Could your social media marketing use a boost? Are you looking for ways to improve your social media content marketing and free up valuable time? There are many tools online that are designed to help, but it’s not always easy filtering through which ones actually work. Here are a few of our favorites.

● Sprout Social. When it comes to content marketing services on social media, timing is everything. Having a consistent flow of fresh content gives your audience a reason to stay engaged and regularly return to your social channels. But while you’re hard at work, posting to your social media outlets can be the last thing on your mind. Sprout Social is a powerful suite that allows you to hook up your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+ pages and set scheduled post content hours, days, or even months in advance. At any given time, Sprout Social also gives you the ability to view and export reports of how your content performs.

● Hootsuite. Similar to Sprout Social, Hootsuite is another powerful tool that allows you to automate when posts get pushed live on your social media channels. Just choose your plan, link your accounts, and you’re ready to go. When you schedule your content, you can even request an email to confirm that your post has gone live. It takes the worry out of having a regular flow of content on your pages.

● Iconosquare. To improve your future content you’ve got to analyze your past content. The best way to do that is through reporting. Iconosquare gives users an in-depth look at the analytics of their Instagram account. The service also allows for users to track the competition, keep an eye on hashtags, and run photo and video contests.

● Repost App. Do you have followers posting photos of your product or service? Sometimes user-generated content can be the most valuable when trying to spread awareness about your brand. The Repost App allows you to report content from users on Instagram onto your feed. For best practice, we recommend that you ask permission before reposting photos from other users, and always credit the original author in some way.

● MailChimp. Email marketing can help boost your social media presence dramatically. MailChimp gives businesses the ability to compile a mailing list, create a professional quality email campaign, and schedule it to send at any time. You can also utilize A/B testing features that allow you to improve your campaign’s effectiveness.

● Bitly. We’ve all seen the overwhelmingly long web URL that consists of countless numbers and letters. When posting to social media, longer links can look clunky and unappealing. Bitly can give you the ability to easily shorten links to virtually anything you’d like. Bitly also keeps track of a few basic analytics such as the number of clicks so you can see how many people are interested in the link.

In today’s age, social media plays a key role in most businesses, and social media requires quite a bit of time and attention. These tools are a great first step toward a better social media plan and can help free up some time in the process. When your business is ready to hand over your social media to the experts, OnPoint has you covered.

Social media hasn’t always been what it is today. Years ago, companies did not have pages to manage, people to interact with or a team dedicated to simply pumping out content for social platforms. Now, brand recognition and reach are highly linked to the use of social media sites. Fostering a successful social presence isn’t just about being present, it’s about utilizing the platform most effectively and fostering a community atmosphere. But first, it’s time to determine what platforms to invest this effort into. Check out a few of the most popular platforms below to learn when they are best suited for.

Facebook: As the largest social media platform in the world, Facebook offers access to over 1 billion people. As such, it’s a highly searched platform that offer companies the chance to get in front of a large audience. Unfortunately, in recent years, a “pay to play” model has been implemented, making organic reach for businesses incredibly difficult. The good news, this has made advertising options on Facebook increasingly robust and granular. Targeting at such a minute level can allow brands to find exactly the right people who are interested in what they have to offer.

Twitter: Twitter’s revolutionary 140-character limit has transformed how people disseminate information on this platform. Browsing this platform is easy for users who can simply scroll through the short form posts. In particular, this platform is effective for timely, up to the minute postings on “trending” topics. Advertising has now opened up to all U.S. accounts allowing businesses to promote both tweets and profiles to people outside the standard organic reach.

Google+: G+ is still in its infancy, especially compared to the immense user pools on Facebook and Twitter. This platform has special benefits to SEO when used by businesses in particular, but it’s small audience means it’s harder to gain a following organically. One thing to note, in the fields of tech and marketing, this platform tends to perform better as its first members were early adopters in the tech industry.

Pinterest: The visual aspects of Pinterest make it a perfect platform for e-commerce sites. Product shots, recipe/meal photos, and other creative inspiration are staples on the site. It’s also a great platform to target women users on as they make up the vast majority. On the other hand, the act of pinning is not the “typical” engagement, starting a conversation is not what this platform is made for.

Instagram: As with Pinterest, the visual aspects of Instagram are appealing, especially when selling products and services. Hashtags allow users to search easily and follow based on interests. Unfortunately, URLs are only live in the profile of a page, not on individual posts making it more involved to click out.

LinkedIn: Touted for it’s professional networking, the B2B abilities on LinkedIn are vast. Even better, advertising can be micro-targeted allowing businesses to focus on only those decision makers that can make the choice of whether or not to use their product or service.

YouTube: Facebook may have over 1 billion users total, but YouTube boasts 1 billion individual users each month and these users are watching 6 billion hours of video on the site. Those numbers alone should tell you the opportunities for social video sharing. Like Pinterest, YouTube provides the visual aids to enhance any user’s experience and allows users to share this with their favorite social platform too.

After reading these brief overviews of each platform, checkout social media contests to learn tips on running a contest promotion using social media. You’ll be ready to make an educated decision regarding what platforms will be most effective when joining Sacramento social media.