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Do you have an online store and want to start using social media to promote your business? Great! This post has everything you need to start your strategy.
There are many opportunities to increase the visibility of your products on the Internet and, therefore, create more sales opportunities.
First of all, as we mentioned in the post on how to use social media for your online business, it is important to plan what you want to achieve and how you are going to get it, as well as looking at which social networks are the most appropriate for an online business.
Once you have all of this clear, it is time to put things into practice and use any tools that facilitate social media management and the analysis of your posts as much as possible. Out of all of these tools, some of the most useful are those which allow you to automatically programme your posts and responses.
What social network solutions and tools are available? There are all kinds, for different tastes, but in this post we will discuss the ones which are the most comprehensive.
Hootsuite
This is one of the most well rounded and well known social media tools on the market. There is a free version and different paid versions are also available, which depend, above anything else, on the number of social networks which are linked to it and the functions that you have access to. If you have just one online store, and you are using the basic social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram…) then the free version works as an automation tool which means you can manage all of your networks through one platform.
Using the free version of Hootsuite you can manage three different social media profiles and access basic (but very important) analytical data so that you can see how your audience reacts to your posts. You can also programme it so that your content and posts will go public at the date and time that you want them to, access content suggestions to improve interactivity, manage social media advertising campaigns and even access free courses organised by Hootsuite themselves.
As you can see, the free version of Hootsuite is very well rounded, although you can check the payment plans here. It is also very easy to use and very manageable.
Buffer
Buffer is another of the most well known popular social network tools, both for those who use it as “amateurs” and for social media professionals.
With the free version of Buffer you can automate your posts on the main social networks: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and Instagram. If, for example, you want to manage Pinterest too, you would need to use one of the paid versions. Another difference with Hootsuite is that you cannot manage YouTube posts from Buffer. On the other hand, on the free version you can manage up to 10 posts. Another unique feature of Buffer is that with any payment plan you can access another very interesting tool called Pablo.
Pablo by Buffer is a tool to create images to go with your posts on social media. It has a database of preprepared images, as well as different fonts, and ready made templates for different social networks. You can see the different Buffer price plans here.
Tweetdeck
Tweetdeck has changed over the last few years in terms of its functions and characteristics. It was originally created to schedule posts and to analyse their performance on many different social networks, but it was acquired by Twitter some time ago. It now only works with Twitter and is completely free.
The big advantage is that it is 100% free. You can use it to manage notifications, followers, mentions, direct messages, exceptional activity, trending topics… as well as of course scheduling posts.
Finally, there are different extras which can be added to Tweetdeck such as the ability to add emojis to tweets or preview what they will look like. If you want to start using Tweetdeck you can do it straight away, all you need is a Twitter profile.
Social Flow
Finally, we come to another of the main tools for social networks which is often used by professionals – Social Flow.
This time there is no free version, but it does have other very interesting functions which the others that we have mentioned do not.
For example, once you are using Social Flow, according to a proprietary algorithm, the tool itself analyses the performance of your posts and decides what day and time to post different content to get the best out of it. It also has its own advertising management system for social networks and lots of interesting resources to keep you learning how to manage social media for your online business.
Do you know of any other social network tools? Tell us what you know!
