4 Social Media Tools Worth Checking Out

Many times we hear from manufacturing companies: “my prospects aren’t in social media, that isn’t going to work for us.” Sure, some channels might not make sense for you, but you shouldn’t rule them all out before testing each one. Social media marketing tools can help you to understand which channels work best, and which underperform so you can strategize around the channels that work and spend your time there. I’m going to pick out a few favorite social media marketing tools you should consider for your business.

CoSchedule

CoSchedule has a very user intuitive calendar view of all of the messages you’ve scheduled out on various channels. This is especially nice because if you realize any overlap or topics that don’t align, you can simply drag and drop them right from the calendar view. The tool also prompts you to publish a day after, week after and month after post which is a nice reminder that you should plan to get the most out of your content by publishing different messages over time for the same piece of content.

In addition to the social media scheduling, CoSchedule has a number of other convenient features like workflow management, Google docs and Evernote integration.

Check out all that CoSchedule has to offer here: http://coschedule.com/

Hootsuite

Hootsuite has a Free, Pro and Enterprise edition that you can pick based on your needs. A really nice feature of Hootsuite is their Core Analytics. You can easily keep track of what’s working and what’s not by using their Analytics. Keep tabs on what keywords are performing best and use that data in your content creation strategy. In addition, you can track engagement and conversions over to your website all in one tool.

Trying to get more creative in your social media outreach? Try building social contests and campaigns right through Hootsuite. Learn more about it here: https://hootsuite.com/

SproutSocial

While SproutSocial has a lot of really cool features. One of these features is unique in that they are very responsive. An internal team member takes a tweet or comment and created a help desk ticket. SproutSocial includes a single stream smart inbox that helps you to see the most important messages first.

SproutSocial also can act as its own CRM where you can add contact notes such as best times to reach them, or other offline notes. This feature helps alleviate any chance of duplicative effort from multiple people on your team.

Lean more about SproutSocial here: http://sproutsocial.com/

HubSpot

HubSpot is much more than just a social media publishing tool, it is an entire Marketing Automation platform. While most Marketing Automation platforms include a social publishing tool, none quite compare to the HubSpot one.

LinkedIn Groups have become a great resource for companies to stay up to date on industry trends and information. HubSpot allows you to integrate personal LinkedIn profiles, as well as the groups they belong to which saves a ton of time when publishing social messages into those groups.

Their monitoring tool gives you a go-to place where you can respond directly to messages. HubSpot also offers a very robust social reporting feature which allows you to compare frequencies of messages published, and also gives you insights into how social is impacting your business.

Check out the HubSpot Social here: http://www.hubspot.com/products/social-inbox

Do you use any of the tools I mentioned above? If so - what are your favorite features and functions? If not - which tool do you use?