Social media is one of the most effective marketing platforms for your small business.
Through social media, you can connect with your audience, build trust, and turn them into loyal customers. Furthermore, your business will gain more profit and scale up.
However, it’s almost impossible to get these results on social media without using the right social media tools. This can be a major headache for most small business owners.
You want these results but you also want to avoid throwing your money down the drain on unnecessary tools. How do you pick the right social media tools to help your business grow?
In this blog post, discover the ultimate 12-point checklist to help you select social media tools for your small business:
1. Your social media goals
You have to define why you want to engage in social media activities – and the objectives that you want to achieve.
Some common goals for social media campaigns are:
- Raising brand awareness
- Boosting your customer engagement
- Providing customer service
- Generating leads for your business
- Driving traffic to your website
- Making more sales
Why Do You Need to Specify a Social Media Goal?
First of all, it will give your campaigns a focus and help you to create an effective strategy. In addition to that, you’re able to understand your needs to select social media tools.
2. Set your budget
Every business must spend according to their means to ensure survival and growth. So, inside your marketing budget, you also need to define how much you want to spend on social media.
Usually, your social media budget will consider elements such as:
- Personnel cost
- Content creation cost
- Cost of tools
The reality is that some social media tools can be costlier than what you planned for your entire social media budget.
And the truth is, you need to be prepared to invest more than you might’ve wanted to initially. Because even if these tools cost you money, they can also help you save – and make – more money.
The right tools save you a lot of time and by provide you with better, more powerful tools to effectively sell online.
3. Cost of tools
You need more than a single tool for various aspects of your social media campaigns. Some of them are social media management, content creation, curation, and others.
After making a list of your preferred tools, you need to ask yourself:
- Does the total cost fit into my social media budget?
- If your answer is no, then see if you can find a similar tool that is just as good and has the features you need.
Otherwise, you might need to look into investing more than you initially planned for; and, where possible, leverage free tools.
For example, some tools, like Buffer, offer a free plan – however, there’s only so much that you can do with the free plan; the question you need to ask yourself is whether the features you get for free are enough for your needs.
4. Scheduling features
For a small business, a single person may be in charge of all your marketing efforts. This makes it difficult to catch up on all the profitable marketing activities.
Meanwhile, it’s impossible to get results on social media without the consistency of updates and engagement.
With scheduling, you can create social media content for a whole week and set them to go live at different times of the week.
You need to consider if the scheduling feature of a social media tool you select can meet your posting needs; for example:
- If you post a lot of content, then you need a tool that allows you to set up automated queues
- Likewise, if you post a lot, then you might also save a lot of time if you had bulk uploading options
- If you’re active on Instagram, then look for tools that support direct publishing
- If you share a lot of media content, ensure you can also schedule videos/GIFs, etc. and that you have a media library to upload them all for ease of use
5. Social media platforms supported
If you run a small business, you only need to focus on a few social media channels to optimize your resources. And these are the channels where your ideal audience hangs out.
After all, these are the channels that will be responsible for the majority of your results.
After deciding on the channels to go for, you need to ensure that your social media management tool supports them.
This will save time, cost and help you to manage your social media accounts on a single dashboard. For instance, a tool like Agorapulse allows you to create your post and send it to all your social media accounts once.
To get more important details on picking a social media management tool for your small business, you can check out this guide.
6. Engagement features
Marketing on social media is a two-way street. Apart from sharing great content, you also need to interact with your audience.
When you do this, you build trust and a stronger relationship. Ultimately, these bring in more sales down the line.
When you select social media tools, ensure they allow you to like, reshare, and reply to comments from the dashboard. This will save you the time and stress of logging into your different social media accounts to engage with your followers.
Plus, look for any extra features that can help, too; for example, some tools allow you to save replies so that you can respond faster to people and others allow you to create automation to respond automatically to certain users.
7. User experience
A social media tool should help you save time and improve your campaigns. But if the dashboard is so complicated you’re unable to carry out the basic tasks, then it will waste your time rather than save it.
Your social media management tool, in particular, will be a big part of your day-to-day life and something that will help you every step of the way.
Because of this, it’s essential that you’re very comfortable using it – and the best way to find that out is to try their free trial just to see if it’s the right fit.
8. Content creation
It’s simple, without great and regular content, you lose followers and more opportunities to engage with your audience.
To get high engagement for your content, you need to add visuals to your written content. Majorly, these include:
- Images: motivational quotes, ads, promotional posts, etc
- Videos
Instead of spending hundreds of dollars to hire designers, you can spend a fraction of that on social media content creation tools. And you get professional visual content that your audience will love.
For example, tools like Canva allow you to create all of your social media imagery by yourself, easily, with access to hundreds of templates and images to use:
9. Content curation
For some platforms like Twitter and Instagram, you need to share a lot of content. This is where content curation tools come in. They can help you find great content in your industry to share with your followers.
With this, you can keep your social media accounts active and satisfy your audience.
If you need more content for your pages, then you should find a content curation tool. A tool that does this well is Quuu as the content is vetted by human beings before they’re recommended for your accounts.
10. Analytics
The accurate way to track your social media performance is through your analytics. Of course, the metrics you track will depend on your social media goals.
You should check that your social media tool provides the metrics you want to track from your social media campaigns. Some common metrics businesses track on social media are:
- Impressions
- Reach
- Likes
- Comments
- Clicks
- Conversions
Being able to track these metrics will give you an idea of how successful your campaigns are. Furthermore, it will guide your strategy for future social media campaigns.
See an example from Sproutsocial:
So take a look at your social media goals, make a list of the metrics you’d need to track in order to accurately measure your social media success, then look for tools that can provide that information for you.
Ready to Select Social Media Tools?
When picking social media tools, you need to understand how those tools can help your business bring in more customers.
Go through this checklist to make your own list of features that you need to have; then, you can use that to focus on the tools that are most relevant to you and find the ones that offer the features you need.
By doing this, you can improve your productivity on social media and generate better results.
Lilach Bullock
Latest posts by Lilach Bullock (see all)
- The Ultimate Checklist to Select Social Media Tools for Your Small Business - July 28, 2019
- 3 Tips and Tricks to Help Turn Your Small Business into a Well-oiled Machine - November 23, 2018
- The Challenges of Funding Your Business for Growth - January 24, 2018
Social media nowadays is a necessary marketing tool to establish an online presence. I use Crello to create my posts. Thanks for sharing this amazing post!!
Dinesh Bhardwaj would love you to read ..6 Proven Digital Marketing Tactics for Small Business
These tools are really amazing and can really boost up your your online business and marketing srtatagies.
This is a great blog that covers all the major points of social media marketing. I highly agree with you on this blog. I have experience of 6 months in social media marketing and this blog is quite helpful and informative. Thanks for posting the blog.
Rajat would love you to read ..What is Online Marketing?
Thanks, this post is really valuable for such small businesses who want to run their business online but they can’t afford to hire a team.
canva is nodoubt one of the best tool for social media content there are too many ready to use a theme for all social media.. too many thanks for sharing this post
Many thanks for the post. I have a small business of production, for manufacturing and exporting of Jute, cotton and non-woven bags.
This article will help us to develop our business.
Hey Lilach,
Thanks for providing a beautiful piece of content. In social media marketing, tools are very important.
Hey!
Great article..even i am using canva too for my social media banners and that is very user-friendly. I totally agree with your points. analytics is a very important part of any content shared with the customer to keep the record. Keep Sharing..
DM Yadav would love you to read ..v Card : Visiting Cards with QR code
Hi your post is excellent it is so knowledgeable article thank you very much for sharing this information and useful post.
Thanks so much, glad you found it useful! And thanks for taking the time comment, hope you find some great tools 🙂
Lilach Bullock would love you to read ..Promo.com: the effortless way to make effective short videos and gain customers
Hi,
This is wonderful post for social media tools and great article seen here. Thanks a lot for sharing with us .
Hi Adrina, thanks so much for your comment, pleased you liked the article 🙂 Hope you find a great tool for your needs!
lilach bullock would love you to read ..Promo.com: the effortless way to make effective short videos and gain customers
Great Blog on social media tools. This will help to increase more social presence!!
Hi Alan, many thanks for your comment and kind words – hope it help you find a great tool!
lilach bullock would love you to read ..Promo.com: the effortless way to make effective short videos and gain customers
social media has great impact on any website or blog .social media can enhance your site and blog within short time.
Very true! Social media can be a very powerful tool so you need some tools to help you get the most out of it.
lilach bullock would love you to read ..Promo.com: the effortless way to make effective short videos and gain customers
Canva has definitely changed my life! I didn’t realize until recently that I can even create social media posts with it. Life changing experience!
I felt the same when I first discovered Canva! It’s a very powerful tool and so easy to use – you can use it to create pretty much any marketing visual you can think of.
lilach bullock would love you to read ..Promo.com: the effortless way to make effective short videos and gain customers
When it comes to content creation, Canva has been always a game changer. Their free tools let me create great content. The ready templates are so easy to use. Thanks for the article. Got to know more tools 🙂
Kannada would love you to read ..Utthare Utthare Song Lyrics | Kurukshetra
Very much agree, it’s an incredible tool! The templates look great and you have so many different options to choose from and customize.
Anyway, pleased you liked the article and discovered some more useful tools 🙂
lilach bullock would love you to read ..Promo.com: the effortless way to make effective short videos and gain customers
This is similar to Hootsuit?? social media always play big role in the business.
Charles would love you to read ..Online Travel Agencies – A Brief Introduction
Thanks for your comment and for reading, Charles 🙂 yes, social media is an extremely important marketing tool!
lilach bullock would love you to read ..Promo.com: the effortless way to make effective short videos and gain customers
you shared a valuable suggestion for me and your post is a very simple for understanding thank you so much.
rovin singh chauhan would love you to read ..Twitter Account Suspend Hone Par Kya Kare | Unsuspend Twitter Account
Glad to hear, Rovin and pleased you found it useful 🙂 thanks for your comment!
lilach bullock would love you to read ..Promo.com: the effortless way to make effective short videos and gain customers
The checklist turned out to be an ultimate one! Thanks for the useful information.
Glad to be of help:) Hope you found some great social media tools using this 🙂
lilach bullock would love you to read ..Promo.com: the effortless way to make effective short videos and gain customers
Agorapulse seems good but the only problem is they do don’t have free account option similar to Hootsuite
Andrew Dominik would love you to read ..How to Search for Appropriate Guest Posting Opportunities
Hi Andrew, thanks for leaving a comment 🙂 In my experience, free social media management tools can only do so much; they’re great if you only have an account or 2 to manage and you aren’t scheduling a lot of content, but as you grow, you definitely need a tool that can keep up with your needs and give you more features to boost productivity/results
lilach bullock would love you to read ..Promo.com: the effortless way to make effective short videos and gain customers
Hey, #Lilach Bullock
Thanks for sharing these tips about great social media tools! BTW I already did some of them, but there are others you pointed out that would be good to start.
Nitesh Khawani would love you to read ..Work from Home Job Update Nitesh Khawani -Data Entry&Form Filing
Thanks so much Nitesh, pleased you liked the post and found some useful tips/tools 🙂
Thanks for the tips. I am going to try the scheduling of features since it works for me especially on different time zones posting. Thank you.
Silz would love you to read ..Jijali Virtual Training and Mentorship Program
Thanks for leaving a comment, glad the post was useful for you 🙂 Scheduling is an amazing tool, it can save up so much time (and help you get better results too!)
lilach bullock would love you to read ..Promo.com: the effortless way to make effective short videos and gain customers
Thanks for the information. You write amazing blogs and you got the best information.
Arogyadhamhcc would love you to read ..Trends to follow while revamping your website
Thanks so much for commenting and for your kind words 🙂 Glad you liked the post!
lilach bullock would love you to read ..Promo.com: the effortless way to make effective short videos and gain customers
For SMBs with little to no expetise or budget those tools can definately be useful for establishing a continous social media CI/design and not annoy people with some quirky layouts. But: as nice as those designs look, as generic are they. And at some point your customers will notice that. So it’s just a temporary thing IMHO to get the online marketing train rolling and if you want to take off, you better evolve.
Another thing: When it comes to design and content tools, there’s like every other week a new suite/toolset – and everyone tries to underbid everyone else. Even if no one like to really go beneath the 9,95 bar permanently.
But when it comes to tracking solutions and how to secure and prove your success/failure, you really have to get the big money out. I love sproutsocial, but it’s not even as close as cheap as any content creation/pruning/nurturing/… tool. In SMBs I often experience that those low-priced tools are really popular, BECAUSE you can’t track anything. So everyone can avoid the “Well, what did we really achieve?” situation for months… till the sh** hits the fan. 🙁
Hi Flo, thanks so much for taking the time to leave a comment 🙂
While I do agree that a lot of these very-easy-to-use social media design tools have some generic templates, I do also think that you can create some quality content with them. And sometimes, even a simple design can look great.
Yes, SMBs can be quite reluctant to invest in more expensive tools! Even though they definitely should, especially when it comes to analytics, as you said. The more you know about your results, the better equipped you are to improve them!
lilach bullock would love you to read ..Promo.com: the effortless way to make effective short videos and gain customers
Excellent article, helps me a lot. The best way to spread our business is promoting in the social media either through Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.
Thanks so much for comment, glad it helped 🙂 yes, social media is definitely one of the most effective ways to promote a business!
lilach bullock would love you to read ..Promo.com: the effortless way to make effective short videos and gain customers
I agree with the comments above about Canva being the best tool for content creation on social media. I had a query on paid social media tools and whether it’s worth investing in them. Do they provide significantly high value as compared to free tools? Thanks for this article. It gave me some perspective on social media marketing in general.
Thanks so much for your comment 🙂 Agreed, Canva is amazing 🙂
I’m a big believer that it’s worth investing in certain types of tools for your business; it depends on what you need and what you’re looking for. It’s only worth investing if it actually saves you time and/or has extra features that you can’t get from a free tool; and, perhaps just as importantly, if you’re willing to learn how to use the tool and make the most of it. So if you do invest in a tool, do a demo, watch videos and check out the Help pages, explore features – you need to really know a tool to get real value out of it.
Hope that helps 🙂
lilach bullock would love you to read ..Promo.com: the effortless way to make effective short videos and gain customers
Hi Lilach,
Thanks for sharing this helpful article. I think, interacting with customers plays a vital role in any business. Most of the time we fail in this aspect
Jamshed would love you to read ..Zodiac – The Life’s Referee
Thanks so much for leaving a comment, pleased you found this useful 🙂
lilach bullock would love you to read ..Promo.com: the effortless way to make effective short videos and gain customers
Canvas is best for small business which can`t afford to hire a graphic designer.
Definitely, it’s a great solution for those with little (or no) design experience!
Lilach Bullock would love you to read ..How to build a stellar online brand with the perfect domain name
Great article.Content is also the main thing.It’s simple, without great and regular content, you lose followers and more opportunities to engage with your audience.
This is such a great article,
i am using canva and i can say this one of the best tool for social media content generation there are hundreds of ready to use a theme for all social media. it is a big help and easy to use tool and best this is you can use it free.
Mohdrizwan would love you to read ..How to Start a Laundry Business in Dubai?
Hi Mohdrizwan, thanks so much for your comment and kind words, pleased you liked the article 🙂 I’m a big fan of Canva’s as well, I could not agree more with your statement! It’s an amazing tool and so easy to use even if you don’t have much experience.
Lilach Bullock would love you to read ..Social Media In Education: Can They Improve The Learning?