Tools for Social Media Marketing on a Budget

Written by: Zoe Share, Founder & Chief Executive Schmoozer, Schmooz Media

Finding the time to grow your business, manage day-to-day operations and keeping up your social media platforms can often leave you feeling overwhelmed. With so many social media tools available, and new ones being introduced every day, it’s easy to get caught up in what to try.

I’ve created a list of tools you should consider using for your own social media. We proudly stand behind each of these services, and have used them all for our various clients who we help to successfully manage social media activities on a slim budget!

Hootsuite

Quick Sum Up: Planning is important.

What it does: Hootsuite is a social management system that allows uses to manage their social interactions across multiple platforms – all in one integrated user interface. It supports Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and more. Users can view timelines, manage interactions, post updates and even schedule future updates.

Why it’s important: Hootsuite’s free plan offers small business owners a means to effectively manage their social media accounts without taking too much time or resources.

Cost: FREE for up to 3 social media profiles, $9.99/month for up to 10 social media profiles, and more.

Mailchimp

Quick Sum Up:  Fool-proof newsletters

What it does: Mailchimp is a web-based email marketing service that offers a number of means to design, send and save newsletter templates. It also allows you manage mailing lists to which those newsletters are sent. Mailchimp serves as a hub from which you can manage your entire email marketing strategies. It not only lets you easily customize and design your newsletter to your needs but also offers you analytics to track and measure performance.

Why it’s important: There are more people in the world with an email address than there are with a social media profile. For many brands, Schmooz included, email is often the most successful way of reaching people online.

Cost: FREE for under 2,000 mailing list subscribers and under 12,000 emails per month, with paid accounts for higher activity.

Canva

Quick Sum Up: Graphics for the non-graphic designer. Seriously.

What it does: Canva is my go-to tool for graphic content. If you want to churn out professional looking graphics but don’t have the design background or the financial resources to hire a professional graphic designer, Canva is a user-friendly web-based graphic design tool and offers users a means to create a variety of content types. Once you’ve selected a design, you can add different text designs and other graphic elements before saving and downloading your new graphic as a PNG. It also connects to your social media profiles allowing you to upload directly to them.

Why it’s important: Create anything that you need – social media, blog graphic, letterhead, magazine, marketing materials, event invites, ad placements and more.

Cost: FREE, with paid accounts ($13 per month) for more access and organization

Iconosquare

Quick Sum Up: Unmatched Instagram analytics

What it does: Where Instagram has lagged compared to other social media networks is the proper ability to measure analytics and track results. However, using Iconosquare, brands can get key insights into reach and engagement rates, follower growth history, top performing posts and even top performing hashtags.

Why it’s important: Iconosquare sends its users daily, weekly and monthly reports and does so in a visual manner so they can be easily digested. Learning from this about what is getting you results and what isn’t is extremely valuable.

Cost: FREE for 14 days – a basic package is just $81 a year for 1 Instagram account.

There are a lot of options out there for social media tools, and finding the right ones can take time and effort – we know, we’ve done the work. The above platforms are reliable, easy to use and will free up your time and social media efforts to make a big impact!

About Zoe:
Zoe Share is the Founder and Chief Executive Schmoozer at Schmooz Media, a social media marketing and communications agency. Learn more about Schmooz and their services on their website!