Information from this blog post was obtained from bloggingwizard.com, socialpilot.com, and peertopeermarketing.com.
One of the biggest problems that marketers face is trying to keep their efforts within budget. This is especially true for professionals with very small marketing budgets. With so many marketing tools out there, it can be tough to know what is worth it and what isn’t. When looking into what tools and software to buy to initiate or improve marketing efforts It is important to keep things low cost and save time, but just as important to keep quality in mind. Many marketing tools have free versions but they are very limited compared to their paid versions. Below are some of the most popular and important tools a social media marketer should have and some cheaper alternatives.
Social Media Scheduling Tools
Trying to manually post every single day across all platforms at the perfect time would be stressful and hard to keep up with, especially when you have a million other things to do. A social media scheduler might be one of the most important tools a marketer can have. There are a bunch of different websites out there to help ease this task. Hootsuite is the most popular social media scheduling tool on the market right now and for good reason. It is super reliable and effective but is often criticized for high pricing. According to Adam Conell from Blogging Wizard, a few of his favorite tried and tested Hootsuite alternatives are Sendible and Agorapulse.
According to Adam, Sendible is the best alternative and has everything a person could need to manage their social accounts and analyze effectiveness. He believes that Sendible is great for solopreneurs and cost-effective agencies.
Agorapulse is another great alternative to Hootsuite and offers a lot of the same things with an easy-to-use interface that is great for freelancers and social media managers.
Pricing:
Hootsuite: $49 per month for a single user account.
Sendible: $29 per month for a single user account
Agorapulse $79 per month for 2 user access
When it comes to pricing, the best bang for your buck is Sendible because it is enough like Hootsuite but for 20 bucks less a month. Which in the long run, makes a big difference.
Design Tools
One of the key things to help increase social media engagement is having good graphics. Having good clean graphics can make a business look much more official and trustworthy especially when it comes to creating advertisements on social media. The only problem is that not every marketer is a graphic designer and some things need to be done quickly in order to get content scheduled and out on time. That is where a design and image-making platform comes into play. According to Manvi Agarwal from SocialPilot, Adobe Photoshop and Stencil are two of the most popular graphic creation platforms. She believes that Photoshop is the best overall graphic design software for any project, whereas Stencil is great for creating graphics quickly. A cheaper alternative to both of these is Canva. It is becoming increasingly popular and is very easy to use.
I personally love Canva and do most of my ad creation on it because you can create brand kits and resize images to fit different platforms so easily. It is way easier to use than Photoshop or Illustrator, but it is not quite as interactive. It is great for making quick graphics for a reasonable price.
Pricing:
Photoshop: $20 per month
Stencil: $15 per month
Canva: $9.95 per month
Link Tracking Tools
Learning where traffic comes from and how people interact with your content is key to improving marketing campaigns. One of the most popular and best link tracking tools out there is Click Magick. It is all-inclusive and helps you track, monitor, and optimize marketing campaigns giving you the power to create an entire sales funnel.
A cheaper alternative to Click Magick is Click Meter. Peer to Peer Marketing ranked Click Magick as the best and Click Meter as a close second. Click Meter offers very similar things that Click Magick does and it has specific tools for publishers and marketers.
Pricing:
Click Magick: $37 per month for Starter Plan
Click Meter: $29 per month for Medium(Starter) Plan
Depending on how serious you want to get with tracking links is what determines which one you should buy. The pricing becomes very similar for their mid grade options and then they flip in affordability once you get to the premium versions. But for simple link tracking, Click Meter’s pricing beats Click Magick.
Find more Social Media Marketing Tips and Tricks and other helpful blogs on the SMMU.
Resources
Agarwal, M. (n.d.). 50+ Most Cost-Effective Marketing Tools For Your Business [web log].
Retrieved March 25, 2022, from https://www.socialpilot.co/cost-effective-marketing-tools
Connell, A. (2022, January 6). The 6 Best Hootsuite Alternatives For 2022: Tried & Tested [web log]. Retrieved March 25, 2022, from https://bloggingwizard.com/hootsuite-alternatives/
Oliver, C. (n.d.). 9 Best Link Tracking Software for Marketers for 2022 [web log]. Retrieved March 25, 2022, from https://peertopeermarketing.co/link-tracking-software/
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