Tag: Social Media Tools

#GiftYourBusiness – Gift of Budget

There are new social media tools being created every day. Many of these tools make the process of curating and scheduling content more efficient and less time-consuming. When it comes to running your own business, saving time is one of the most important aspects of becoming profitable. Therefore, one of the best ways to gift your business this holiday season is to sign up and incorporate some free social media and online tools into your daily routine. Here are recommendations for some of my favorite free social tools.
Canva
Since visual content is so important to social media, a tool like Canva is invaluable. Canva allows users to create social media and marketing images quickly and easily. These high-quality, easy to design images can be used anywhere. Not everyone is a graphic designer or has access to photo editing software. Canva eliminates the need for either of those and makes image creation simple and amazing.
Buffer
For those maintaining a presence on Twitter, Buffer is a fabulous free tool. Buffer allows users to track their follower activity and gives suggestions as to the best time to post or schedule tweets. It has built in scheduling and analytics. The analyticsmeasures all major engagement statistics for posts on the major platforms.
Hootsuite
If we were to log into social mediaevery day, all the time, nothing else would ever get accomplished. However, it’s important that our brands remain reliable and visible on each of the social platforms to maintain our following. Hootsuite is a widely known and popular tool for scheduling out content. It has also RSS feed capabilities and allows users to interact on various platforms via one place.
Commun.it
Another tool that is nearly essential for Twitter users is Commun.it. This tool is based on the need to stay on top of relationship management within the platform. It tracks all the major interaction on your Twitter account and automatically works to nurture and engage fans and followers on the site.  The tool monitors what others are saying about you, your brand and your business. It also shows who is linking to your site, discovers new leads for you, tracks who follows and unfollows, and reports back on community engagement. There are options to auto-engage people who follow, mention, post or retweet your content. This helps keep Twitter accounts relevant on a platform that moves very quickly.
Paper.li

This tool provides an area online to automatically curate and organize content based on chosen topics. It is displayed in a visually appealing newspaper format. These newspapers are a great place to gather together content into a readable feed. Feeds can be organized by topic or by type of media. Users can create multiple newspaper feeds at a time and can follow people, lists, and hashtags. It also has the capability to follow Twitter lists without actually following them via your own Twitter account.
These are just some of the tools available to make life and work easier for business owners and marketers. All of these tools offer a paid upgrade option with additional features in case you stumble upon one you just absolutely love and want access to additional benefits. However, each of these tools can be incorporated into your company today at no cost to you. So, give your business the gift of both time and money this holiday season by finding tools that make you more productive.  Use all that extra time you now have to come up with even more ways to #BeAwesome!
~ Social Media is changing the way people do business.  Don’t get left behind ~ 


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Hollie Clere, of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn,FacebookTwitterBlogGoogle+ , YouTube,Pinterest, Instagram  and the tools to manage them. 

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Social Seven: Tools of the Trade – Dropbox and Google Drive

Social Seven – Social Media Podcast

With Erin Cell of Socially Powered and Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor




Here are some sharing tools to keep yourself organized: Dropbox and Google Drive. These tools utilize cloud computing, which is not a new concept but is becoming more popular. For those who have teams, you can add your teams to either Dropbox or Google Drive to share files and information. There are pros and cons to both. It might be a good idea to pick just one of these tools or you might find yourself checking both when you can’t remember what you put on which one.
Be cautious when using the cloud, it’s possible to share a virus on one file with all the other files on the site. This isn’t a fault of Dropbox or Google Drive, but it can be an issue. Make sure to keep your anti-virus software current and follow safety techniques when opening and downloading attachments and programs.
One benefit to using these types of tools is that if your personal hard drive crashes, all of these files are kept on the cloud. It can be costly, and sometimes impossible, to recover files from a crashed system.
Those who have a Chromebook will find that Google Drive is even more practical. The best part of Drive is the shareability and being able to share documents with others easily. Users can create documents, spreadsheets and presentations right there in the drive. The files are live and automatically updated. No need to worry about using the most current version since the file is in real time. It auto saves frequently and can be edited right in Google Drive. It can be accessed from anywhere since it is an Internet based tool.
If you have a Gmail account, use just the one account for your mail, your Google drive, YouTube and other Google products. It’s so much easier when everything is connected.

There are other cloud based sharing apps that could work well for you. Educate yourself on all the optimal uses for all of these tools.

Think these might help you with scheduling content and staying on top of your social media? Follow us on social media to find out when our Social Seven podcast is streaming live!

Social Seven: Tools of the Trade – Commun.it

Social Seven – Social Media Podcast

With Erin Cell of Socially Powered and Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor




What is the primary function of Commun.it? It is a Twitter tool used for scheduling and managing this social media platform. It can be used to stay connected with new followers, to stay engaged, and to monitor clients and mentions. Users can follow/unfollow and track who is following and unfollowing them on Twitter right within the tool. It will send a reminder to let users know when it’s time to reconnect with someone. Commun.it also offers suggestions on accounts you might like to follow.
We do tend to get really busy and lose track of the last time we connected with someone within our communities. It’s social media. It’s meant to be social. That means stepping outside of your box and actually having online conversations with people and engaging with them frequently. It’s not just a matter of pushing content out. Acknowledge when someone shares something of yours and when you get mentioned. If someone asks you a question, you should at least respond.
Commu.it includes some canned responses that can be used to immediately reply to specific types of engagement. Try not to overdo it, as real engagement is more valuable and effective than automated responding. However, this can be a way to stay on top of the fast pace of Twitter.
These tools also include worthy analytics that can be used for tracking effectiveness and then submitted to clients.
Using Hootsuite, Buffer and Commun.it combined is a fabulous way to optimize your social media content management. Commun.it is an easy to use tool, that is simple, and worth checking out. These tools will help you increase your online engagement, which will help to organically grow your audience.
It’s social people; let these tools help you remain social!

Think Commun.it might help you with scheduling content and staying on top of your social media? Follow us on social media to find out when our Social Seven podcast is streaming live!

The Scoop on Canva

Social Seven – Social Media Podcast
With Erin Cell of Socially Powered and Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor


The Scoop on Canva!

Canva is a social media management tool. It allows you to create images for your website, social media, business cards, presentations and other branding needs. There is a free version and an upgraded version. There is also the option to select from premium images and pay for different templates and designs.
The crisp colors, cool fonts and other options in Canva are very nice. Plus, you can import your own images and edit them within the site. This helps to really brand. It takes it from a corporate brand to something a bit more personal. Social media users should be using a lot of images.
Canva is now coming out with Canva for work, which will allow social media managers to better organize design elements for their clients. That will enable this group to separate logos, images, fonts and colors by clients and keep everything separate but still accessible on the site.
When you play with different photo editing tools there can be a bit of a learning curve. This takes advanced graphic design knowledge out of the equation. No need to learn Photoshop or be a graphic designer to create something in Canva. When you use this tool, you feel like you are paying for top-notch design elements. Even the templates are affordably priced. You could make 100 different designs or images and store them within the tool for future use.
Also, Canva has all the major social media platform dimensions. It’s automatically formatted whether you want to make a Facebook ad or a Twitter cover image. Users can also create images using custom dimensions as well.
Canva at work does have an affiliate program for early access to this site feature.
Canva also provides learning tools including a design school. These will teach you how to use the tool. For those with writer’s block, there is a stream of designs from other users to help inspire you to make something new.
Those of you who haven’t used Canva before, check it out. Play with the templates. Go through some of the tutorials and try some different things. It’s an awesome tool. It will change your branding and put yourself into your brand for a change.
Think Canva has a place in your toolbox to design on the fly and spread your message? Follow us on social media to find out when our Social Seven podcast is streaming live!


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