#EducationMatters - Simplify Your Social Media With Tools

This month is all about #EducationMatters. Social Media can be a major time-suck but it doesn’t have to be that way. We’ve listed our top Social Media Tools to help keep you organized, stay on track, and, best of all, save you time so you can focus on other aspects of your business.

1. Canva: Incredibly easy social media imaging tool that takes the guesswork out of image sizes. With over 50 templates available for various social media sites (From Facebook to YouTube channel art), Canva can deliver high quality productions with a wide variety of image and font choices, making it easy to #BeAwesome. Their price range for images are from $0-$1, but you can always upload your own into the template for free. It’s also available as an app for iPad and iPhone. Android users need not worry. There’s a Canva app on the way for you as well!
2. Hashtracking: Have you ever wondered if a hashtag you use is a relevant one? Or what a popular hashtag would be for a certain product or service? Hashtracking.com takes the guesswork out of hashtags for social media campaigns and events. If you’re not willing to pay for ongoing report options, they offer free social media snapshot reports without a subscription. You simply need to log in to your Twitter or Instagram account to use the service. This is a one-time log-in.
3. Feedly: Have all your content curation in one spot. Feedly is an RSS aggregator. This RSS reader can gather feeds from multiple sites based on your preferences, add feeds from publications, blogs, podcasts, and even YouTube channels. It works well with Google Alerts as well as a multitude of other apps. The best part of the service is that you can organize all your feeds into collections that make them more accessible in the future. One of its biggest pluses is the integration it has with another social media tool, Buffer. 
4. Buffer: Posting your social-media content across multiple social-media services just got a lot easier. With Buffer you can schedule Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, and Google+ pages all it once. To use Pinterest, you’ll need to pay for their service, but the others are free. Please note that you’ll need a mobile device to push out your Instagram posts, but that’s an Instagram requirement, rather than a limitation to Buffer. 
5. Hootsuite: Another option for social media content scheduling and sharing is Hootsuite. Hootsuite can connect to Twitter, Wordpress, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram. Please note that their free version limits you to three social media accounts. Their pro version is $9.99 a month and allows you to have real-time analytics and 50 social profiles. Like Buffer, you’ll need to use a mobile device to push out your Instagram posts.
6. Commun.it: For businesses that find Twitter especially valuable, this tool helps the user to manage their engagement and presence on the platform. This relationship management tool allows users to monitor and respond automatically with potential leads on the site. It will also track and monitor accounts you have expressed interest in and report their daily activities to you. As with most of the tools mentioned, there are both free and paid versions that offer different features.
7. Trello: This website exists as an online program management tool with a free option. Users create lists and cards to organize their projects. For businesses with team member, it is simple to assign different individuals to various cards as an indication for team assignments. 
8. Google Drive & Dropbox: Both of these sites are excellent (and FREE) options for cloud storage that can be easily shared with clients and team. Dropbox is more for just storing the files themselves, while Google Drive is an online document center allowing individuals and team to work within files right on the site. 

This is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Social Media Tools. Is there a place where you struggle with time? If so, let us know in comments and we might be able to direct you to just the right tool to help you #BeAwesome at what you do!

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Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+,YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram and the tools to manage them.

Click here for her Social Media Workshops, Classes and Seminars