8 Social Media Apps to Make Your Job Easier

Social media management isn’t as easy as sporadically sending out Tweets and posting pictures to Instagram. That might be fine for your personal accounts, but when it comes to marketing a business, there is a lot more involved. Connecting with influencers, finding the right content to publish for your audience, running ads and creating custom content are just some of the daily tasks that come along with social media marketing. In order to be more productive and keep some of your sanity, it’s a good idea to load up your social media apps toolkit.

Your kit should include apps that make some of the more tedious aspects of social media management easier. That way you can effectively streamline your workflow and maximize your results. Here’s our compiled list of eight apps that will help you accomplish all of that, and more:

1. Canva

If you want to be successful on social media and stand out, you need to get visual. Tweets with images get:

• 18% more clickthroughs
• 89% more favorites
• 150% more Retweets

Canva is one of the most popular graphic design apps for creating visuals in the social media industry. Whether you want a perfectly-sized Facebook Cover or a custom graphic to advertise your latest sale on Twitter, Canva makes it as simple as dragging and dropping the different elements into your image.

You have access to a huge library of free and paid photos, graphics and fonts that allow you to make professional looking social media graphics even if you have zero design skills. There’s also a Design School that’ll allow you to sharpen your skills a bit. Stop resorting to boring stock images and see what you can create in Canva.

Try Canva

2. BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo is a content discovery and influencer outreach tool that shows you:

• What content gets shared the most in your industry
• Who’s sharing the content (influencers)

It’s an ideal social media app because you can use the information you gather from BuzzSumo to figure out what type of content you should create and share in order to get more traffic and social media engagement.

You might find that listicle or “how-to” articles get the most shares. Then you can start to share more of that type of content to generate additional interest for your social media posts. On top of that, you’ll also have a better idea of which influencers to reach out to on social media. As you build relationships, you’ll be able to get your content organically shared by top influencers in your industry.

Try BuzzSumo

3. Scoop.it

BuzzSumo will give you a good idea of what type of content to share. But you’ll also need a source to get a steady stream of blog posts, videos and articles to distribute. That’s where Scoop.it comes in. Scoop.it is a content curation tool that will crawl the Web for content related to keywords you enter. The app will also give you a list of relevant articles to share around that keyword.

One great benefit of Scoop.it is you’ll get to share content from a variety of sites. A lot of businesses make the mistake of only sharing content from the same two or three blogs, including their own. When you’re constantly sharing content from different sites, you have an opportunity to connect with more people by including an @mention to the original source of the content. The content creator will more than likely Retweet you, which gives your business exposure to a new audience. The more influencers you mention, the more reach you have.

Try Scoop.it

4. Google Analytics

Some of you might be wondering what Google Analytics is doing on a list about social media apps. Before you start thinking we’ve lost our minds, let me explain. Measuring your social media marketing efforts is one of the most important steps of the process. Unfortunately, 41% of companies have no idea whether or not their social media efforts are paying off because they don’t track their activity. Google Analytics makes tracking your social media campaigns much easier. In fact, we’ve written a couple of guides on how to do it:

• Ultimate Guide to Measuring Social Media ROI
• Social Media Campaign Tracking With UTM Parameters in Google Analytics

Within Google Analytics, you can track which social media platforms are bringing in the most traffic, which pages on your site are getting the most social traffic and even what your social media ROI is. Nearly any type of data correlation between your website and social media that will help you make decisions can be found through Google Analytics. Plus, this tool connects with some of the other social media apps on our list, so it makes for easy integration!

Try Google Analytics

5. IFTTT

Automation can be extremely helpful for social media marketing. However, you have to be cautious of what you choose to automate. In case you’re unfamiliar with IFTTT (If This Then That), it’s a very handy tool that lets you connect different apps into what’s called a “recipe” to streamline your workflow. For instance, maybe you want to automatically post the photos you share on Instagram to your Tumblr page or a specific Pinterest Board. IFTTT makes it possible by connecting your social accounts and automatically performing these tasks without the need for additional work.

The beauty of IFTTT is that its capabilities are only limited to your imagination, and you can make it work to fit your needs. Think of some of the most tedious and time-sucking social media tasks that you’re doing manually. Now, head over to IFTTT and see if there’s a way to create a recipe to automate it. Here are some time saving Instagram recipes to get started.

Try IFTTT 

6. Sprout Social

A social media dashboard is one of the first social media apps you should add to your toolkit. The native interfaces you get with social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn weren’t made for marketers. They’re meant for casual users, so each platform doesn’t have the functionality businesses need to be efficient. Your dashboard will serve as the home base for all of your company’s different social media profiles. Instead of having to log into five or six different accounts, you access everything from Sprout Social.

Within Sprout Social, you can:

• Schedule your social media posts
• Track brand mentions
• Get in depth reports
• Track social conversations
• And much more

It’s also ideal for agencies and companies that have multiple people who handle the social media marketing efforts. You can track who’s publishing content, assign tasks to specific team members, insert message approval systems and communicate with your team in the dashboard instead of emails. A social media dashboard is a necessity for any business that does social media marketing.

Try Sprout Social

7. AdEspresso

Facebook has one of the most robust advertising platforms online. The data the social network collects from users allows marketers to ensure their ads are being seen by their target market. When you’re only running a couple of ads with a relatively small budget, using the native Facebook Ads platform is perfectly fine. But once you start to get more advanced, run multiple campaigns and do more split testing, staying organized can become a hassle. AdEspresso is a Facebook Advertising tool that makes running multiple ads much easier.

Not only does AdEspresso allow you to better manage your ads, but the app helps you optimize ads to improve your ROI by analyzing them and providing actions you can take to get better results. Even though Facebook Ads are relatively cheap compared to other advertising platforms, you can waste a lot of money if you don’t know what you’re doing. If you haven’t been seeing very good results with your Facebook ads or have been struggling to stay organized, give AdEspresso a shot.

Try AdEspresso

8. Repost for Instagram

Have you ever came across an awesome photo on Instagram that you wanted to share with your audience? Unlike Twitter, Pinterest and Google+, Instagram doesn’t have a way to let you share content from other users within the app. You can only like pictures and leave a reply. This forced people to use workarounds like using screenshots and cropping out the image they wanted to share. That’s inconvenient, inefficient and sometimes unprofessional looking. Instead, the Repost for Instagram app allows you to easily repost content you find on Instagram and give credit to the source.

This is a good way to start networking with other Instagram users, or even share content across multiple company profiles. For instance, if the entire company attended an event and you post a group selfie on the company page, everyone else can repost it to their individual accounts too for more exposure.

Try Repost for Instagram

What Does Your Social Media App Toolkit Look Like?

It’s amazing how much more you can get done when you have the right tools at your disposal. Add these eight social media apps to your arsenal to find and share better content, streamline your processes and become a more effective social media marketer.

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5 strategies that guarantee digital marketing success

With the New Year just around the corner, this is an opportune time to evaluate and refine the fundamental processes affiliated with the execution of digital marketing campaigns.

As we finish out 2015, it is a great time to take stock of both your ability as well as the abilities of those within the marketing department, specifically in regards to their skills, interests, and effectiveness.

In marketing, nearly everything boils down to five places where you should excel:

1. Planning initiatives
2. Designing great campaigns
3. Flawless execution
4. Analyzing the results
5. Deciding how to adjust and improve for the future

Let’s look a little closer at each one of these important functions.

1. Laying a firm foundation with solid planning initiatives

We all know that great marketing doesn’t happen at the snap of your fingers. It takes time and insight to understand where you are and where you’d like to go. Planning is where you take stock of the current state of your customers, prospects, products, and more. You establish goals, milestones, and targets for everyone to rally around. In this phase, you should also determine how much budget and resources you want to assign to different projects and campaigns. To help you stay focused on the customer - instead of just on your products or services for sale - develop or review your buyer personas.

Remember, everything will cascade off of your plans, so make sure you have the correct assumptions and double check that you have been thoroughly using all of the market research at your disposal. Hopefully your targets are meaningful to everyone on the team and not arbitrary or completely out of reach before you even begin.

2. Marrying creativity with digital marketing

This is where you and your digital agency (if you have one) should get creative with all of the information from your planning stage. Today great campaigns are much more than just a simple drip nurture or series of e-blasts. If you are still relying solely on these types of tactics, then you really need to step up your sophistication. 

You need to design multichannel, customer journey-centric campaigns with interactive content, data collecting assessments, video, mobile apps, new website pages or microsites, location targeting, and SMS and mobile push should all become part of your campaign design arsenal. If you found in your planning phase that you lack key insight about your customers and/or prospects, incorporate simple questions into your campaign so you can build your database as you go. Make sure you preview your campaign plans with both the sales organization and your call center so that they can provide valuable input, acting as an additional team member.

3. Flawless execution; all hands on deck

Once you are ready to launch your campaign, it is everybody’s responsibility to ensure you are executing as perfectly as you can. You need to send your outbound messages on schedule, make sure your website can handle the traffic, have call center reps trained on proper call handling, and have sales act as helpful facilitators.

Keep in mind that executing flawlessly does not mean you should be so cautious that you take lots of extra time. I see too many marketers move at a snail’s pace because they are so terrified of making a mistake. Remember that "done" is better than "perfect" - you are better off getting out in the market to establish first preference over your competitors. If you do make mistakes, ensure that you can get the feedback and quickly work to correct any errors.

4. Reviewing all aspects of campaigns and analyzing results

Over the weeks, months, and even longer periods of time, you will need to assign the resources to analyze your results, so you can adjust and improve mid-campaign or for your next major effort. Of course, good old-fashioned reporting is a great start for everyone. But this is the time to kick things up a notch by doing more sophisticated analytics into the root causes of success or the lack thereof. Perhaps you even take a sample of customers and non-purchasers and interview them about their perceptions of your campaign.

Finally you can explore newer tools such as predictive analytics to spot trends before they actually happen. Having a robust analytics capability will only make for stronger campaigns and an improved marketing department.

5. Digging deeply for next time

Toward the latter half of the campaign, begin to ask yourself, "If I had to do this whole project over again, what would I change?" Allowing everyone in the marketing department to periodically ask and answer that question is the key to continuous improvement.

Hopefully you have a culture that allows everyone to have an open, honest, and constructive dialog about what you need for the next iterations. Make sure that all of the performance data is readily available to all for close inspection. Also, be sure that all voices are heard - not just the more vocal extroverts. Collect all ideas and encourage everyone to share.

All too often, if things don’t go according to plan or don’t exceed the goals, everyone is quick to bury the evidence and move on to the next project. However, taking time at in this final stage should help you both build a better campaign next time and build a better marketing department. Is everyone in a role that they enjoy? Are they able to contribute to maximum effectiveness? By asking all of these questions and more, you should be well on your way to future success.

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Social Awareness Can – And Should – Be Challenging

We know we need to speak to each generation in its own language, and that the current crop of philanthropists can be reached more easily with smartphone apps – so why, then, is it so difficult to build social awareness with this bunch?

Well, we forgot a key ingredient: fun. But fortunately, there are options out there reminding us.

Facebook offers games geared toward partnering with and beating friends’ high scores and who among us didn’t get sucked in to Words with Friends or some similar game in recent times?! And do you use Lumosity (brain exercise) or FitBit (to track your steps each day) and use either to measure your progress against friends? Even if not, you either heard of or participated in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge – quite possibly the most viral campaign to grace our social landscape.

All of this adds up to two things – Challenging friends to do fun things works. It encourages even the most slacktivist activist to take action beyond just clicking “like” or sharing a social media post. And the more specific you are, the better.

Enter the Social Challenge Apps

There have been social challenge apps created to meet this need, focused on a variety of verticals:

Challenge Accepted offers social integration and focuses on challenging friends to do something sports or fitness-related or learning a new skill. Certain sub-sections online are entirely fitness-obsessed, and learning something new is admirable, so the app makes sense.

Klash and its kin, Bragster both helped users dare friends to perform various tasks. It appears the blush has faded from this rose though and you won’t see these bragging apps hanging around for long (unless they launch with a less annoying feel).

FightMe is an aggressive challenge app (hence the name, no doubt), with challenges including an anti-fur animal rights campaign with PETA gracing its pages.

And now there’s Challenged, a new app for IOS and Android, that turns social good on it’s well meaning head, by challenging participants to get involved and build excitement in a way that offers the potential for ALS virality. How so? Beyond building on users’ networks to allow them to challenge their friends to take on a task, there’s a definite “Pay it Forward” feel (and tagline). Also:

Some initial adopters are retailers. And that attracts users seeking to win something cool. Hotel Tonight wants to hear about a spontaneous trip and will award ten thousand dollars in travel credit, and Walgreens has issued a challenge for users to create twelve-second beauty tip video (to win beauty products).

It uses an already established influencer network. Because its parent company, Social Bet already has vast network of followers, the calls to action are more likely to get heard and amplified by existing influencers.

Can Challenged turn the slacktivists into actual activists? It has a good chance at beating the odds, as one of its first big challenges was #FuckCancer, and a current featured challenge is one you’ll likely be hearing about: #BreakingBatten.

It focuses on raising awareness around a neurodegenerative brain disease that’s very rare and has no cure, called Batten Disease. How are folks raising awareness? By breaking things and uploading it to the app hashtagged #BreakingBatten, of course! Watch here.

And who doesn’t find the thought of breaking things while helping little kids compelling? Does it move you? Well there are two little girls depending on your participation, so get to breaking something and hashtagging, friends!

If THAT isn’t enough to get folks moving, nothing will.

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Why Periscope Is the Next Big Thing in Social Media

With more brands emphasizing the importance of a solid presence on media platforms like Facebook and YouTube, this article predicts that the next big marketing frontier is the Periscope app.

As social media becomes less of an afterthought among brands and more of an essential ingredient in the marketing mix, it is increasingly difficult to stand out on these online channels.

There is only so much attention from consumers and customers to go around, and the social streams are overflowing with content in all shapes and sizes.

So unless you want to be like the wallflower at the dance, being boring is not an option on social media. There are simply no excuses for not sharing a deep repertoire of content on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and everywhere else your audience is hanging out online. 

If your customers and prospects are spending time on Pinterest, Vine, SnapChat, YouTube, Tumblr, and Instagram, you need to establish your own solid presence there. Industry events and developments, company updates and corporate culture, promotions, offers, news and opinions - what you share is important, but sometimes where and how you share it is of even greater significance. Be there or be square. 

That's where Periscope enters the picture. Launched on March 26, 2015, this live video streaming app owned by Twitter recently eclipsed the 10 million user mark and reports that over 40 years of video are watched per day. To say that Periscope is kind of a big deal right now would be an understatement.

Of course, you can and should use other channels to share your videos, but to ignore Periscope is to overlook an unparalleled, unprecedented way to connect with people in instantaneous, unfiltered fashion. The brand that uses Periscope comes across as both transparent and authentic, unafraid to cede control of the conversation and willing to share its true identity. What is likely to result is greater trust, better business, and a stronger bond between those on either side of the medium.

To use Periscope:

1. Download the app to either your Android or iOS device.
2. Log in with your Twitter username or phone number.
3. Adjust your settings.
4. Set your notifications.
5. Look for people to follow.
6. Prepare to broadcast your own videos live. 

It really is that easy. 

You can use Periscope for everything, from streaming breaking news to giving your audience a behind-the-scenes tour of your office. You can conduct interviews, give product demonstrations, take surveys - the creative possibilities are endless. What's streamed on Periscope is limited only by your imagination.

Here are three great examples of videos created with Periscope: 

1. Ryan Pinkham's Live Tutorial

Constant Contact's Ryan Pinkham used Periscope to record a live tutorial from his desk entitled, Email Design Mistakes Your Readers Hate. He also turned his broadcast into a blog post, and archived his recording on YouTube to give his content an indefinite shelf-life.

2. Michael Hyatt's Blog Commentary

Another excellent example of Periscope use is author and speaker Michael Hyatt's discussion about his original blog post called No, You Don't Have to Work 24/7 to Succeed. In the blog, Michael also mentions that he broadcasts on a daily basis during the week at 12:30 p.m. CDT.

Keeping a regular schedule for Periscope broadcasts is a great strategy, regardless of what you're going to cover. It allows the audience to grow accustomed to tuning in to watch you at the same time every day

3. An Interactive Tour with the Mayo Clinic

Finally, the Mayo Clinic's interactive tour of its Rochester, Minnesota, campus was originally streamed on Periscope, like the two other videos above. This "after-hours, behind-the-scenes" tour has also been subsequently uploaded to YouTube.

Unfortunately, you can't watch a replay of someone else's Periscope video after 24 hours unless they've repurposed it elsewhere, such as YouTube or Vimeo.

That same inconvenience, however, helps spur real-time viewership, creating a sense of urgency every time you see the words "LIVE on #Periscope." Chalk it up to the fear of missing out.


Given its immaturity, Periscope is a relatively unproven app. However, that certainly hasn't stopped many brands from jumping on the Periscope bandwagon, tooting their own horns, and throwing any fears of revealing who they are as people to the wind. If you haven't already, now is the time to try the next big thing in social media.

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15 Essential Content Creation Apps You Need Right Now

Writing is your drawcard.

It’s the number one tool you have at your fingertips for marketing an online business.

So it needs to be good.

You need to write compelling copy that engages readers, gets them to listen up and encourages them to buy.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could create content faster without giving up on quality?

Today I’m going to introduce you to 15 content creation apps that will make your job (and life) easier. 

From coming up with new content ideas, to writing content and eventually promoting it.

Let’s get straight into it.

Coming up with content ideas

This is often the most difficult step for a content creator.

What should I write about?

And frankly, a blank page is not helping at all.

Readers are tired of the same old topics and tips. They are always expecting something out of the ordinary, life changing and breath taking. Without these catchy topics, people won’t come back for more.

So here are some sources of inspiration.

1. Feedly

Feedly offers a daily inspiration of great content ideas.

Things happen all the time, in absolutely every field. But as a writer, you can’t afford to browse tons of websites to look for interesting news. This takes too much time.

This is why Feedly exists! This web app gathers news from different websites all in one place.

Users can select the sources and sort the news by topics. After this, you only have to log in and bam – News comes to you!

Now pick up the catchiest topic one and start writing.

2. Mindnote

Sometimes, people expect to find material solutions to the problems they read about. So a good idea for coming up with an appealing topic is to first find a new and innovative product.

Then, the rest is simple as pie – start the article with the issue, suggest the solution and introduce the product that can actually sort things out. MindNote is the best place to apply this method.

3. ContentGems

ContentGems puts together particular kinds of news in one daily e-mail. You can choose the topics of interest and a list of articles comes straight to your inbox.

This is a great method for coming up with a writing topics every day.

4. FAQ Fox

This is a great place for finding out what topics people are looking for online.

FAQ Fox gathers information from a large variety of websites.

Here is how it works – users type in a term, hit search and select the websites they want to track down. Next, the platform displays questions and answers related to that particular term.

Writers can spot the unsatisfactory answers and create a qualitative article on that topic.

This method guarantees readership!

5. Creativity Portal

Creativity Portal is famous for helping writers and other artists guide their creativity. It provides inspirational materials – e-journals, articles, posts, and so on.

How can you take advantage of this platform?

Read about the topics you are interested in and use them for inspiration, information, writing style, etc.

Just remember not to plagiarize!

Creating better content

Sure, marketing is kind of on auto pilot these days. But writing still requires a human mind. And yes, I know how exhausting this can be!

Fortunately, smart IT guys have invented several content creation apps to help us research, write, edit, and design content.

Below, I have chosen some of the top picks.

6. Papersgear

Proofreading takes some time and energy. Wouldn’t it be better to start writing the next article rather than edit the already completed one?

In this case, you just need some professional editors willing to verify and improve the content. Papersgear has a great team with experienced employers who can help you publish nothing less than perfect articles.

Also, if you need help with writing something, count on this website. Writers cover all niches and deliver pretty impressive work.

7. Hemingway App

The famous writer, Ernest Hemingway, was well known for his style – simple, short sentences. As a consequence, this is exactly the purpose of this platform – to guide writers to create easy to understand phrases and texts. After all, this is the main requirement for online content.

The app is really easy to use – you just copy and paste text and see the evaluation.

At first, I was happy to learn that our articles were at college level or higher. But guess what? This is the opposite of what you should aim for!

Online readers need to grasp the meaning of an article as fast as possible. The tool also spots passive voice. This is something to be avoided, because it makes sentences long and harder to understand.

8. InboundWriter

Ok, you already have the topic of your next article. But now, it is vital to know how to write it and what to include in it.

The solution is to use InboundWriter. This tool allows you to monitor certain topics and spot the improvements you will need to make to resonate with your readers.

9. Creately

This tool is amazing when it comes to organizing and structuring a future article.

Your life becomes easier when things are clearly sitting in front of you. So use this platform to create diagrams, charts, infographics, and so on.

It works on the basic principle of drag and drop, and it even accepts photos. However, it has a major downside – every project is public, unless users pay for it.

10. Glipho

Glipho allows writers to publish their content and users from all around the world can come up with ideas for the sequel. What better method to find out what people want to read about?

Submit a part of an article, and wait for reactions. Then choose the best idea and finish the text.

Content targeting and optimization

After the content is done, it is time to check its effectiveness. Marketers bet on emotional keywords and SEO. These methods are great to ensure readership.

There are online tools that can evaluate content from this point of view. They will tell you if a title is too long, or not strong enough; if the content is redundant or it has way too many SEO terms.

In this way, you will know what exactly to do in order to improve the content and make it more “commercial”.

11. Headline Analyzer

Did you know that only 62% of readers go beyond the headline of an article?

As a direct consequence, this one is vital for attracting and keeping readership interested. Learn how to boost your headlines by using this online tool.

The Headline Analyzer, created by CoSchedule, is more than useful. It says what kind of words the title contains (common, uncommon, emotional, powerful); the headline type (if you got “generic”, keep trying); it analyzes the length; it even offers a Google search preview and an e-mail subject line preview; it shows you the keywords and the sentiment caused by the titled (you need positive emotions).

12. Zmags

The team at Zmags can create digital materials meant to capture your audiences attention and bring in more and more views. The website owns several products that help writers create and publish content.

13. PRWeb

Attract readers by letting them know you exist.

Use PRWeb to send search-engine-optimized press releases. These ones will promote the articles to everybody interested on that particular topic – subscribers, visitors of the website, and even journalists.

14. Scribe content

This is a valuable tool for every writer and marketer. Scribe analyzes the readers’ preferences and tells you if the content is optimized for sharing.

How does it do that?

Well, it collects conversations from Twitter and Google+, regarding the term introduced by the user.

Then, it also guides users towards creating content that will be better ranked by search engines. In the end, the result will be an easier and more effective marketing campaign.

15. Test My Marketing (TMM)

TMM offers a professional opinion regarding any kind of marketing and advertising materials. The team is made up of professionals in the field who can tell you from one look if the campaign is going to be successful or not.

Or course, after all this criticizing, the marketers will also offer you some guidelines for improving the content. Take advantage of these precious indications and use them for future campaigns.

What do you think…

Which one is your favorite?

What content creation apps would you add to this list?

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