Small businesses are always eager to find useful and free tools to improve their marketing performance. Here are five free and effective tools you can use for social media:
1. Newsle. Unlike other social media tools, Newsle does not deal with tweets or posts, it only looks for real news. Use this tool to discover the latest online news, blogs, and articles which feature or mention members of your Facebook or LinkedIn network. To do so, sync your LinkedIn or Facebook account to Newsle.
For example, you can use Newsle to discover a blog your client has recently written or a news article which features your prospect. Gaining timely access to this information helps you find opportunities to interact with prospects or other key individuals in your social network and strengthen your relationships with them.
2. Talkwalker. Enter your Twitter handle in the search box on Talkwalker and you can discover which users have shared your articles or mentioned your Twitter handle or company name on Twitter.
You can also use the tool to identify the gender and geographic location of your followers, the number of potential users you've reached through Twitter shares, your top influencers, and the share of sentiment towards your brand (e.g. 55% negative, 15% positive, and 30% positive).
(Users who have shared the content and the potential reach of the shares)
(Top 10 influencers)
(Share of sentiment)
(Demographic of followers)
Use this information to determine how well you're reaching users in target markets, identify influencers you might be able to incent to become bigger advocates of your brand, or determine the overall growth of your online presence.
If you discover that fewer users are sharing your content or that a majority of your followers aren't from target markets, you can share articles with content that has historically shown success at gaining lots of shares or partner with social influencers in target markets and attract their followers to become your Twitter followers.
3. LikeAlyzer. Use this tool to analyze you or your competitor's Facebook page.
Enter your Facebook page URL in the search box and LikeAlyzer will assess your Facebook page and make recommendations. For example, it may suggest you to "ask more questions to your fans," "respond to your fans questions and comments more quickly," or "create a Facebook campaign in order to gain more likes."
The analytics tool also shows your average posts per day, average number of likes, comments, and shares per post, average response time, and the length of posts. Use this information to improve Facebook performance by responding to comments more quickly or shortening the length of posts so fans are more likely to read and comment on them.
In addition to analyzing your own page, use LikeAlyzer to assess other brands' Facebook pages. Apply tactics that are effective for their pages on your own fanpage.
4. Fanpage Karma. Use Fanpage Karma to gain insights about your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or YouTube accounts.
Enter your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or YouTube page URL in the search box and Fanpage Karma will assess the page and show you the distribution of content you publish (e.g. status, pictures, or links), your most active fans, or top and weakest posts.
Use this information to make adjustments such as the ones mentioned in the previous section.
You can also use Fanpage Karma to compare your fanpage against your competitors'. Enter you and your competitors' fanpages in the search boxes and Fanpage Karma will compare your performances in terms of number of fans, average weekly growth, engagements, and other factors.
(Enter you and your competitor's websites in the search boxes)
(Performance comparison)
Use these insights to identify specific areas where you need to improve.
5. tchat.io. Use this tool to discover tweets that contain a specific hashtag. This tool is particularly useful for prospect discovery.
For example, if you're a plumbing company, you can use tchat.io to find tweets that contain relevant hashtags such as #airconditioning, #Aircon, or #plumbing.
Once you've identified these tweets, you can interact with the individuals who published them and see if you can serve their needs (assuming they live in the area.)
By using the five tools mentioned above, you can easily identify areas where you need to improve to boost community engagement or online presence.
If there are other social media tools you want to share, please leave them in the comments section below or tweet me at
@theraywang!