Social media is a profession that’s in a gray area within marketing. Those who navigate social media’s gray area are truly innovative and will be able to best establish your brand’s marketplace.
Understand there is no silver bullet, it’s all in the strategic planning. Even after hours of going through analytics and insights there are processes that are necessary to maintain organization and efficiency. Here is a list of tools that you should add to your social media toolbox to keep track of things
First and foremost, you want to keep your finger on the pulse of the app world, especially if you manage a few Facebook pages like we do you just never know which app . If you weren’t aware, Appbistro.com is perfect for helping brands,small businesses, and organizations by recommending the best applications for all of your Facebook needs.
From there you may want to keep track of metrics, which may go a little beyond Google Analytics. Perhaps if you’re tracking web clicks on your website or blog posts. If you aren’t in the know then, I recommend the URL-shortening service bitly.comthat tracks your shared links in real-time and attains useful data like Facebook shares, comments, and likes. Feel free to add a custom short domain for maximum brand exposure, if you have webmaster access. Check out the location and referrer detail graphs. In the meantime add the bitly sidebar booklet to your web browser.
Another great tool is Timely.is. Analyzing the past 199 tweets in your account Timely is able to send out your tweets when they are most likely to be retweeted, even showing analytics in the performance tab. You can schedule 3 tweets initially, however just visiting the setting, you’ll be able to tweet more frequently – you’ll like that!
Experimenting with scheduling tweets and facebook post just became easier and fun.BufferApp allows users to simply share what you are reading using the browser extensions at any time, or add a few Tweets and FB post and BufferApp will automatically share your material, if you run out of material to share you can always hit the “inspire me” tab, and BufferApp will create a tweet or Facebook post for you! The free account come standard with the ability to load up to 10 updates in your “buffer” lol, and the attachment of your bit.ly account. The paid accounts will grant you more features like additional team members, advanced scheduling, and are well worth it. BufferApp maybe a great addition to your tool bag.
Next we take a look at manageflitter,which is one of the better twitter tools out there. Its main use is showing you what users are following or not following you, those who are inactive, and those who have been very active in their timeline. With this tool you simply unfollow all of the accounts you want, including spammers, and see the effect in real-time. Connecting your Google+ account is one of the other cool features. Manageflitter traditionally offers a free account, but does offer paid subscription services that opens up more features.
Lastly before we shoot out, make sure you get a chance to sign up for a Trello account. Trello is great for list building, the webpage is user-friendly, and also uses boards that offer a lot of cool functions, and editing. Excellent for working in teams, creating a seamless workflow, and keeping track of what’s going on with a project. To get in-depth details on Trello, visit the developer’s blog JoelOnSoftware.
These six tools should be able to help you manage your social media presence in a consistent and organized manner.
Remember if you need help with social media management or public relations look no further than Clout Media. Thanks for reading!
Social media marketing has become like every other form of marketing, over-saturated! Gaining a competitive edge over the competition or just simply having your brand stand out among the rest on social media platforms takes meticulous thought and execution.
One product we here at Clout Media have utilized that we believe can help any brand’s appeal is Hubze’s FanEnginePage. What exactly is FanEnginePage?
FanEnginePage is a service provided by Hubze Inc., a one-stop social media services website, which allows users to customize their Facebook fan page. The service provides businesses the ability to craft their own stylistic fan page to distinguish it from your competitors.
FanPageEngine is only the tip of the iceberg for what Hubze offers social media marketers. We were able to bother the company’s CEO David Foster recently for a Q&A we felt you all would benefit from.
Take a moment and read what he had to say about his experience as a marketer, Hubze, FanEnginePage, and much more.
Q: Hey David, before we get into all the goodies Hubze has to offer, quickly tell the people who you are and how you got your start in the world of marketing and advertising? David Foster: I have been a social media marketer going on 3 years. I have been an Internet marketer for over 14. I was a spammer back when that meant entrepreneur. I have always worked hard for what I have and never went to college. I did however tour some colleges just out of high school playing music, so I guess I lived the life without the large loans. I never liked working for other people. I always knew that someone else was making a fortune from my hard labor; I built houses and then sold cars.
I decided to get into web design, but only ever really learned to edit HTML. So as the top internet marketers say, “Outsource what you do not like to do yourself,” so I did and that is where I met the co-founder of the FanPageEngine, Valik Rudd. He and I had a great working relationship that has turned into a great friendship. We launched our product in May of 2010 and have not looked back yet. We are proud to help small business in a down economy to create very nice do-it-yourself Facebook pages for very little out of pocket. This thinking has made us one of the largest providers of custom Facebook pages online today.
I love what I do and do what I love!
Q: Now that we know a little bit about whom you are let’s talk about Hubze. For those who may not be in the know, Hubze is a one-stop shop for social media marketers needs. What are some of your most popular services? David Foster: By far our most popular product is our FanPageEngine, which allows people who do not know code or programming to create branded Facebook pages on the fly. This allows small businesses on a shoe string budget to login, create a page and start posting without going broke. Facebook is very important in today’s business world and we understand the importance of branding so this allows you to do both.
Our other popular product is our online hubze card, which is what we originally had created this company for. We have over 25,000 active users, but put the project on hold while we focused on where the income was coming from. Otherwise we would have gone broke.
Q: Tell us when and why you decided to create Hubze and all of its services? David Foster: I first came up with the idea in 2008 and started working with my co-founder Valik Rudd on a project that soon lead us to create the hubze card. Then one day in 2010, Valik sent me a link to his customized Facebook page… and I asked if he could create a tool that would allow people to do that themselves and auto post it to Facebook, and after initially saying he was not sure, he figured it out and we launched in March of 2010.
Q: On of the best feature of Hubze’s Fan Page Engine is its user-friendly WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get) Editor, which doesn’t require users to have any programming or coding skills. How exactly does the editor work? Does it have its limitations? David Foster: Well, the current version does work very easily, but one thing that a lot of people really need that we don’t offer YET (4.0 we will) is the ability to create their own graphics. People are always in need of graphics. Our new version fixes this issue because we have created many templates that will allow them to just select the theme and all the graphics will be there and all they have to do is edit all the text within them.
They will still have the freedom to create their own from scratch as they do now for the developers who like that freedom, but for those who just want to keep it very simple, we will now have options for them.
Q: Why should a marketer utilize Fan Page Engine to jazz up their Facebook page? What are the benefits? David Foster: I have learned over the years how loudly good branding speaks. If you go to some one’s Facebook page and end up just on their wall, or info page it just takes away from their credibility. It just makes you feel like they put no effort into looking professional. So I think branding is crucial if you really want to be taken seriously in today’s business world.
Q: What are the major differences between Hubze’s Fan Page Engine and Fan Page Elite? How can a user take their Facebook page to another level using Fan Page Elite? David Foster: FanPageElite is our custom design services. We do not heavily promote this, but reserve it for very serious customers who want to get 100% custom designed pages that look and feel like their brand. This service really sets them apart because no one else will have a page that looks like theirs. We have a great design team and our graphics artists are among the best in the Industry. They really focus on subtle detail.
Q: What are some other services and tools you provide customers? David Foster: One thing that I feel separates us from ALL the competition is the fact that not only do we help you brand your page, but we show you how to manage and build it after it’s done. We have a service called The Social Media Engine. This is a training program that has over 100 tutorials ranging from how to get “Likes” to your page to setting up folders in a Gmail account. We try to lay things out exactly how we ourselves have done them. This product is very popular!
Q: Are there any new tools in development over at Hubze that customers can look forward to, perhaps something for Google+? David Foster: Well, on February 9th, we will be BETA launching our FanPageEngine 4.0. It is leaps and bounds above anything else we have produced as people will see. And as soon as G+ opens things up for developers more, I do have www.GPlusEngine.com waiting! We are going to give users the ability to create custom Facebook pages, Twitter and YouTube backgrounds as well as banner images and hopefully soon…G+ pages. We want our service to be the ONLY service you need for DIY (Do it Yourself) branding.
Q: Thanks again for your time. Before we let you go, let our readers know where they can find you and follow all the latest news and happening with Hubze. David Foster: There are 2 places that I would recommend you find us. The main page is hubze.com and then our blog is full of free information on all things social. You can visit that at blog.hubze.com and let us know you stopped by!
Last week Webmarketing123, a full-service search and social media marketing firm, released its survey entitled “2011 State of Digital Marketing Report” which they conducted online this past September. The survey gathered responses from over 500 B2B and B2C marketing professionals, these statistics concern budget allocation, lead generation trends, and the rise of social media investment in 2012.
Here are some highlights of the results:
46% of B2B participants say their most important objective is to generate leads.
53% of all participants say SEO makes the biggest impact on lead generation, followed by 28% for PPC and 19% for social media.
75% of B2C companies are the most active on Facebook, followed by 8% on Twitter and 6% on LinkedIn.
B2B companies are active more evenly across all three leading networks: 34% Facebook, 26% Twitter, and 25% LinkedIn.
To download the entire report and infographic visit Webmarketing123.
