10 Must-Have Social Media Tools to Help You Grow in 2018

Let’s face the facts, as a business, your number one priority is growth. If you’re not growing, you’re stagnating, and if you’re stagnating, you’re on the losing side of the battle. That’s simply not what you want, hence our previous statement of growth being your number one priority.

Anyway, there’s one thing you absolutely cannot forgo if you want to grow in 2018: a social media presence. There were 2.8 billion global social media users in 2017, a 22% increase from the previous year, and whether it’s Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, that’s where you’ll find your audience. In fact, there are over 2.01 billion monthly Facebook users, 700 million on Instagram, 328 million on Twitter, and 112.5 million on LinkedIn. In other words, you need to do some social media marketing.

To help you out, here are 10 must-have social media tools 2018 strategies need to grow!

1: Hootsuite

Up first in our social media tools list is Hootsuite, a very popular and easy-to-use social management tool (with an intuitive dashboard) that does everything from tracking campaigns to scheduling posts on different social platforms. How popular is it, you ask? Well, the likes of Facebook, HBO and the Obama administration use it, so you know it must be one of the top social media apps 2018 strategies need. As for its main features, you can not only schedule content, but also track its performance with in-depth analytics, follow any topics that spark your interest, and integrate any number of other apps to bolster your social media marketing.

2: Buffer

If you ever find yourself thinking, what are social media tools?, think of Buffer, one of the top social tools out there that not only lets you manage multiple accounts from one easy place, but also allows you to schedule posts and track their performance. For this very reason, it’s many marketers’ go-to social media tool, and also goes the extra mile by letting you schedule posts based on time zones.

3: Sprout Social

Sprout Social is an all-in-one tool that makes social media management easy for small businesses, agencies and enterprises alike. With a membership in tow, you can analyze and report with social media analytics that leads to strategic decision-making, plan, organize and publish social content with cross-network social media scheduling, and simplify your engagement strategy with a Smart Inbox that brings all of your messages from all of your profiles into a single stream.

4: Simply Measured

Aptly named, Simply Measured lets you measure your performance on social sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, LinkedIn, YouTube, and so much more. Apart from social analytics that allow you to check up on your own or a competitor’s channel, you also have conversion tracking to see the impact of your efforts, emerging topics and influencers to find new audiences, and content share tracking to see what people are sharing on social.

Fun Fact: Simply Measured was acquired by Sprout Social!

5: Social Mention

As the website states, Social Mention is a social media search and analysis platform that aggregates user generated content from across the universe into a single stream of information. In other words, it’s a ‘listening’ tool that monitors 80+ social platforms and analyzes data with four metrics:

1. Strength: the likelihood that your brand is being discussed in social media
2. Sentiment: the ratio of mentions that are generally positive to those that are generally negative
3. Passion: a measure of the likelihood that individuals talking about your brand will do so repeatedly
4. Reach: a measure of the range of influence

6: BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo is a content generation tool with tons of features that big guys like BuzzFeed and HubSpot use. For one, you can use it to find the most shared content on any topic you can think of. Second, you can analyze your own social presence, your competitor’s presence, or other top performing content on sites like Facebook. And third, you can also find influencers you can use to grow your presence and increase your following.

7: Feedly

Feedly is one of the most popular content discovery tools you’ll find. It’s a content aggregator that works for the web, iOS and Android, and gathers all your favorite news publications, blogs, channels, etc., in a single news feed. You can also set up keyword alerts, save content for another time, and organize everything however you want.

8: MeetEdgar

MeetEdgar is a very useful social media tool that saves you A LOT of time by recycling old posts. Step one is building a library with social updates out of your content, step two is Edgar posting your new updates while recycling old ones so that there’s never a gap in your conversation with your audience, and step three is you relaxing as you let Edgar do all the work.

9: IFTTT

If you’re familiar with computer science you probably have an idea of what IFTTT can do. If not, let’s start with what it stands for: “if this, then that”. In essence, it’s an automation tool that lets you get more out of your other tools, apps and devices. It’s sort of like a combination tool that allows you to create ‘recipes’ from what you have, to do more than you thought you could. For example, you can program it to post on Instagram whenever you send out a Tweet, to save a photo on your drive whenever you post on Instagram, and so much more.

10: Quuu

Quuu works in conjunction with Buffer.

The categories you select in Quuu will automatically or manually send content to your Buffer queues. You can choose from tons of groups to target specific interests shown by your users. Quuu also tailors each piece of content, so if you’re not into the meticulous details of social media, this is the tool for you.

Time for a Second Look

Did you get all of that? Are you ready to tackle the social world like the best digital agencies can? Good! Now let’s take a second look at the tools you need:

1. HootSuite
2. Buffer
3. Sprout Social
4. Simply Measured
5. Social Mention
6. BuzzSumo
7. Feedly
8. MeetEdgar
9. IFTTT
10. Quuu

Best of luck growing with social media marketing in 2018!