Taking an organized approach to social media can be a game changer for your metrics. Whatever KPIs you prioritise, things like content calendars and post schedulers provide value in your approach. But pricey social media software can add up — unless, of course, you go with one of the many free tools at your disposal. Here are five of my favourites to help you succeed at social media.
1 – Create Engaging Visuals With Canva
Did you know that a social media post with an image is 10 times likelier to get engagement? With Canva, you can actually make your own custom images instead of paying a graphic designer to craft every single post.
Canva lets you make everything from blog banners and videos to Facebooks ads and Instagram posts. You can include text and visuals, even working with stock photos from other sites. If you want to spruce up your own photography, this is the perfect way to do so. Consider crafting a brand kit or using one of Canva’s many integrated apps to boost your social media appeal.
2 – Organise Your Content Calendar With Content Cory
Social media calendars make you work more efficiently and keep you posting regular content that your audience loves. Content Cory helps you organise your calendar so you can be efficient and strategic in your approach.
To be honest, this platform is not forever free, but as you’ll get unlimited access for only USD 29/year, I thought it’d be worth to add it to the list. Plus, you can take advantage of the free trial period to lay out some plans for your varied social platforms. You can add visuals, tags and notes to each post while laying out scheduling ideas from a wider perspective. You can also share your ideas with your team, making brainstorming and collaboration that much more effective. And when you’re done, simply export the calendar to PDF or Excel.
3 – Schedule Your Posts Later
There are certain times where your followers are more likely to be on Instagram than others. By tuning into these analytics, you can optimise your engagement. And by scheduling your posts via Later in accordance with these findings, you can make your life way easier.
No more forgetting to post or having to stop what you’re doing just to post on Instagram. Schedule an entire week’s or months’ worth of content at once. Then, focus your efforts on high-quality engagement tactics to maximize results. If you really want to up your game, you can also use Later for integrating multiple links in your bio, optimizing hashtags and gathering user generated content.
4 – Shorten Your Links With Bitly
Chances are you’ve clicked on a Bitly link at one time or another. This free service lets you shorten your links so that you’re not bombarding people with extra-long URLs they need to type into their browser.
Another perk of this tool is click tracking. Bitly collects real-time information regarding who clicks your shortened links and where those clicks come from. That way, you can accurately assess your marketing efforts and see just which social channels are working in your favour. You can integrate Bitly with all your other favourite tools to manage your social platforms seamlessly.
5 – Track Your Efforts With Google Data Studio Reports
Create reports about your social media performance using Google Data Studio. This dashboard allows you to turn data into meaningful information that you can share with other members of your team.
The free platform works in conjunction with other Google Analytics tools for optimum benefits to your business. Data Studio is super user friendly, so you don’t need to be an expert by any definition to use it. Just use one of the templates provided or reach out to me for help with your own branded template setup. Calculated metrics, dynamic controls and collaborative capacities form one really thoughtful piece of software from one of the top companies in the world.
These were five of my favourite free social media tools. Are you using any other tools that are not in this list? Let us know in the comments below.
An outstanding share! I’ve just forwarded this onto a colleague who was conducting a little research on this. And he actually bought me lunch due to the fact that I stumbled upon it for him… lol. So let me reword this…. Thank YOU for the meal!! But yeah, thanks for spending the time to talk about this subject here on your site.