7 Helpful Tools for Social Media Management

Social media management is complicated enough. It can be hard to stay up-to-date with all the latest social media tools and apps, that's why we've outlined the social media management tools we like to use here at Avenue Agency, so you can quit searching and start reaching your social media goals.

Social Media Content Calendar

We have searched far and wide for a social media content calendar solution that works best for our agency and clients. What we've found to work best is Google Sheets. Using this live document allows us to collaborate with our team and clients in real-time. We've created a system that outlines the date and time we're posting, the social channels, copy, creative, hashtags, and options for notes and approvals. We like to start our social planning in the social media content calendar before scheduling content to ensure all content has been reviewed and approved and nothing mistakenly goes live.

Social Media Scheduler and Analytics

A quick way to lessen your workload with social media management is to implement a social media scheduler. This tool allows you to upload and schedule your social media content out from anywhere from a week to a month in advance. Once it's scheduled you won't have to worry about uploading your posts manually to each social media platform. There are plenty of great scheduler tools like Buffer, Hootsuite, and Loomly. However, we recommend utilizing Sprout Social for both social media scheduling and for their robust social media analytics function. Sprout Social allows your team to schedule content across multiple social media channels and analyzes your results after the fact. This tool gives you in-depth metrics on your impressions, reach, top-performing content, followers, and more.

Hashtags

Hashtags can boost your social reach and get your account in front of new audiences. On Instagram, you can utilize up to thirty unique hashtags on each post. To ensure you're speaking to the right audience by utilizing targeted hashtags, we recommend Hashtagify! Hashtagify is a window into a hashtag's analytics. Using this tool you are able to see the popularity of a hashtag, demographic usage of a hashtag, and top trending posts utilizing that hashtag.

Design

Social media managers typically wear a LOT of hats. One of those hats is creating visual content to share across social. It's best to rely on a graphic designer to create top-notch, quality designs, and creative assets, but as you start your social media journey that may not be an option yet. In the interim, we recommend utilizing Canva, a user-friendly design platform that allows people of any design background to create social media graphics. Canva has both a free and premium package available. The premium package provides you with endless template design options, an option to upload your brand kit (logo, fonts, colors), additional cloud storage, and more. We love this tool, in fact, the image paired with this blog was made on Canva!

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Please note that Avenue has no affiliation with any products, services, or websites referenced in this blog post. Avenue is a woman and BIPOC-owned digital marketing agency in Portland, Oregon using business as a force for good. Our proprietary suite of paid advertising, search engine optimization (SEO) and social media services help brands and businesses of all sizes grow sustainably and successfully. For more information, we invite you to visit ourservices page.