We’re all trying to win time, get ahead of the curve, be an early adopter… But which tools are worth investing time in before you get time out of it? Here’s a roundup of some Top FREE Tools for your Social Media, Website and Blog.

Let me know if I left any out!

Manage Your Social Media Presence

Are you looking for an all-in-one solution to manage your social media presence?

Perhaps you need a smarter way to manage multiple profiles and networks? Or maybe you need to improve team collaboration?
Whatever your situation, managing social media requires the right strategy and the right tools.

And while there are thousands of social media tools, not all of them can be classed as management tools. For instance, Buffer is great for scheduling, but it doesn’t manage network engagement.

So let’s get started.

 

The free version does limit you to a basic scheduler (which doesn’t allow you to add images to posts) and a limited analytics platform.

What’s cool? The auto-scheduling feature allows you to make sure your profiles never go dormant. You can set parameters (schedule two posts daily, between 9 AM and 5 PM, only on weekdays), and auto scheduling content adds them to a ‘queue’ at the next available time in those parameters.

HootSuite also has a browser extension that allows you to schedule content from the webpage that you’re visiting directly.

Buffer

Buffer takes the hassle out of scheduling your Tweets and status updates: just set a posting schedule and Buffer will handle the rest.

Buffer also makes it easy for you to share interesting articles and videos with your audience. Find a trending news article or YouTube video that your audience would like? Share it on the spot or schedule it for later without leaving the tab. Or, you can find new content to share right in Buffer, with its built-in Content Inbox RSS reader that you can use to both read and share news in one place.

Another feature is Buffer’s built-in image editor— dubbed Pablo—that lets you create stunning images right from Buffer. Just upload an image (or choose from Pablo’s limited royalty-free selections) then customize it with a wide range of image filters and text overlays. Once you’re done creating your image, you can easily export it to a social-friendly size and add it right to your Buffer queue.

followerwonk

followerwonk (part of Moz) gives you some really useful analytics options for researching the effectiveness of your Tweets and the performance of your Twitter account as a whole. You can analyse your followers or the accounts you follow to ascertain where in the world they are and when they are most active on Twitter, as well as other information.

This can really help you improve your effectiveness on Twitter. You can use the information regarding when your followers are active to determine when you should be tweeting.

In addition, if you discover you have a large number of followers in a certain country it could help with planning your next marketing campaign or even store location. To save you even more time, followerwonk integrates with Buffer, so you can get it to automatically update Buffer’s set posting times to reflect when your followers are online.

Spredfast

Spredfast allows users to monitor online conversations through keyword searches and it’s also recommended for managing multiple social media sites and its reliable publishing capabilities, as it suggests an optimal scheduling time.

If reporting is what you are looking for, Spredfast is unmatched. It provides advanced analytics reports and all data is clearly presented in formatted graphics which you can easily export.

Their dashboards are a good source for a quick reference to what is happening across your pages and it’s also very easy to track what type of content is performing best on specific channels.

Hubspot

While there are a lot of tools out there that let you monitor and publish to social accounts, platforms such as Hubspot allow you to not only monitor and publish but also get closed-loop reporting data. That means you’re not just seeing what channels drive the most engagement, but you can track further down the funnel to see what posts and channels drive actual leads and sales.

Sprout Social

Similar to Hootsuite, Sprout Social combines several social media tools into one platform — from social media scheduling to monitoring, to reporting.

Sprout Social is one of the few social media management tools that provides customer relationship management (CRM) features. Having a complete profile of your customers help you serve them better and build stronger relationships with them.

Unique value: The most common praise I’ve heard about Sprout Social is its amazing reports. Many social media managers found the reports so great and beautiful that they would download and send them to their managers or clients without editing them.

SocialOomph

Organize and analyze your Twitter accounts in one easy place using SocialOomph. It allows you to track your keywords, mentions, and retweets across multiple accounts and schedule tweet drafts.

The slew of free features includes URL shortening, direct message inbox and old tweet purging, and keyword tracking.

SocialOomph is free to use, but you can also upgrade to Professional to access additional features for Facebook and Twitter.

Sendible

Sendible pulls in posts and comments from sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Flickr making it easy to manage and respond to all from one place. Each post is analyzed and messages requiring urgent attention are highlighted, helping users prioritize important mentions and deal with messages that require an immediate response straightaway.

Like other social media management platforms, Sensible allows you to engage with your online communities across multiple platforms, analyze and track your social media and email campaigns, measure the success of the content you share and plenty of other things.

Maybe your company is just starting its social media efforts. Maybe you’re a longtime pro looking for a way to speed up your workflows and get better performance analysis. Wherever you fall on the experience spectrum, there’s a social media tool ready to help you save a lot of time and make your social media presence smarter and more engaging.

Social Pilot

Social Pilot is Social Media Scheduling & Publishing. It allows you to add all your social media accounts, and post updates without worrying about limits. It offers many features and report options.

Design Tools

 

Colour Choice and Match

To color your blog. Check which colours to use on your blog? How do colours pair together? And what is that pesky colour code?! Colorzilla is an extension for Chrome and Firefox that allows you to easily find the colour code (for any colour on any website).

To check what colours match, check out Coolors. It’s a colour palette generator to help match colours from websites, images or start a colour scheme from scratch.

 

Fonts

See which fonts pair well together on Font Pair. Font Pair helps designers pair Google Fonts together.

Or, use Canva’s Font Combinations. Choose a starter font, and you’re offered a variety of fonts that pair well. Simple!

 

Next Time….

Website Tools, Organise Yourself, Storage and Security and More!