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8 Tools for Social Media Success

What 8 Tools Are Needed for Success on Social Media?

The 8 Tools for Social Media Success, like the magic bullet for social media! What are the things that will help you get the most out of the work you do, besides hiring JRH Graphics!

As a business consultant that focuses on social media management, I am always asked about the tools I use. I was recently asked to name the 8 tools for social media success. I couldn't because everyone needs different things. What I could do is provide 8 types of tools needed for social media success. The difference is that there are hundreds of tools out there. Thousands more articles about what tools to use. You also have about 1 million people telling you that you are doing it wrong without providing any information on how to do it right.

So I am not going to do that. Instead, I am going to tell you what I use and why I like it and then you can decide if it will work for you. For a couple of tools, I will make recommendations based on needs. But lets first start with what types of tools I feel are essential for you to be successful on social media.

Types of Tools Needed for Social Media

  1. Tools to capture the moment and post it
    1. A Great point and shoot or DSLR camera
    2. A smartphone
    3.  scheduling tool
  2.  Tools for promoting and creating
    1. A simple tool for creating social media posts that involve a little graphic design
    2. Free stock photo site you like
    3. A photo editor or photo editing app
  3. Tools for Tracking and ROI
    1. Hashtag research tool
    2. Social Listening and Analytics tool

Yeah, that's a lot of things just to start, thank goodness some of the tools I am going to recommend cover a few different roles and do it well.

Tools to Capture the Moment and Post It

  1. A great camera is essential, yes an iPhone can take great pictures but it is still a phone. If you are going to be active on social media and want to share moments from your life as you see them I recommend investing in a great point and shoot or if you are inclined a DSLR camera. You will find yourself using it more, loving it and taking great photos. This camera will also help you shoot video which is becoming a must.
  2. A smartphone is essential, sorry I can not imagine working full time on social media without the newest smartphone out there as I am constantly on my phone and pushing it to do more and more each day. I might also recommend a few extra charging cords and a backup battery.
  3. A scheduling tool! This is your number 1 must have tool. As a social media manager who does work for numerous clients, I use HeyOrca. I am a happy member of the pod when it comes to this tool as it has eliminated spreadsheets and constant google sheet updates and allows me to send clients previews of posts as they will appear. If you are doing social media for yourself there are a couple tools out there that I have used that do the job well. Prior to HeyOrca, I was a Hootsuite user and still use some of the services they provide. The great thing about HootSuite is that you can schedule, monitor, and react to your posts from the tool. It also has a solid analytics suite and for many, it will be a good tool to help keep your content flowing.

Tools to Promote and Create

As a business, you will not only need to capture real authentic moments to share but you will also need to promote things. Like your business, events, ideas, sales, webinars etc and so on. So what tools are there out on the market to help you do this.

  1. I personally think that the best tool out there to create social posts is Adobe Spark. I have used it non-stop since discovering it years ago and it has improved over time. If you are a graphic designer you will see it as a stripped down InDesign or Illustrator but the functionality and the results are clean and professional. Plus, I feel like you have more control over the outcome than with tools such as Canva. However, many people swear by Canva! I recommend trying them both and picking the one that works best for you!
  2. As much as I hate stock photos there is a place for them in the creation of social media content. So, I figured a solid list of free stock photo sites would be useful. Be careful to check on the license of all stock photos to make sure that you understand how they can be used before you use them. Generally, you are looking for images marked as CC0 aka Creative Commons Zero. This means you can copy, modify, distribute and use the photos for free, including commercial purposes, without asking permission from or providing attribution to the photographer.

Free Stock Photos

  1. Gratisography Gratisography is one of the most interesting of the free stock photo sites due to the quirky style of photographer Ryan McGuire. All of the photos are high-resolution and royalty-free—ready for your use wherever you please.
  2.  Pixabay Pixabay offers over 490,000 free images and videos for both personal and commercial use.
  3. Unsplash Unsplash offers 10 new photos every 10 days via an email subscription and on their website. All photos are licensed under Creative Commons Zero.
  4. Negative Space This site adds new free CC0 stock photos every week. These images are searchable by category, position, and color.
  5. Life of Pix Life of Pix is a collection of free high resolution stock images donated to the public domain by the Leeroy Advertising Agency in Montreal.
  6. Pexels The free stock images on Pexels are curated from sites such as Gratisography, Unsplash, and Little Visuals. All of the photos on the site are licensed under the Creative Commons Zero

A Photo Editing Tool

New camera? Check! Tons of photos taken? Check! But none of the photos are quite right… now what do you do? This is the beauty of a great photo editing app! A photo shot with a high resolution in good light can become an amazing picture with just a touch of editing on a good photo editing app. I personally recommend Adobe PS Express.

Adobe Photoshop Express (a go-to app)

This compact little app can be intimidating to start with but it is a powerhouse of photo editing once you realize all it can do from the palm of your hand. From cropping to a adjusting the horizontal and vertical skew. Light, color, detail and effect adjustments that you can break down or opt for a full auto adjustment. It includes Red-eye reduction, ability to add text, add borders, fix blemishes and export to photoshop. It also includes a good set of filters to help brighten or add color to your photo. I provide a quick tutorial with screenshots on this awesome app here!

Tools for Tracking and ROI

A simple hashtag is your gateway to discovery on Twitter and Instagram. But how do you know what hashtags to use and what hashtags to avoid? The popular tags are always changing and whats trending may impact the hashtags that are used. What about branded tags? Following tags? We all need a bit of help keeping up and that's why there are tools for this…

Use Twitter and Instagram

Pop around on the platforms, look at the people you are following, look at who they are following, what hashtags do they use that bring you to content like the content you want to be discovered for? Make a list of those hashtags. Repeat the process as you grow and explore the platforms.

Want some other tools

  1. RiteTag: With RiteTag, you can get instant feedback on your hashtags and get recommendations of hashtags not to use. This tool is very flexible and it can give you analytics on any hashtag that you are following, not just the ones that you’re actively using
  2. Keyhole.co lets you track Twitter and Instagram hashtags in real-time. This tool will tell you the number of posts that contain your hashtag within a specific time period, how many users are using it, and each post’s reach and number of impressions. It has multiple paid options after a free trial period. 
  3. Hootsuite again has a huge suite of services that can be easily managed from your dashboard within their platform including hashtag research and tracking.
  4. Are you in the photography world, I use Focalmark for my photos and images and it autogenerates a list that I can then edit add or subtract from to get a full list to add.
  5. Hashtagify- I have not used this one much, but Hashtagify will give you all the information that you need to know about how your brand hashtags are being used. Information includes the top influencers that are using the tags and it'll show you example posts and reach.

Measuring It All

And with all of these tools, if you have no way of measuring the success of your strategy then what is the purpose. So the last group of tools needed to be successful on social media are the analytics, metrics, and social listening tools. Keyhole published a list of the top 25 Social Media Metrics tools to help measure ROI that is still fairly relevant. I have personally used and like Buffer, HootSuite, BuzzSumo and Simply Measured.

For many of you, Hootsuite will be your starting point for a lot of your social media tools needs based on their extensive suite of services across all the needs of a small business for social media. I do recommend exploring as many tools out there but be aware of inconsistencies in your calendar and marketing and how they can detract from brand identity. 

In Conclusion the 8 Tools Are …

Up to you to decide.  Which ones work best for you.

All of these tools should be helping you to focus on the endgame. Creating engaging content for your followers. The edutaining content that they want. If any of these tools is taking away from that then it is not the right tool for you. That is the best way to measure the value of a particular tool and how it works specifically for you.

Best of luck finding the combination of that suits your needs and keep in mind it is what works for you and your followers.