Does social media rank on your new years goals or priorities list? Have you been trying to figure out how to create a better, less time consuming strategy for this year? My success with social media has come in large part through the tools I’ve chosen to use, and I have decided to gift one of our readers 3 months free of my 3 favorite social media tools for blogging! But before I do that, let me tell you WHY they’re my favorite.
1. Canva for Work
I used a free Canva (similar to PicMonkey) for 2 years before ever upgrading to Canva for work. Free or Paid, this tool is an awesome photo editor. I love that in Canva for work I can save logos and brand colors in a special file and I can name images by project making it easier for me (and my team members) to find what I’m working on. There are tons of free templates and graphics in Canva, and if you do need to purchase an image of theirs, it’s just $1.
2. Hootsuite
I’ll admit I don’t use this power tool to it’s full advantage. Hootsuite is a powerhouse for organizing, managing and scheduling social media. It can post to Facebook pages and groups, to Twitter, and to Instagram. You can monitor twitter feeds, mentions and hashtags, and tweet and reply from within the interface, but my favorite thing of all, the thing I would pay for even if that’s all it did — the bulk upload feature. I love that I can write out a month’s worth of posts for my Facebook group or twitter feed, add URLs and date/time and upload them all to schedule automatically with just a couple of clicks. Saves my team HOURS of work each month.
3. Tailwind
Don’t think this will replace live pinning. Most experts still agree that for Pinterest success you need a combination of live pinning and scheduling of your pins and others. That being said, I’ve used several tools for Pinterest in the past and Tailwind is by far the out-performer. You can upload your own pins, pin from your site or others around the web, and you can schedule them to pin to different boards or groups of boards at dates/times in the future so that your account sees more consistent activity. You can also join tribes to network and promote others in your niche and use their analytics to check on pin or board performance.
Bonus: Later
I have to say that Later is my fourth favorite social media tool, perhaps the first, except I don’t pay for it. I just use the free version, and I can’t give that away because it’s free. BUT, if you’re not using the free version of Later to plan, write, and schedule your Instagram posts you’re missing out on a huge blessing! A free account at Later will give you 30 posts per month. You can upload the images on your laptop or desktop and type (hallelujah) the captions out with ease. I hate typing on my phone, don’t you? That alone is a huge time saver for me, but Later also just came out with a cool feature where it will show you a preview of your scheduled images on a phone screen, so you can see what the layout looks like and move images around as necessary. LOVE it! Click here to set up your free account right now!
Free Social Media Training
I hope you’ll join me in our free Facebook group, Paradise Bloggers, for a series of live videos on how to create a strategy and scheduling plan for your social media. I’ll be going live in that group with those tips, checklists and templates through New Years week. Click here to join now.
And Now the Giveaway:
In honor of my southern upbringing, let me just say, I hope this giveaway blesses your socks off! And because I know someone will ask: If you win and you’re already using one of these platforms, we’ll find a way to pick up your basic cost package tabs for those months just the same as for a new account.
So, what’cha wait’in for? Head on over and enter now!
Giveaway ends 1/5/17 12:00AM.
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