Getting your online presence started on social media often feels like an overwhelming task. How do you make sure your content looks and sounds professional? How often should you post? What should you post about? Many of these questions have different answers for different businesses, but there are some social media tools that can help make the answers clear for anyone looking to establish their brand online.
Read on for a list of our 5 favorite social media tools that we know you’ll find helpful!
Hootsuite
Aside from staying active on social media to ensure that you know what’s going on, it’s good to have a go-to resource for staying up to date on the latest social media best practices. Hootsuite’s social media library is our favorite place for finding good strategies and tips to tap into the power of social media. They have hundreds of articles on recent research and trends, strategies and tactics, and case studies that can help you get and keep your social media game plan on track.
You can try out Hootsuite’s resources for free for 90 days and then take the time you need to decide if it’s useful for your social media strategy. We promise you’ll find some helpful resources on the site!
Loomly
When it comes to organic social media, consistency is key. Posting regularly on the platforms you’re on gives your content a boost from the algorithm and builds brand personality and trust with your audience. You can always take care of this manually, but there are several social media scheduling tools available that take care of the posting for you.
At Set Fire Creative, our favorite platform to use for automated publishing is Loomly! Not only can you schedule posts on nine different platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter, but Loomly also provides post suggestions and hashtag research to save you time and reduce agonization over small details. If you’re posting a piece of content on several different platforms at once, Loomly also gives you the option to fine-tune each post to the channel it will be published on. It takes all the pain and guesswork out of staying consistent, and is definitely worth the investment.
Canva
With hundreds of templates and intuitive tools great for creating graphics available for free, Canva is one of our go-to social media resources. Great for designing story posts, promotional graphics, and other creative for organic social media posts, Canva makes it easy to make your business look good online. The site also includes stock photo options, and each product and account can be shared with a team for smooth collaboration. The next time you need to create an image for social media, be sure to give Canva a try!
Adobe
Though not as intuitive as Canva, Adobe creative suite has loads of resources for creating graphics, logos, and videos. Use InDesign and Illustrator to build images and company branding graphics, Photoshop to edit images, and Premiere to edit videos. Though it does take a while to learn how to use each platform, there are hundreds of free training videos for each Adobe tool online, so if you’re serious about creating content that stops your audience and captures their attention, investing the time and money into some Adobe programs is a good idea.
Unsplash
It’s not always possible to take the perfect photo for the post you are creating, so if you don’t have the creative yet, Unsplash is the best resource for finding great images. Because the content on Unsplash is uploaded by freelance photographers, the photos you can find on the website don’t look like stock photos and can add a lot to your social media feed. It’s never a good idea to only post stock photos, but when you do need to post an image you haven’t created, Unsplash is the place to find it!
We Can Help
Though social media can be daunting and confusing, these tools are some that will help you navigate your way around building an online presence. For more information about what social media tactics and strategies will work the best for your business, schedule a free consultation with us today and we’ll help you find the right path for you.
Celia is a digital marketing specialist at Set Fire Creative. When she isn’t writing ads and driving sales for clients, she is working out, cooking some delicious comfort food, or camping in the mountains with her family.
