Navigating Social Media Tools, Week of 23 March

social media marketing for independents

social media news and trendsWelcome to Navigating Social Media Marketing!

This new series is a curated list of 3 to 5 articles about social media marketing and promotion.

These practical, action-oriented items – video, blog posts, news reports – contain information you can apply to your own marketing efforts.

It is another way that we can show our commitment to you and your continued success as a Mom’s Choice Awards® Honoree.

Welcome aboard!

4 Articles to guide your use of Social Media Tools

This week’s edition draws heavily from articles about social media tools that help you work smarter. With both infographics and visual how-to’s, it is easy to “overlay” this content with your own social media marketing strategy.

social media toolsThe Definitive List of Social Media Tool Categories for Small Businesses
source: Ian Cleary @RazorSocial
Razor Social blog, March 2015

There are so many tools available it’s hard to figure out what you need and what you don’t need. So, we’ve created an infographic which breaks down all the different tool categories.

* Click image to see it in a larger size.

Marketing Team Notes – Ian’s information is spot on, well researched (and tested), and is built for decision making. Whether you’re a novice or consider yourself an expert, Ian will always give you useable content.

social media sharing scheduleHow to Easily Double Your Traffic from Social Media
source: Garrett Moon @garrett_moon

guest author, works at coSchedule
Kissmetrics blog, March 2014

If you are serious about your content, then you also need to be serious about driving as much traffic to it (over social media) as possible. One great way to do this is to share your content on social media more than once.

* Click image to see it in a larger size.

Marketing Team Notes – The article has excellent images that complement the how-to style of the article. Garrett walks you through every step of repurposing your content using social media tools that are already within the platforms you use.

simplify social media marketingFour Steps to Simplify Your Social Media Activity
source: Maggie Hibna @MaggieHibna

guest author, works at Hubspot
Social Media Examiner blog
March 2015

Do you engage with your audience on multiple social platforms? Do you want to work more efficiently? Focusing your efforts on the social channels and engagement signals that are most beneficial to your business can save you time.

Marketing Team Notes – We are big fans of the Social Media Examiner blog specifically because of its practical, how-to approach to social media marketing. Although Maggie doesn’t mention any social media tools in this post, when you partner this article with the others on the list, it is very easy to apply Maggie’s strategy and make work even easier.

We do have one complaint with SME – they promote their Expo right in the middle of a blog post with a huge graphic. We get the ‘why’ it’s just annoying, though.

use google analytics for salesHow to Setup a Google Analytics Dashboard to Track Your Sales Funnel
source: Matt Ackerson

Petovera blog, date unknown
[found on G+ March 2015]

*Click image to see it in a larger size.

Here’s an expression I’ve grown to love: What gets tracked gets done. If you measure something, you’re going to recognize performance gaps. And as a result, hard-data drives your marketing decisions and eliminates the need to guess.

Marketing Team Notes – You can’t talk social media tools and not mention Google Analytics. What is particularly valuable in this post is that Matt gives you the questions you need to answer BEFORE you can apply the tool.

Google Analytics isn’t may not be as intuitive as you hope, but with Matt’s help, you will be able to get exactly the data you’re looking for.

If you have any specific interests or questions, be sure to leave a comment. That way we can be on the lookout for specific articles that might meet your needs.

Check out the entire series of Navigating Social Media Marketing here.