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50 Top Tools for Social Media Monitoring, Analytics, and Management

50 Top Tools for Social Media Monitoring, Analytics, and Management
Use these platforms to manage, measure, and analyze your social media marketing initiatives. To succeed in today’s connected world, you need to build a community around your company, brand, and products. Over the last decade, social media monitoring has become a primary form of business intelligence, used to identify, predict, and respond to consumer behavior. Listening to what your customers, competitors, critics, and supporters are saying about you is key to getting great results from your social media campaigns. There are countless tools out there, offering many ways to analyze, measure, display, and create reports about your engagement efforts. These 50 tools distill data in ways that are relevant to your social media marketing plan, enabling you to figure out how to succeed with your audience. Determining which tools are right for you requires a clear definition of your objectives. Connect: Authored by: Pam Dyer See complete profile

6 Simple Photo Tools for Creating Social Media Visuals Are you including images in your social media content? Looking for easy-to-use tools to help you create images for your content strategy? If the idea of using Photoshop makes your head spin or hiring a graphic designer isn’t an option, there are many easy-to-use, low-cost alternatives available to you to create social media graphics. In this article, I’ll show you 6 easy tools that will help you create compelling graphics for social media. #1: Use PicMonkey’s Online Photo Editor to Take Your Images From Good to Glorious PicMonkey‘s free option has a wide variety of frames, special effects and font types to choose from. With a touch of a button, you can crop and resize your photo, and add text to your images. Choose from a wide variety of free fonts on PicMonkey to create appealing images like this one with PicMonkey. The paid option offers additional features that include more frames and photo effects. PicMonkey is a great solution for all types of social media images. Final Thoughts

Top 100 Facebook Fan Pages Making the case for public engagement This Involve and Consumer Focus Toolkit demonstrates how to make the case for engagement using monetary terms. There is a substantial amount of anecdotal evidence in support of public engagement and some case study evidence showing that the value of engagement, if done well, is more than the upfront costs. But there is little hard data to effectively express the benefits of engagement in cash terms. It has never been more important to be able to make this business case. The UK has recently experienced the most severe recession since the 1930s and public spending will continue to be cut heavily in the years to come, and engagement professionals will need to articulate the value of their work in economic terms. This practical Toolkit will help users understand and make the business case for engagement and present it to internal and external audiences. It is aimed at those who manage, design, deliver, plan or commission public engagement projects. Download the toolkit:

How to use the New Flickr for Search Within hours of the announcement of Yahoo!'s blockbuster purchase of Tumblr for $1.1 billion, they made another bold announcement that probably made a lot more users happy. Flickr, one of the most popular web services for sharing, storing and organizing photos, just got bigger and better. What's New First, the entire site has received a beautiful overhaul. Second, every user has received an upgraded account to a full terabyte of storage space, and images are stored in full resolution. There are also some changes to paid accounts, namely, a new structure and pricing for Pro accounts. Using Flickr The new Flickr Home features the most recent images from your contacts in a large left column. Click on You in the top menu, and you'll see your new profile page and photostream. Just above your photos, to the right, there is a Slideshow button that will automatically go into full screen mode for a beautiful presentation of your most recent images. Photo Search Image courtesy of Rocorocks, Flickr.

A marketer's guide to collecting and analyzing data By Kristin Piombino | Posted: January 13, 2014 Do you use data to support your marketing campaigns? How much data do you collect about your customers? Does thinking about data make you nervous? If so, you're not alone. One hundred percent of chief marketing officers say successful brands use customer data to drive marketing decisions, but 45 percent of companies don't use data to personalize their marketing campaigns. Employees don't have the right skills or training (32 percent). To master data in your organization, the graphic recommends following these steps: 1. Collect information from social media, website analytics, ads, email promotions-everything you can get your hands on. 2. Select one person to manage how the company collects, stores and analyzes the data. 3. Share the data across departments so the right people can review, analyze and use the information. 4. Keep an open mind and be willing to make changes to better fit your customers' needs. (View a larger image.)

The "Three A's" of Nonprofit Social Media Engagement Ever since social media gained widespread adoption, one persistent question has vexed individual users and brands: What do we talk about online? A common rule of thumb that's now pervasive among brand marketers and savvy tech buffs is the so-called "rule of thirds." This rule states that tweets, posts, and status updates should fall into one of three categories and be spread more or less evenly between each: 1/3 of posts should be about you or your brand1/3 of posts should be about your industry, with content from an outside source1/3 of your posts should be personal interactions While this formula works for most individuals and businesses, it's curiously and uniquely inadequate for nonprofit organizations. Find out below how you can apply each of the three As in your organization's social posts and updates. 1) Appreciation A primary focus of your brand's social media accounts should be donor appreciation. By putting donors on display, you allow them to publicize their philanthropy.

10 Important Google URLs That Every Google User Should Know What does Google know about the places you’ve visited recently? What are your interests as determined by Google? Where does Google keep a list of every word that you’ve ever typed in the search box? Where can you get a list of Google ads that were of interest to you? Google stores everything privately and here are the 10 important links (URLs) that will unlock everything Google knows about you. They are hidden somewhere deep inside your Google Account dashboard and they may reveal interesting details about you that are otherwise only known to Google. 1. passwords.google.com 2. www.google.com/settings/ads 3. www.google.com/takeout 4. support.google.com/legal 5. google.com/maps/timeline 6. accounts.google.com/SignUpWithoutGmail 7. history.google.com (Google searches) history.google.com/history/audio (Voice searches) youtube.com/feed/history (YouTube searches and watched videos) 8. www.google.com/settings/account/inactive 9. myaccount.google.com/security 10. google.com/android/devicemanager

Why social media is getting even more expensive For a long time, there was a perception that social media marketing was free, or at least very inexpensive. Starting a Facebook or Twitter account was free, and hiring a part-time intern to manage them didn’t cost much. In reality, social media marketing has never been free. Sure, there aren't usually any hard costs required to set up social media accounts, but someone is still had to create the content, engage in the conversation, monitor and manage those conversations, etc. Fast-forward a few years, and we’re seeing more and more organizations hire entire teams to create content for Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, and whatever hot new social media startup launched last week. Unfortunately, it’s only going to get more difficult as brands compete in a social media arms race. Meanwhile, social networks realize that brands will pay big money for access to the millions of users in their online communities, and they’re going to charge more and more for that privilege. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

17 Battle-Tested Resources for Marketers Who Stink at Design You’re a smart marketer. You can do it too. Image made with Canva. Design is my arch nemesis. As a content and data person, I know that cruddy design just doesn’t cut it. From what I hear through the grapevine, I’m not the only marketer who suffers from this pain point. That’s why I’ve spent hours putting together this roundup – so you and I can pull up our sleeves and learn how to create awesome design assets that please the eye and (most importantly) convert. Here are 17 battle-tested, vetted and hand-curated resources for marketers who stink at design. Design Resources to Help You Build Things The following seven resources will help you master the art of execution so you can bring your idea to life without having to fumble with complicated design software. 1. I literally leapt for joy the first time I saw this service. Canva makes it easy for non-designers to create awesome blog images, social media snackables, logos, presentations – virtually any visual asset you’ll ever need. 2. 3. 4.

Demystify SEO: 5 Search Engine Optimization Guides That Help You Begin Most of us know how to use search engines generally. Most of us do not understand how search engines work -- actually. In the age of Panda, Penguin, and Hummingbird, it could be a skill failure if one has anything to do with working on the Web. A basic understanding of how to position your work for high web traffic is a much needed skill if you are a freelancer trying to get a blog listed on Google, a social media writer, digital marketer, or an entrepreneur planning to start any sort of business. Search engine mastery takes knowledge, experience, and lots of trial and error. Moz Beginner Guide to SEO Moz made its beginnings as an SEO consulting company in 2004 and even today is a premier destination for search engine knowledge on the Web. Keep Moz bookmarked if you want to upgrade your knowledge as you go along. QuickSprout – Advanced Guide to SEO The words “advanced guide” sound very intimidating, but this is one of the friendliest resources you can find on the subject. What is SEO?

Author Rank | A central place to learn everything about Virante's Author Rank Social Media: The Free Beginner's Guide from Moz Chapter 1 Introduction What is social media? "Social media" is a way for people to communicate and interact online. Publishing content has become exponentially simpler over the last several years, which has helped skyrocket the use of social media. For businesses, the shift in web consumerism and accompanying rise in social media brings both opportunity and responsibility. Is social media just a fad? Over the last several years, there has been an explosion of growth in popular social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, and many others. Looking for sources? Why does my company need social media? Whether you are running a small, local operation, or heading a global, enterprise-level effort, the statistics above make it clear: Your customers are online. There are tons of opportunities to add value—even to delight! If you ever find yourself in a bind, your advocates will help remind the rest of the world who they're rooting for. Relationships Feedback

29 free Internet tools to improve your marketing starting today 4.7K Flares Filament.io 4.7K Flares × Aren’t shortcuts just the best? While everyone else takes the long way, you and your shortcut get to breeze right through, skipping a few steps and feeling pretty smart doing it. Finding a good marketing shortcut feels especially great, considering all that we marketers have to do in a day. That’s why I went hunting for the top free marketing tools in a variety of marketing categories. These tools – all quick hits you can get started with easily – focus on everything from research and writing to benchmarking and analyzing. Research Tools We’ll start at the beginning: researching topics, sites and ideas. 1. I don’t know why more people don’t talk about Google Scholar, but I love this tool for researching science-heavy articles and digging into emerging studies. 2. Described as a search engine for links, Open Site Explorer allows you to see a list of the sites that are linking to you – or another site. 3. Ideation Tools 4. Stumped for ideas? Not bad, huh?

The Instagram Rule of 11 Ian Chee | January 28, 2014 | 0 Comments inShare82 Why is the number 11 important on Instagram? Why is the number 11 important on Instagram? None of the above. The number 11 represents a simple but important tipping point. Admittedly, I am not that cool on Instagram, since some of my images don’t hit this threshold, but for many users this simple milestone is important. The three steps of the Rule of 11, as illustrated by MRY's Instagram posts: These individual metrics mattered to the new consumer, and these were not isolated cases: respondent after respondent reiterated the need to reach this number. This shift redefines the way we work. Don’t plan for broadcast, plan for the response: In most traditional strategic disciplines, we plan for the intended message and the outbound content when in fact we should be planning for the response.

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