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Remember the times when there were no social media websites, so website developers mainly relied on inbound links to generate more traffic? Luckily, those days are gone. Today, you are able to attract a huge audience thanks to social media.
Your target audience is surely out there; you just need to locate potential customers, visitors and readers, and attract them towards your website.
Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as it initially seems. Many website owners create their profiles on multiple social media sites and they start posting updates and links, but nothing happens. Have they done something wrong?
No, but they haven’t been doing enough. A successful social media marketing approach takes a lot of planning and commitment. Thanks to the 8 tools listed below, you can start using social media more productively than ever.
1. Commun.it This tool is marketed as ‘the easiest way to grow followers’. That might make you think that Commun.it is one of those online services that offer you to buy Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook followers, but it’s not. By the way, don’t even think of using those tools; the artificial numbers come with sanctions. Let’s go back to Commun.it: this is a Twitter/Facebook community manager that helps you discover who your target follower is.
You can use the tool to see who supports your content by sharing, retweeting, and mentioning. Once you identify those valuable people in your social communities, you will be able to give something in return. As you engage those loyal followers, your reputation on social media will go up. Respond to mentions, give thanks for the retweets, and communicate with people who linked to your website. That won’t take more than 15 minutes of your day, but the strategy will result with huge success.
2. Onalytica
If you want to create some buzz on social media, you have to attract the influentials in your niche. If these people like your page and share your updates, you can expect tons of engagement at your website. The question is: how exactly do you find authoritative bloggers and social media users? Onalytica is the tool for you.
It will scan your content and it will show you a list of influencers whose interests and activities are related to your theme. Once you have that information, all you need to do is follow those people on social media and make yourself noticeable. Comment on their posts, but make sure not to spam. Be smart, creative and fun as you are.
3. Edocr
You certainly have a lot of knowledge about the business you have developed. You spent a lot of time in learning and personal development for the sake of building a successful brand. How about sharing some of that knowledge for free? When you give something really meaningful to social media users, they will return the favor.
A well-constructed, informative eBook will bring a huge number of social media users to your site. Needless to say, you’ll also give hints on how your products/services can help people solve the problems you are discussing in the content. For example, let’s say you are selling brushes for dry body brushing. Your potential customers will appreciate a complete eBook that elaborates the benefits of this technique and explains where it comes from.
How do you compose such an eBook? Edocr is the right tool to use! It enables you to create a well-structured eBook and share it without much effort.
4. Viralheat
Do you have a system for evaluating the success of your social media activity? Viralheat enables you to analyze the ranking of your posts and monitor the conversations mentioning your brand across Pinterest, Google+, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and many other platforms. Make sure to analyze that data and identify the strengths and flaws your audience is commenting on. Then, use the information to improve your website.
You can also communicate with the audience you identify through viralheat. Respond to the mentions, even if they are not promoting your business in the most positive way. Be polite and always try to make the experience of your website users better.
5. Feedly
When you start using social media for the sake of your website’s growth, you have to offer something more than plain promotion. Of course you need to promote high-quality content as part of your marketing, but you should also shift the focus away from your business from time to time.
With Feedly, you can find top-notch online publications related to your niche. Adjust your preferences and you will start seeing the most relevant posts in your feed. When you discover an especially useful and informative publication, share it on your social media profiles. Your followers will appreciate your efforts to give them something interesting to read. If you manage to engage them in a discussion in the comment section, this strategy will be even more successful.
6. Post Planner
The timing of your Facebook updates is more important than you think. Of course you cannot log into the profile as planned, since you have other things to care of. You can use Post Planner – a tool that enables you to schedule your posts during activity peaks.
The tool will help you analyze the trends in your niche and plan your posts in accordance with the interests of your target audience. You can also set the tool to automatically re-post the most popular updates you’ve previously shared. That’s a nice way to generate constant activity on social media without any effort.
7. Canva
You have to start promoting engaging content via social media if you want to get the feedback you need. Blog posts and witty status updates may be successful, but you will notice a much greater level of engagement if you start posting ‘shareable’ content. With Canva, you can create awesome graphics that will capture the attention of the audience.
The tool enables you to edit images, add text and speech bubbles on visual content, design grids, and add stickers, icons and frames to your designs. However, you can also use Canva to create a flyer, presentation, photo collage, Facebook cover, Google+ header, infographic, and other forms of visually-intriguing content.
8. Bit.ly
Don’t you get frustrated when you want to share a link via Twitter, but it’s too long for those 140 characters? You don’t have to be! Bit.ly is the tool all social media users need: it turns every URL into a much shorter version that still leads to the right destination.
Twitter came up with its own shortener too, but that doesn’t make Bit.ly an irrelevant tool. This is much more than an URL shortener; it’s also an analytical and tracking service that enables you to manage, control and measure the content that’s being shared across your brand. Bit.ly also gives you information on what your audience is sharing organically, so you can use those insights to boost your marketing strategy.
9. Lumen5 is a social video marketing platform powered by A.I. that enables anyone without training or experience to easily create engaging video content within minutes.
It’s Your Turn to Shine Social media websites are pretty straightforward – you show up and do your best to attract attention. However, when you’re using these platforms for the sake of promoting a website and bringing more visitors in that direction, you need a more professional approach. The above-listed tools will help you boost your marketing strategy. Start using them without delays!
Stephanie Norman is a professional writer with 4 years of experience from Sydney. Also, she works as online marketing specialist in Australian Writings, a company that offers assignment help for students. You can follow her at Facebook and Google+.
