Social Media

Top 5 Social Media Marketing Tools

Posted on July 22, 2019October 22, 2020 by Cristian Croitoriu

22
Jul

Top 5 Social Media Marketing Tools

Social media marketing can help you improve your brand awareness, boost your engagement with your followers and even explore new opportunities with potential customers.
There are many social media management tools to help you be more effective.

Hootsuite

Hootsuite helps you manage all your social accounts in one place. It is probably one of the most popular options in social media management and monitoring.

It allows you to publish and schedule your social media posts and you can also use it to monitor your mentions and the keywords that you want to track.

This way you can use the platform for all the stages of your content, from finding new ideas to publishing them and measuring their performance.

It’s one of the most popular options among social media marketers and it’s also a good way to get started to social media marketing

There is a free version for those who want a very simple solution but it’s limiting the number of posts that you can schedule and the data that you’re seeing through analytics. If you want to give it a try, the free option lets you schedule up to 30 posts while you can link up to 3 social profiles.

The Professional plan at $19/month allows you to connect 10 social profiles for 1 user and it includes unlimited scheduling. If you want to involve 3 users, you will have to pay $99/month and you’ll be able to connect up to 20 profiles along with team message assignments, custom reports and exportable analytics.

Buffer

Buffer is a popular social media management platform.
It’s probably the most popular option along with Hootsuite.

The free plan can help you get started to learn how to use the tool. However, it’s very limiting so if you’re thinking of scheduling more posts you might want to consider a paid plan. The free plan is currently let you connect up to 3 social profiles and you can schedule up to 10 posts. It’s similar to Hootsuite’s limits on the free plan, but it is limiting even more the number of posts that you can schedule (30 over 10). It also doesn’t give you access to analytics to start measuring your performance.

The cheapest option starts at $15/month and it lets you connect up to 8 social accounts for 1 user and schedule up to 100 posts. You are also able to access Post analytics to analyse the performance of your posts.

The Pro plan can be a great solution for small businesses that want to schedule their content and save time when planning ahead. You are even able to include Pinterest as an additional integration and load content to the Queue for up to 100 posts. You can also access the Content Inbox to follow up to 15 RSS feeds.

Buffer’s biggest advantage is the simplicity and the UX that understands what social media managers really need.

Sprout Social

Sprout Social is another popular option among marketers for social media management.
It is a complete social media management platform and it also provides a social CRM and an all-in-one social inbox to monitor all your messages.
The pricing plans start from $99/month, which can be considered a bit more expensive compared to other social media platforms. This plan is limited to 5 social profiles so if you’re interested in adding more profiles and make the most of analytics, then you might benefit from the Professional plan starting at $149/month. Except for the features of the Standard plan, it also involves engagement and trends reporting, campaign planning and reporting and also reporting on your team’s productivity.
It is also offering the option to purchase your own add-ons, such as Amplification and Social Selling to improve your social media success as part of your own funnel.

AgoraPulse

AgoraPulse is a social media management and CRM platform to help you improve your social presence.
It can also be a useful platform for social CRM, managing your inbox, the comments and messages that you’re receiving on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube and Instagram.

You can also manage the comments from your Facebook and Instagram ads, which makes it easier to monitor all comments in one place.

There is a free trial option and the Small plan starts from $44/month. It allows you to connect 3 profiles and 1 user while you’re having unlimited reporting, publishing, and mentoring. It can be a good option if you’re managing the social presence of a small business. However, if you want to bring your team together, access advanced sync of inbox monitoring and the option to monitor ad comments on Facebook and Instagram, then you might need the medium or large plans at $89 and $180/month respectively. The Medium plan lets you connect 10 social profiles and 3 users and the Large plan allows you to connect 25 profiles and 6 users. It is the most popular option, especially for medium-sized teams who want to make the most of the team workflow in their content by creating their own processes for drafts and approval.

ContentCal

ContentCal is a visual calendar that can simplify your social media content planning. Its simple and intuitive use makes it very appealing to marketers of all skills to ensure that they streamline their planning as much as possible.

There is a free plan for the social media enthusiasts who want to create their own basic version of a social media calendar to connect up to 4 social profiles while scheduling 50 posts per month.
There is the Pro version at $12/month that involves one calendar and up to four social profiles. It lets you schedule as many posts as you want and there is also a monthly calendar view and the function to search for your posts in the calendar. This plan also provides access to Analytics and a PDF export.
The Company plan will be a good option if you have two people managing a social media calendar. It starts at $39/month and it features 2 calendars and 2 users. You can also add more calendars and users at an additional cost. The different with the Pro plan is that you can now manage approval workflows, access comments to improve the collaboration within your team and use a professional video uploader.
The premium plan at $80/month is still for 2 users and 2 calendars but it also features multi-calendar posting, sending Facebook posts to drafts, training and filtering of the Analytics.

Social Media

Why social media marketing is important for your business

Posted on February 22, 2018October 25, 2020 by Cristian Croitoriu

22
Feb

Why social media marketing is important for your business

Social media is quickly becoming one of the most important aspects of digital marketing, which provides incredible benefits that help reach millions of customers worldwide. And if you are not applying this profitable source, you are missing out an incredible marketing opportunity, as it makes it easy to spread the word about your product and mission.

Improved brand awareness

Social media is one of the most stress-free and profitable digital marketing platforms that can be used to increase your business visibility. To get started, create social media profiles for your business and start networking with others. By applying a social media strategy, it will help you significantly increase your brand recognition. By spending only a few hours per week, over 91% marketers claimed that their social marketing efforts greatly increased their brand visibility and heightened user experience. Undoubtedly, having a social media page for your brand will benefit your business and with a regular use, it can also produce a wide audience for your business in no time.

Cost-effective

For an advertising strategy, social media marketing is possibly the most cost-effective way. Creating an account and signing up is free for almost all social networking platforms. But if you decide to use paid advertising on social media, always start small to see what you should expect. Being cost-effective is important as it helps you attain a greater return on investment and hold a bigger budget for other marketing and business payments. Just by investing a little money and time, you can significantly increase your conversion rates and ultimately get a return on investment on the money that you primarily invested.

Engage with your customers

Social media is a good way for engaging and interacting customers. The more you communicate with the audience, the more chances you have of conversion. Set up a two-way communication with your target audience so that their wishes are known and their interest is catered with ease. Moreover, communication and engagement with customers is one the ways to win their attention and convey them your brand message. Thus, your brand will reach more audience in real terms and gets itself established without any hassle.

Improved brand loyalty

When you have a social media presence, you make it easier for your customers to find you and connect with you. By connecting with your customers through social media, you are more probable to upsurge customer retention and customer loyalty. Since developing a loyal customer base is one of the main goals of almost any business. Customer satisfaction and brand loyalty typically go hand in hand. It is essential to often engage with your customers and start developing a bond with them. Social media is not just limited to introducing your product, it is also a leading platform for promotional campaigns. A customer sees these platforms as service channels where they can directly communicate with the business.

Healthier customer satisfaction

Social media plays a vital role in networking and communication platform. With the help of these platforms, creating a voice for your company is important in improving the overall brand image. Customers appreciate the fact that when they post comments on your page, they receive a modified reply rather than a computerized message. A brand that values its customers, takes the time to compose a personal message, which is perceived naturally in a positive light.

Marketplace awareness

One of the best ways to find the needs and wants of your customers instead of directly communicating with them is Marketplace awareness. It is also considered as the most valuable advantage of social media. By observing the activities on your profile, you can see customers’ interest and opinions that you might not know otherwise if you didn’t have a social media presence. As a complementary research tool, social media can help you get information and a better understanding of your industry. Once you get a large following, you can then use additional tools to examine other demographics of your consumers.

More brand authority

For making your business more powerful, brand loyalty and customer satisfaction both play a major role, but it all comes down to communication. When customers see your company posting on social media, especially replying to their queries and posting original content, it helps them build a positive image in their minds. Regularly interacting with your customers proves that you and your business care about them. Once you get a few satisfied customers, who are vocal about their positive purchase experience, you can let the advertising be done for you by genuine customers who appreciated your product or service.

Increased traffic

One of the other benefits of Social Media is that it also helps increase your website traffic. By sharing your content on social media, you are giving users a reason to click-through to your website. On your social account, the more quality content you share, the more inbound traffic you will generate while making conversion opportunities.

Enhanced SEO rankings

Social media presence is becoming a vital factor in calculating rankings. These days, to secure a successful ranking, SEO requirements are continuously varying. Therefore, it is no longer enough to simply optimize your website and regularly update your blog. Businesses sharing their content on social media are sending out a brand signal to search engine that speaks to your brand validity, integrity, and constancy.

Final words

There is no denying that Social media marketing has many advantages for startups and established brands. By regular updating the right social media marketing strategy, it will lead to increased traffic, better SEO, improved brand loyalty, healthier customer satisfaction and much more. Your competition is already increasing on social media day by day, so don’t let your competitors take your probable customers. The earlier you start, the faster you see the growth in your business.

Why social media marketing is important for your business.

Online Marketing

Ways Your Brand Can Stand Out on Twitter

Posted on February 28, 2014October 25, 2020 by Cristian Croitoriu

28
Feb

Ways Your Brand Can Stand Out on Twitter

Keeping an eye on what others are doing on the channel is an excellent way to learn the latest strategies and tactics.

With more than 241 million active users on Twitter, more and more brands are realizing that establishing a presence there is no longer an option. It’s a must.

Success on Twitter takes time as well as a deep knowledge of the best practices that only comes with experience through trial and error.

To monitor how brands are using Twitter to capture the attention of their constituents.

Newsjack What’s Hot.

Taking advantage of trending news by writing about it as it is breaking can be a very effective way to inject your brand into the conversation. During this year’s Super Bowl, many brands were playing the newsjacking game, sharing their quips in real time.

Ask Questions.

Any networker worth. Ask them anything. The more you ask them questions, the more likely they’ll be to trust that you’re genuinely interested in their needs and interests, more likely they’ll be to do business with you when the time comes.

Engage With Other Brands.

Back in the day, it would have been highly unusual – and nearly impossible – for one brand to talk to another. What would be the point? And without the Internet, there wasn’t really a good forum for such conversation, anyway. Social media changes everything. And today, now that most brands have the basics of Twitter down, they’re going where no brands have gone before, reaching out to one another for not just casual banter, but for strategically timed engagement.

Embrace Your Fans.

People follow brands on Twitter for a number of reasons, one of which is for a digital autograph, a chance to connect with someone or something they adore. One-on-one interaction is ideal.

Talk About the Weather.

What’s the one thing people talk about when they have nothing else to say? The weather! Everyone is interested in the forecast, the temperature, and whether it’s sunny, raining, or snowing outside.

Be Responsive.

Is a fact that more than 70 percent of users expect brands to get back to them on Twitter in less than an hour

Sense of Humor.

Far too many brands take themselves too seriously on Twitter. For them, every single tweet is watered down, devoid of any personality whatsoever, never mind a sense of humor.

Give Away.

Perhaps the easiest way to stand out among the competition for attention on Twitter is to host a contest or sweepstakes.

Inspirational.

Whether you’re marketing to businesses or consumers, don’t forget that you’re talking to other humans on Twitter.

Share Knowledge.

Speaking of being helpful, some of the most popular accounts on Twitter are those that provide insight and information to their followers.

Online Marketing

Rules for Better Social Branding

Posted on October 31, 2013October 25, 2020 by Cristian Croitoriu

31
Oct

Rules for Better Social Branding

There is no one universal approach to building and maintaining a good brand. These are constant marketing truths and tactics one should keep in mind:

Be Specific

Some branding campaigns try so hard to be different they lose their relevance or the message requires too much explanation. Remember: different is not always good, especially in the online and mobile environments when you have just a few seconds to capture someone’s attention and connect with their emotions.

Be Helpful

Ask yourself this question: “Why would anyone want to hear from us?” Make sure there is a reason to connect to you.

Give people a reason to connect with you and make them one of the driving forces of your social content and promotions. “Check us out on Facebook” really is not a great call to action. If your targeting B2B, maybe it’s, “Get industry insight success tips – Follow us on Twitter.”

Make People Talking

Remember, in social your brand is not what you say; rather, it’s what people say about you.

Spark conversation and promote content that generates dialogue between the members of your community and even their friends. Encourage interactions, ie.: “Ask your friends” This will also boost your “Talking about this” on Facebook.

Be Human

Social media is the right place to show the human side of your company. Let people get to know not just your products, but the people behind your products. Remember, social media is about socializing and people want to feel like they are connecting with real people who share their values and emotions.

It is impossible to communicate with an inanimate object. Loosen up a little bit and show the face behind the curtain. Really be friends with the lovers of your brand!

Encourage the share

The share is as valuable as the Like or Follow! It creates peer to peer impressions featuring your brand.

Make content that is worth sharing and then make the share the call to action you are trying to encourage. We all want engagements, conversions and actions – but what about shares? Remember – the share is the action.

Online Marketing

Ways to Link Social and SEO

Posted on April 29, 2013October 22, 2020 by Cristian Croitoriu

29
Apr

Ways to Link Social and SEO

Companies expend amazing amounts of time and resources on social media marketing. But it’s clear to me that one simple fact is constantly lacking in their strategies and tactics – SEO. That fact is that success in social, especially for B2B companies, is very often realized through search.

Tips how you use all those target terms, links, and hashtags in your social media marketing.

Choose your target terms much as you would do with SEO.

You can hardly expect your social media managers to optimize your content with high-value keywords if they don’t even know what those keywords are. The list needs to be relatively short – unless you’re an e-commerce site with literally thousands of products, focus on the top 50 to 100 most popular and relevant terms. If your list is too long you will be watering down the effectiveness of your SEO program by spreading yourself too thin.

Google’s keyword selection tool is a great resource for this and it’s free.

Choose target pages on your site that have good content and may be already ranking on the first couple pages of Google and match those pages to the keywords you want them to appear under. Keep in mind that not all pages will map neatly to one of your target terms. In many cases you may be matching target terms with your home page, services pages, or other general pages. When you use the term try to link to that page and use the term as the anchor or link text.

Identify all the hashtags being used around relevant conversations on Twitter.

Sure, it’s good to make up your own hashtags. However, it can often be better to utilize existing hashtags to access the conversations your prospects and customers are already having.

Create a worksheet with a list of target terms, Twitter hashtags, and the URLs you should be trying to link to when you use those target terms in social content. Now here’s the key thing: they should be using this list and worksheet in an opportunistic way. In other words, they don’t have to be playing a Boggle word game trying to figure out how to use these terms and links. They should be using them when it makes sense from a contextual and grammatical standpoint.

Use your target terms, hashtags, and links opportunistically in your tweets. Also remember that people don’t just see the tweets from the people and companies they’re following. They also search in Twitter using specific keywords.Tweets do get indexed in Google!

Facebook posts

Use target terms and links in your Facebook posts, if you have a public fan page. Google is indexing your posts and they are showing up in search results.

Use your target terms and links in your LinkedIn and posts.

Use your target terms and links in your blog titles and copy. It’s especially important to utilize your links in the first few sentences of your blog post since other bloggers who subscribe to your RSS feeds and republish your posts often abridge and truncate them and then link back to your blog post.

Use your target terms and links in the press releases you drop on the wire services. As with your blog posts, utilize your links in the first two sentences since sites and bloggers that republish press releases often abridge and truncate them and link back to the wire services version of the press release.

Use your target terms and links in all of your content posting descriptions. This includes your Facebook about profile, video titles and descriptions in YouTube, presentation titles and descriptions in SlideShare, image titles and descriptions in Flickr and Pinterest, PDF postings, and Docstoc.

Make sure that all the valuable content on your site including images, charts, graphs, white papers, and videos are socially enabled. What do I mean by that? I mean that you have big noisy share buttons that encourage people to post your content to their social sites.

Make sure to configure your share copy so it utilizes high-value keywords. Don’t let the share buttons automatically grab images and copy from your page. Tell your web developers that you want to control what the share copy says when someone hits the share button on your site.

Tell bloggers it’s OK to grab your images, charts, graphs, and other content as long as they link back to your site. In fact, encourage them to do so.