10 Great Social Media Tools to Boost Online Success If you aren't able to get your message and your content in front of the right online audiences, your business is unlikely to succeed.
By Sujan Patel Edited by Dan Bova
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
In the past, business was all about "location, location, location." And it still is, to some extent, but those locations are now online.
If you aren't able to get your message and your content in front of the right online audiences, your business is unlikely to succeed. Fortunately, there are plenty of different tools out there to help boost your social success online. Here are 10 of the best:
1. CoSchedule
CoSchedule is a blog editorial platform with built-in social media sharing -- all available on a drag-and-drop style calendar. When you change the publishing date of your content, all of the social media publishing dates are updated as well. This tool integrates easily with Buffer and WordPress, making it an essential tool for sharing content on social media.
Related: The Modern Storefront: What Instagram Could Mean For Your Business
2. Buffer
Speaking of Buffer, it's a pretty powerful tool in its own right. With integration for LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and more, you can schedule your content to be shared all at once or multiple times, automatically. You can choose to have one blast hit all your profiles at once, or schedule different content at different times. There's also a browser plugin that allows you to add any web page you're on to your Buffer sharing queue, filling up your social profile with consistent content.
3. Flare
The Flare sharing bar enables your readers to quickly share your content with their friends on social media. Not only can they share with a single click, the tool shows how many times your content has been shared on various social media sites as well. This is a powerful form of social proof that helps encourage other readers to post your articles to their accounts. As your content spreads, so will your message -- along with awareness of your brand.
4. Narrow
Narrow is a tool that helps you build a targeted, engaged following on Twitter. Use it to automate some of your Twitter interactions, saving time while still allowing you to engage directly with your followers. It automatically unfollows folks who don't follow you back, and the rates are set carefully so you won't run afoul of Twitter's rules. By following real users who can use your product or service, Narrow builds your audience in the best possible way.
5. Hootsuite
Hootsuite is another helpful social media tool that allows you to manage up to 100 social profiles, both posting new messages and responding to interactions. Hootsuite allows you to schedule social sharing, monitor accounts and measure your social media growth over time. It also features an auto-scheduler that automatically chooses posting times with the highest chance of interaction.
6. Topsy
If you're focused especially on Twitter, Topsy will be a key tool for you. You can use this program to search any topic or company, find tweets about them and tweets they sent, and determine how many times their tweets were shared.
For example, a quick search showed me that the phrase "content marketing" had been tweeted about 3,048 times in the past 13 hours, as well as showing me the most popular and most recent tweets, links and videos that were associated with this topic.
Related: This Free Tool Can Determine Your Most Valuable Followers on Instagram and Twitter
7. Bit.ly
On social media, no one wants to see long, complex link text. On some character-counting sites such as Twitter, you effectively can't use them anyway. Fortunately, bit.ly comes to the rescue. Use the site to shorten your long links, as well as for some quick-and-easy analytics on any of your past links that tell you how many times that shortened URL has been clicked on and by whom.
8. Source Metrics
This tool is an amazing option for retailers and etailers who are looking to understand how social media is impacting their sales results. The campaign analytics help both online as well as brick-and-mortar stores know which customers came in as a result of specific social media campaigns.
Source Metrics can help you understand conversions across all stores, at a specific location, by city, and more. It also integrates with all top ecommerce solutions, giving you important information wherever you need it.
9. SlideShare
Slideshare is a great tool for getting content in front of a different type of audience. The primary demographic on the site is business-to-business users seeking high quality content. With over 60 million unique visitors a month, you can get your content in front of a lot of targeted users with little extra effort. Many users simply create content for this site by repurposing existing presentations.
10. Social Mention
For real-time social media search and analysis, look no further than Social Mention. Not only does this tool return results for any topic, it also has a short list below the main search bar that shows you what's trending on social media at any given moment. In addition to offering sentiment analysis, Social Mention provides research insight from multiple platforms, including Facebook, WordPress blogs, Twitter, YouTube, Ask.com and more.
To be successful in any venture, you need to have the right tools. These 10 social tools will help you position your business online in the right locations, offering the right content, to the right people. Basically, when you add these programs to your arsenal, you'll be positioned to succeed.
Which of these social tools are your favorites? Share your top picks or any other recommendations you have in the comments section below!
Related: 5 Ways to Use Data to Inform Your Social Media Marketing Strategy
