So many eyes currently indoors at home and online right now. It’s now more important than ever for small business owners to be visible on social media.
Participating in social media as a small business doesn’t have to be a complicated process.
Today I’m sharing what I feel are the best social media management tools that will make your social media look polished and professional. They also make the process of posting to multiple platforms easier and more manageable.
The 5 Best Social Media Management Tools
VSCO
Ever wonder how influencers have beautiful and cohesive looking photos on Instagram? They most likely use VSCO.
VSCO is an app that easily lets you edit your photos to look polished and professional. It has loads of pre-set filters that make editing your photos as simple as pushing a button and out-putting it.
Pro Tip: Choose one filter you feel best represents your brand and use it for any photo you post to social media. It’ll give you that cohesive, professional look everyone strives for.
Canva
Not having a graphic designer on staff is no reason not have eye-catching promotional posts. Canva is available both online as well as mobile apps, and allows you to create stunning images and graphics by utilizing pre-designed templates.
Use it to create everything you need on social media from logos, to platform banners, to even the posts themselves.
Pro Tip: If you upgrade to Canva’s paid plan, you can easily resize a design appropriate for a different platform with the click of a button.
Buffer
If you want to set and forget your posts, Buffer is the way to do it! I’ve tested multiple scheduling platforms and find Buffer to be the most user friendly for beginners.
Buffer is unique in comparison to other pre-schedulers in that you create a posting schedule and then fill a queue with content. It also allows you to post to multiple platforms with a single post.
Pro Tip: Check your post performance stats every week and add your highest performers back into your queue through the “re-buffer” feature.
Trello
While Buffer is great to actually queue your content for posting, a project management tool like Trello is perfect for creating a database of all your potential images and captions.
There’s many different ways to utilize Trello’s planning boards to do this, but my favorite is to create a list for the various categories of content I’m planning for. For example, my own includes lists for Photos, Quotes, Promotions, Email Opt-Ins, Tweet Ideas, and more.
Pro Tip: Utilizing a service like IFTT, you could link your Trello and Buffer together to further automate your posting. However, many of the social platforms discourage 3rd party tools like Buffer and you may notice a decrease in engagement as a result of using it. If you want to avoid this or avoid using Buffer altogether, just create a due date for your cards in Trello and set a reminder to post at the pre-scheduled time.
Kapwing
I’ve tried a lot of video editing apps. Kapwing would be my pick for beginners to create professional-looking videos specifically for social media.
This web tool allows you to make very simple edits to your video and overlay text and graphics. My favorite part is it’ll also auto-generate captions for you too.
Pro-Tip: Create your videos in Instagram Story format. Then keep the content in the center square of the screen. Then if you decide to post the video to Instagram or other platforms, it’ll still format correctly in the grid.
In Summary
That rounds up what I feel to be the best five social media marketing tools you can utilize to better manage your small business marketing strategy.
Don’t avoid social media altogether because of the perceived time you’d need to spend editing, creating and posting their content. If you do, you’re missing out on a tremendous visibility opportunity!
When you take the time to try various tools to make this easier, you’re eliminating that excuse.
Through regular posting, you also increase your visibility, and when that happens your sales come up as a direct result.
Ready to take the plunge and use social media but want to know for sure that it’s right for you and your business?
Take my small business Marketing Personality Quiz to find out. It takes your unique products and services and personality and recommends the best style of marketing for your small business.