Being active on social media is so important to growing your audience and engaging with potential customers. However, managing social media can be a lot of work, especially if you have a small team or are a team of one.

You may find yourself wearing many hats, from strategist to graphic designer to copywriter to analyst and more. Fortunately, there are a variety of tools available to make social media management a little easier. Here are 10 resources to help you run social media.

Social Media Strategy and Planning

See What’s Trending

When planning your social media posts, it can be helpful to see what content is already trending for a specific topic. While you won’t want to copy these posts, they can give you an idea of what content types or conversations are resonating with people. There is a range of tools you can use to see trending content.

BuzzSumo, for example, allows you to search a keyword or website domain to find content that’s performing well for that search term. Search results may include articles, infographics, videos, and more related to your term, as well as the level of engagement the content is receiving on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Reddit. 

Similarly, Google Trends allows you to search a term or topic to see people’s level of interest in that search term over time, interest by sub-region, related topics, and related search queries.

Google Alerts is another way to find new content. You can search a term to see a results list, then create an email alert that will let you know when new content with your search term is available.

 

Get Organized

If you find yourself feeling overwhelmed with all there is to do, try using a platform like Trello. Trello is a project management and collaboration tool that allows you to create to-do lists and task cards so you can easily see what needs to get done or where things are in the project process. You can also use it to create an editorial calendar for your social media content, and even assign tasks and due dates to people on your team.

If you prefer paper planners instead of digital ones, writing out your social media content ideas and creating a calendar that shows what will be posted each day can help keep you organized.

Content Creation

Stock Photos

Visual elements like photos, graphics, and videos are important to making your content visually appealing and ensuring your message is clear. High-quality imagery is crucial. While it’s typically best to use custom photos from a professional photographer, stock photos can work in a pinch. There are a variety of websites providing paid and free photos, graphics and more for you to use. Some free options include Pexels, Unsplash, and Pixabay. Just be sure to read each website’s license so you know how you can and can’t legally use the images.

Content Creation and Graphic Design

If you want to create your own eye-catching graphics for social media, Canva is a great resource. It’s a graphic design platform that lets you create social media posts and stories as well as letters, posters, presentations and more from their collection of templates or from scratch. When using templates, you can edit the text, change the colors, add photos or videos, and more to create on-brand content for your social media pages.

Image Sizes Cheat Sheet

Social media platforms include a number of ways to share photos, from including them in posts to adding them as profile pictures, cover photos, and more. However, different platforms have different dimension requirements for each photo location, and it can be difficult to remember all of them. A quick Google search for “social media image sizes” will pull up some handy cheat sheets, such as this one from Sprout Social and this one from Hootsuite. Simply bookmark the page and reference it when you need it.

  

Publishing Posts

Content Scheduler

How often do you get to the end of the day and think “shoot, I never posted anything to social media!” Or, how often do you find yourself having to put other tasks on hold just so you can post new content?

A content scheduler is a platform that lets you create and load your social media content and captions, choose the dates and times you want the posts to go live, and publish the posts for you when it’s time. Typically, the free version of an app will send you a push notification to tell you to complete the publishing process yourself, while the paid version will automatically post the content without requiring any additional steps from you.

A scheduler can make it easier to plan and post content on a consistent basis. There are many options available, with popular ones including Later, Planoly, Sprout Social and Hootsuite.

Analytics 

Built-In Analytics

Reviewing your social media analytics each month can help you see how many people your content is reaching, what your audience enjoys most, and whether or not certain content or topics are working for your page. This data can help guide your content strategy for the next month. Most social media platforms offer insights built into their platform, making it easy to find and review data about your page, posts, and audience. Scheduling apps often provide some form of analytics or reports, as well.

Google Analytics

If your goal is to drive more traffic to your website, Google Analytics can be a helpful tool. It can show you how much traffic each of your social media profiles is driving to your website, helping you understand how successful your different pages and content are at helping you accomplish your goal. 

Education

Industry Blogs

The world of social media is constantly changing, with new platforms, new features, and new policies. In order to be the best social media manager you can be, it’s important to stay up to date on all things social media. Reading industry blogs is a great way to learn about new features and best practices so your social media efforts continue to be creative and effective. Popular social media and digital marketing blogs include those from later, Social Media Examiner, Buffer, HubSpot, Copyblogger, and more.

Social Media Management

Healthy Dash of Social

Managing social media can be a lot of work, and sometimes it’s nice to have a little help. Healthy Dash of Social is a digital marketing agency helping product-based business and non-profit organizations excel at social media and digital marketing. We offer a variety of services, including content creation, social media management, graphic design, influencer marketing, and a whole lot more.

Whether you need just a little assistance or full marketing management, we’ve got you. Click here to learn more about our services and schedule your free call.