s easy to become overwhelmed. You quickly realize that there are so many new tools constantly coming out that you feel obligated to learn in order to keep your social media marketing plan strong.

You can be sure that with Internet marketing, once you conquer one social media platform, a new one will come out soon enough, so always be prepared for continual learning! However, understand that sometimes it is worth learning all the new social media tools, and sometimes you might not need to invest so much time in learning a new platform; it all depends on your specific marketing plan and target audience.

While it can be demanding to have to constantly keep up with the latest social media tools, there are tricks to help keep your cool and stay strong in the ever-changing Internet marketing scene. Here are three elements to stick with in order to keep your social media marketing plan sturdy when approaching new social media channels.

1. Stick with what you know

If you’ve been playing with social media for a while now, you should know what works for you and what doesn’t. If there’s one social media platform you know is bringing you success, stick with it and maintain that success. When you find a new social media channel, experiment with it, but don’t neglect your best platform.

2. Stick with your marketing plan

If you know certain social media platforms won’t work well with your company’s marketing goals, don’t waste your time with them. Know what your company message is, what content you want to deliver, and who you want to deliver it to. Keep this plan flexible so it can adapt to the latest platforms, but never forget what your marketing plan is. Only spend time looking into new platforms if they seem to align with your marketing goals.

3. Stick with your customers

To be successful with social media marketing, you must know who your target audience is and know what social media platforms they use the most. Take this information into consideration when new platforms pop up. Think about if the new platform seems like something your target market would get into, or not. If it is, take the time to learn it to reach those customers.

Even though there is a lot to learn with social media marketing, if you spend your time wisely on learning what will work with your social media campaign, you will stay successful.

2012 has been called the, “Year of Social Media.” Reports have found that 75% of marketers plan to increase their social media spending this year, and social media is expected to have a major impact on television and the presidential election.

With such high expectations for social media, you may feel like if your business is not in the social media loop, you could quickly go out of business. However, before rushing into multiple social media platforms in a panic, consider your business needs. Social media can certainly help your business, but some platforms aren’t the best options for your company, so don’t feel like you must enable all platforms.

Today, a wide variety of social media platforms exist that have various features to cater to specific needs. Come up with an effective social media strategy that will use your money and resources the most efficiently. Don’t believe the hype that getting thousands of Facebook followers, or sending out dozens of Tweets per day is the key to social media success for every business. To get the most out of social media marketing, you need to figure out which social media tools are right for you, and focus specifically on those.

First, identify your audience. You need to define whom it is you want to talk to. If you try to communicate with the most number of consumers possible, you won’t see much brand loyalty in return. If you want to engage with as many consumers as possible efficiently, you need to use different tools in different ways. Every social media platform has its own culture. They have specific tones and engage a specific type of person. This is why it is crucial for you to pick the platforms that best reach your target audience.

Next, define your social media needs. Are you simply trying to increase foot traffic to your stores? Or are you trying to see large sales increases? Maybe your issue is not so much about your customers as it is about your company’s communication techniques. All social media platforms don’t fit all business needs. Figure out what your goal is with social media for you company, and choose the platforms that best fit those needs.

Thirdly, make a plan for how you will use social media. The main goal of all social media platforms is to connect to others, but different platforms do this in different ways. Are you trying to get feedback from your customers? Are you trying to improve your recruiting efforts? Figuring out how you want to use your social media accounts will help narrow down the available platforms to the ones that are most relevant to your needs.

And finally, choose the right tool! After you’ve found your target audience, defined your needs, and decided how you want to use social media, you’re all set to choose the right platforms.

Now do the research necessary to find the right platform for you. If you want your social media strategy to be more private than a public network like Twitter, look into a site like Yammer. Yammer allows you to securely communicate private information.

If your business is trying to build a stronger relationship between its staff and outside contractors, use a platform that can be easily integrated into your business. Think about creating a Wiki or checking out a site like Huddle.

If you’re a local company, wanting to connect with those close to you, platforms like Gowalla or Foursquare give users rewards for check-ins and other discounts that will lead to more foot traffic to your store in a way that a larger platform like Facebook cannot do as successfully.

Clearly social media strategies are complicated and there’s no single, right answer for finding success. Investigate the available platforms and experiment. Find what’s working and what’s not. If you find that a certain platform is not generating results, don’t waste your time with it. Move on a focus on other platforms that are better suited for your business.