6 Tips for Being More Effective on LinkedIn

Everyone has their own style of networking. Some of us go to chamber luncheons and distribute business cards left and right. Others are more reserved and find online networking or less formal meet-ups more effective. 

 

When it comes to online networking, LinkedIn can be a powerful tool in your arsenal. It’s the professional network of choice yet many people come across as rude or spammy due to laziness or a lack of understanding. I’m going to present some helpful tips that I’ve learned over the years and some links to other helpful LinkedIn resources. 

1. Make your introductions personal Few things are more irritating on LinkedIn than the generic greeting or connection request. It’s easy to send a connection request simply by touching the button next to the person’s name on the LinkedIn phone app or clicking “Connect” in the web app, but that’s impersonal. The person will probably accept if you know them well but that’s not the point; even if they’re a coworker, take the time to express something personal. “Jim, I’ve really enjoyed working with you on the mortgage project,” sounds a lot better than the generic “I’d like to connect with you on LinkedIn.” Also, think about how generic requests reflect on your personal brand and that of your company. Every networking interaction says something about you as a person. If you come across as rude, people can see where you work and that’s going to sour their impression of your business. So take the time to be professional in your LinkedIn messages just like you would in person. 

2. Don’t ask for recommendations on a whim It’s been my experience that people are generally very obliging in writing a recommendation if you ask for one. However, never ask someone just for the heck of it. Writing a recommendation takes time, especially if it’s heartfelt; you don’t want to make that ask unless you have a legitimate reason. Maybe you’ve just lost your job or you’re looking to shore up your profile so you can move into a different job or industry. Those are legitimate reasons. Satisfying your vanity is not. (Leave a comment if you disagree with me on that one.) In any case, you’ll find that the best recommendations are unsolicited. 

3. Be generous with your praise This is related to the previous point. If someone around you does an awesome job, find a way to express it – whether that’s a verbal comment at work or an unsolicited recommendation on LinkedIn. Even a LinkedIn endorsement can serve as a lesser form of affirmation. Just make sure you’re endorsing a skill they actually have. 

4. Choose your skills wisely Speaking of endorsements, people are generally going to endorse you for the skills you already have listed on your profile rather than adding new skills. So make sure you do a good job of listing those initial skills or you'll end up with too many endorsements for the wrong skills.

5. Think about the big picture Every part of your LinkedIn profile says something about you – from the Summary to the companies you follow to your Additional Organizations and Interests. Make sure that everything is in line with the personal brand you want to project. 

6. Schedule a LinkedIn lunch and learn Wherever you might live, there’s undoubtedly someone who has a reputation as a LinkedIn expert. This might even be someone in your company. If you’re serious about your LinkedIn networking, social media marketing or coordinating the promotion of your content, it’s not a bad idea to schedule a “Lunch and Learn” event with a LinkedIn expert. (This can also be helpful for other social networks like Twitter or Google+ if you have a group of people who are interested in taking an hour to learn more.) Even if you’re a busy executive, you can gain a handful of helpful tips without having to dedicate more time than it would take to grab a sandwich. The LinkedIn speaker should be able to share the latest developments like the new inbox or a new way to search Influencer content. One of the things you'll undoubtedly hear is that LinkedIn works best when it's used in tandem with in-person networking. So how do you use LinkedIn? What features do you like the best and what features irritate you? And what are the best insights you have for increasing your effectiveness on the network?

Read original article HERE 

How to Target Your Email Subscribers with Facebook Ads

Email and Facebook are probably the two most powerful marketing tools online today.
What’s even more powerful, is the possibilities you have to integrate them and put them to work together, for you.
You probably know that a Facebook Page can help grow your email list using custom apps, but today, we’re going the opposite way: How to create a Facebook ad campaign that targets your email subscribers.

Sounds technical? It’s not. I’ll give you each step of the process in this post.

1) Get your email list

 

The first step is to head over to your email service provider (ESP), I’m going to assume the majority uses either Aweber or Mailchimp, so I’ll focus on those two.
We’ll start with Aweber, the process will be similar if you use any other ESP. Mailchimp on the hand has a special way of doing this, we’ll come back to talk about this in a minute.
What you need to do is download your list into your computer, usually via a CSV file. You need to look for the option to “export your list” (if your ESP doesn’t offer this, you need to look for a new service).
On Aweber…

• You’ll have to go to the “Subscribers” tab on top
• Select “Manage Subscribers” from the dropdown menu options
• That will take you to page you see in the image below. You’ll find several options to filter your list by different criteria, in this case you’ll want to export your entire list, so there is no need for that, unless you want to run an ad campaign to an specific segment in your list
• Click on the “Export CSV” button right below the list. This should take a couple of minutes depending on the size of your list

Alright, now you should have a CSV sitting in your computer. We’ll come back to get it.

2) Create a Custom Audience

 

We’ll use Power Editor to import this list to Facebook.
For this you need to create a Custom Audience. In the top right menu of your Power Editor dashboard, select “Audiences.”

Once on the Audiences dashboard, select “Custom Audience” from the “Create Audience” menu on the top left of the page.

You have 4 options to create Custom Audiences:

• Data File
• Mailchimp (we’ll look at this in a second)
• Data from a mobile app
• Website Custom Audience, the latest addition to Facebook ads platform

We’ll use “Data File” to import the CSV file we downloaded from your ESP.

Next step is to create your new audience:

• Name
• Description
• Under Data Type select “Emails”
• Don’t forget to agree to the terms…

 

3) Import your List

 

The “Source” is your CSV file, click on “Choose file” and locate it. Once you do that, click on “Create Audience.”

This process may take up to 30 minutes depending on the size of your email list. You can click “Check Updates” at the top to check its progress.
When it’s done, the status will change to “Ready.”

You can go grab a coffee, I’ll wait…

Now we have an audience!

4) Target your new Audience with an Ad

 

Now that you’ve created a custom audience for your email list, all you have to do is add it whenever you want to target it with an ad campaign. Or you can exclude it too.

 

How to create a Custom Audience with your Mailchimp list

 

As promised, let’s go back to Mailchimp now. I know many of you use it.
The process to create a Mailchimp Custom Audience is actually a lot easier… Basically you are skipping the part where you download the list from your provider and have a CSV file to import.
Forget all that!
All you have to do is select “Mailchimp Custom Audience” from the “Create Audience” menu…



You’ll get this pop up to prompt you to connect Facebook and Mailchimp.



If you have more than one Mailchimp account, you will get an additional step here to select the right one, if not, the next step is to select the list you wish to connect here.



Once you select the list and click on “Create Audience,” it’s all done for you. The rest is the same, you’ll wait for Facebook to match the data with its personal profiles and you’ll get a notification when it’s done.

2 Important considerations

 

There are a couple of things you need to consider when targeting your email subscribers in Facebook.
The Match
You should pay attention to how many records Facebook was able to match from your list. What Facebook does in this process is look for a match between the email address you’ve provided and a user profile. In some cases, they don’t match because people use more than one email address. The same thing happens when you import phone numbers, not every Facebook user lists a phone number.
Update
You should do this periodically, your email list is probably growing. Set an alert to remind yourself to import a new list every month or every 3 months, depending on how fast is growing.

Thoughts?

 

So, what do you think? Is it valuable? Are you already targeting your email subscribers with Facebook ads? Or are you planning to do so soon?
Let me know if you have any questions in the comments section.

How To Use Webinars For Home Parties

It’s time to have some fun with webinars! I’m seeing more coaches, trainers, entrepreneurs, and even bloggers harnessing the power of webinars. However, I’m not seeing too many direct sales folks, specifically those who are in the home party industry, trying them out. Imagine, instead of having to take all of your supplies over to someone’s house, you could do a webinar instead! For those in the home party industry, you already have everything you need to put on a successful webinar.

1. You already have the presentation

 

I sold canvassed art at home art shows for 4 years. The company gave us the complete script for each presentation. Of course, you’d make it your own, but in the end you already had the presentation. Consider hiring a virtual assistant to create power point presentation using that same information as an outline.

2. You already have the product

 

At most home parties there is a demonstration to show everyone how the product works. Why not do this on your webcam for all to see from the comforts of your home, instead of the home of your hostess?

3. You already have a computer

 

When I was doing art shows, I mailed out invitations to each guest and then made a reminder phone call to confirm they’d attend the show. Today, many in home party companies are doing the inviting and reminding with email and eVites. You can create a similar process using an e-mail marketing system like AWeber, allowing you to send follow-up messages and information about the events. Important: You’ll need a webcam for the presentation itself.

4. You definitely have a phone

 

I remember taking part in phone-a-thons at our weekly Monday night meetings. I’d usually spend most of my time looking through my organizer, finding phone numbers, or seeking out someone who needed help with anything other than making calls. With a webinar, your phone is a tool you’ll be happy to use.

5. You have people

 

If you’ve been selling your product for some time, you’ve already built up a clientele who know what you sell, have probably hosted a party already with you, or were guests at a show. What would happen if you sent them an email letting them know of your new option for hosting a party? You could start off by acting as the hostess to demonstrate how it all works. Open it up even more and let everyone on social media know about your webinar. This could open up your potential customer base, beyond your family and friends circle.
If you are in the home party business and you are interested in learning how to present using a webinar, please let me know in the comments below.

Amazon Prime To Cost $99 A Year

The day we all feared has come. Amazon has announced that the price of Prime will soon cost $99 a year. Starting in seven days, the cost for existing members to renew will increase by $20 from $79.99.
Amazon Student members will pay $49. The Prime Fresh membership fee will remain unchanged at $299.

Exsiting members can expect to see the new price when their membership is set to renew. Amazon’s FAQ page about the price change states that it has sent an email to each subscriber indicating when this will happen. Hopefully you just renewed your Prime membership.

Amazon hinted at the possibility of a price increase in late January as it reported disappointing earnings for the previous holiday quarter.

Amazon is in a tough spot. After being the street’s darling for so many years, the company’s stock took a tumble thanks to a sub-par performance this holiday season. Analysts expected Amazon to report revenue of $26.06 billion, and earn $0.66 per share. Put another way, in a quarter of strong GDP growth, Amazon managed to miss expectations on both its top and bottom lines.

Amazon’s stock has yet to recover.

Since its launch nine years ago, Prime has become more than just a free shipping service. Amazon also bundles its video streaming and Kindle libraries with the subscription. As a long time subscriber, this price hike puts a frown on my face, but I still plan on resubscribing re-subscribe. I simply hate going to the store.

12 Most Creative Strategies To Craft An Effective Blog Post

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Do you wonder why some blog posts tend to attract a lot of readers and get a lot of reaction? This is not really a measure of talent or the choice of words at all — it’s more about the skills you need to harness to get more of what you desire.

Talking about great blog posts, these are the ones that we would love to read through all the way to the last period. These are the ones we couldn’t help but click. These are the ones we’d hate to miss sharing with our friends or posting on our Facebook feed. These are the posts which might even go… viral!

Check these points out to see how you can create an effective blog post the right way.

1. Plan out an organized structure

The structure of your blog is much like any structures you find in nature: it’s the backbone of the beauty you’re about to unleash. If you want your blog to work well, then provide it with the right “spine.”

• Start with a kick-ass title that makes an impact.
  Include intriguing words that would spark people’s curiosity. Begin with an interesting question or most-used search terms such as “How,” “Why,” “How-To,” “Do,” etc. For example, “How-To: Speed Up Your WordPress Site.” Using numbers and attention-grabbing adjectives are also a great way to excite people. Another example, instead of using “Craft An Effective Blog Post,” here the title is “12 Most Creative Ways To Craft An Effective Blog Post.” However, don’t forget to keep your title accurate and easy to understand.
• Craft a captivating introduction.
  Unify the purpose of your audience to the purpose of your blog post. And what else might they ask for afterwards?
• Write a body that delivers.
  In a lot of cases, messages are better delivered with examples. Use a current issue, trending topic, person, or even your audience. Live examples are always helpful for people to understand what they might have missed in a particular section of your content.
• End with an engaging conclusion.
  Wrap your point up without reiterating the details again. Use CTA (Call-To-Action) to encourage engagement. It can be done either by asking questions, feedback or even asking your readers to sign up or share the content. You may start by saying “If you find this post useful, please… (share, tweet, etc.)”

2. Use an enticing format

I used the word “enticing” because the structure alone won’t get the bite you wish. By spicing up your structure with better formatting, you’ll find your users staying longer on your blog posts. Try to incorporate these few tricks in each of your posts:

• Use short paragraphs, lists and numbers.
  This makes your content much more organized, easier to scan, and of course, more straightforward.
• Use subheadings.
  Subheadings add an extra accessibility to your sections by showing them a glimpse or description of what it’s about.
• Do not use a font smaller than 12 pt.
  Play it safe, especially for when people view your content from a low-resolution screen.
• Highlight or emphasize important words or phrases. 
  Help your readers scan what they’re looking for.

3. K.I.S.S. your reader

K.I.S.S. your reader (Keep It Simple, Stupid). Simple, conversational words — the hacks to a blog post with personality. If you can write a blog post as if you’re talking to only one person, for example, then both of you will enjoy it. If you plan on using technical words or abbreviations, be sure to introduce them one-by-one in the first instance.

4. Get visual

Break the ice by adding relevant and catchy images. You might want to add more of what people may not yet expect in your content, such as slideshows, videos, diagrams, or comic strips. Whatever may serve best to let your audience know what’s going on. Make sure, however, that users need not download any third-party plugin or app for these to show up.

5. Add graphics that can be pinned

Other things that can be shared or pinned independently on social networks (such as an infographic which can be shared as is, while allowing your post to be featured in a more visual way) are truly helpful to make your readers want to scroll for more, and even keep them coming back to your blog. Infographics are fancy and helpful to both of you; your reader gets the gist of your writeup while you get an extra fame score.

6. Stalk your competitors

Your competitors might have done something that you haven’t tried yet. Or you missed an essential part or detail that you deem helpful to your readers. Don’t feel guilty about this though, it’s called “best practices.” After all, it’s not really copying at all (unless you really did copy their work), it’s just that the method used really works and you want to use the same method as well.

7. Sprinkle some interactive content

This is not guaranteed or required to work on all blog posts, but adding them at the right time and in the right topic can really help get more traffic and good feedback. Some samples would be:

• Polls and surveys.
  Get real-time reaction from people using polls and surveys — and after a given amount of time, don’t forget to post the results!
• Interviews.
  Interviews are also a fantastic way to get a little more personal with your target readers. Ask specific, spontaneous questions and you’ll get more fans in return.

8. Review the quality of your blog post

Make sure your post is valuable. Keep it simple but significant. Ask yourself these before publishing:

• Is the content of my blog post relevant to the title, and vice versa?
• Are my users finding the information that they seek?
• Will my target audience be able to comprehend my ideas?
• Did I help them solve a problem?
• Did I deliver what I promise?
• Did I provide alternative solutions just in case?

9. Grammar and spelling

Now here comes one of the most trying events experienced by virtual writers around the globe: unintentional grammar and spelling mistakes. You may want to visit Hemingway App or Spell Check for a quick scan.

10. Optimize for search engines

After achieving the best quality possible for your content and your readers, you also need to optimize your post for search engines for extra traffic. Here’s how:

• Provide internal links and use anchor text.
  Assist readers by allowing them to jump from one section to the other, or even to a different but related page.
• Use ALT attributes on your images.
  Adding this attribute will make sure that your non-text elements will still be comprehensible when viewed by people or devices with different needs.
• Add keywords, but don’t overdo it.
  Use synonyms of your keywords to avoid repeating the same words. Do a keyword research to see actual competition. Here are some tools that can help you: Google Keyword Tool / Google’s related search terms.
• Add a unique and relevant meta data.
  Your meta data (such as meta title and meta description) are also powerful to guide search engines into parsing your content.
• Include your main keyword (searchable term) on your post title.
  Higher importance is given by search engines on the vital parts of a post, such as the headline. Inserting your keywords while still sounding natural will generate more leads.
• Add plenty of tags and add your post in the right category.
  Tags work much like keywords except that people can also use them to find relevant articles outside of the current post.

11. Make sure to have other helpful elements

• Include your author info and introduce yourself in a spritely but concise manner.
  People would love to know you more. Sometimes, they would only add you after being enticed by your bio.
• Add sharing buttons as well.
  People are lazy. People are busy. So you want to make it easier for them to share your content.
• Add On Hover Pin It Buttons.
  Pinterest is big, so you want to make it easier for users to share your content, especially if you have a lot of images on your site.

12. Spread the love

Of course, you need to promote your new post to drive traffic back to your blog. Distribute your post across various channels such as email, social networks and forums. Here are some pointers to cross-promote effectively:

• Use the top social media networks
  Share on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and Pinterest to promote your post.
• You must optimize your post for each social network.
  For maximum engagement, make sure to create unique title, write a short but relevant description, use high-resolution images and mention people in your post, if applicable.
• Use active communities in Google+ or groups in Facebook or LinkedIn
  Be sure to add relevant description and attractive image get more engagement.
• On Pinterest, include your post’s link in the “source” and in the “description” part as well.
  Don’t forget about group boards! Find group boards with a lot of followers, ask to join and repin your post.
• Reshare your post every few days (or weeks).
  Use automated apps such as HootSuite or Buffer. Remember, not everyone will see your update the first time around.
• Take advantage of your email newsletter.
  If you regularly send out newsletters to your subscribers, it’s best to include your blog post links in your email.

Applying these strategies every time you make a blog post will definitely excite your readers and even push them to bookmark your blog. What about you? What are some other ways to make a blog post effective?

We’d love to hear from you! Please leave your thoughts and comments below.

How this Famous Oscar Photobomb Defines Twitter for Marketers

Last Sunday, Oscar host Ellen Degeneres broke Twitter with the most epic of all selfies. The picture was retweeted more than 1.3 million times in less than an hour, breaking President Obama’s 2012 victory photo which had 780,000 retweets. The star-studded photo included famous actors like Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Jennifer Lawrence, (half of) Jared Leto, Channing Tatum, Kevin Spacey, Lupita Nyong'o and surprisingly, Lupita Nyong'o’s non-celebrity brother, Peter. The media was ablaze shortly, calling attention to Peter’s photobomb. What Peter did in this opportunistic moment happens thousands of time each day on Twitter, as the “normals” interact directly and in conversation with the celebrities of their field. That’s the power of Twitter and marketers can take a lesson.

The Shared Experience

Ellen’s tweet created a shared experience with millions of people around the world. Like Peter, we felt we were participating in history because we were doing this together, even if most of us have never met one another, let alone Brad Pitt. Famed media analyst, Brian Solis spoke about the phenomenon of the shared experience in an early 2013 interview:

“Shared experiences form an influence loop that is connected to each moment of truth. It’s what people find that guides them. It takes more than Google now. People are talking and connecting. Experiences are shared in tweets, posts, videos and reviews. You’ve optimized search, your website, your mobile app, but you haven’t optimized for shared experiences. Shared experiences affect customer impressions and next steps in each moment of truth. Shift from impressions to expressions.”

Marketers can leverage this concept by creating opportunities for fans from around the world to participate together. For example, recently Lay’s Potato Chips crowd-sourced a Do Us a Flavor, contest to determine the next flavor of Lay’s Chips. Nearly 3.8 million submissions were created in 2013 and more than a million votes were cast to select Cheesy Garlic Bread as the winner. This not only engaged millions of Lay’s fans together, it also generated hundreds of marketable assets and press (and one tasty bag of chips).

ShareBloc recently attempted a similar tactic, creating a contest to determine the Top 50 Content Marketing Posts of 2013. In our first two weeks of our company’s launch, we saw more than 600 people vote more than 7,000 times to determine the winner. We’re planning a similar contest in March for the Marketo The Marketing Nation Summit so go to www.sharebloc.com/contest on March 11 for more information. The winner of the contest will get a FREE ticket to The Marketing Nation Summit on April 7-9.

Ask Your Audience to Share

When Ellen boldly asked the audience for her tweet to break the retweet record, fans around the world complied. Ellen asked people to share so we did. Hubspot’s social media scientist, Dan Zarrella, studied 2.7 million tweets and found asking your followers seven simple but powerful call-to-actions on Twitter materially increased the reweet-per-follower ratio. Asking your followers to “please help” was by far the most effective, showing a 160% increase from the average. Famed marketer Jeff Bullas suggests three additional calls to action in addition to a retweet: Ask for a download, Ask for a follow and Ask for a reply.



We employ a similar strategy at ShareBloc. We tweet twice a day the top posts from @ShareBloc, most of which are the best posts on social media, content marketing, SEO and technology. This garners dozens of favorites and retweets from different accounts each week, most of whom we suspect are automated. We track to see if any new accounts engage with us on Twitter and ask them to join ShareBloc with calls to action like “don’t forget to join” or “check out ShareBloc”. So far, the engagement percentage is encouraging with more than 10% of our conversations clicking through the link.

We are all Peter Nyong'o Now

When Peter Nyong'o photobombed Ellen’s selfie, it was not dissimilar from when fans insert themselves into a conversation between two known celebrities. For example, Arby’s famously tweeted at musician Pharrell Williams during the Grammys about his now infamous mountain hat. Thousands engaged with the celebrity and fast food franchise.



Twitter is also the ideal medium for reaching directly to your user base. While some personalities have gotten in trouble with this type of outreach, often times it can create engagement and new marketing assets. For example, Taco Bell’s twitter account is famous for its fun attitude and timely retweets. They’ve recently run a campaign for their breakfast menu with the hashtag #TacoBellBreakfast and have gotten even celebrities like Ashton Kutcher to participate.
At ShareBloc, we encourage a dialogue with our users on Twitter. Oftentimes, we’ll tweet at the author or the person who posted a top content post to let me know they’re reaching our Twitter following (not a lot for now) and our registered users (a lot more). Here’s a recent example of our interaction with SEO expert, Brian Dean of Backlinko.



























If you’d like to insert yourself into Ellen’s selfie, here’s a website that lets you do that. Also, don’t forget to check out www.sharebloc.com/contest on March 11 for more information. The winner of the contest will get a FREE ticket to The Marketing Nation Summit on April 7-9.

5 Google+ Features You Probably Aren’t Taking Advantage Of

You know you’re supposed to be on Google+ — everybody says it’s good for SEO, networking, marketing and more, with new reports coming in constantly about user growth.

So you have a profile. You’re using it. But even when you’re actively engaging on Google+, there are still many features you’re missing, if only because there are so many features to try.


With that in mind and in order to help you take greater advantage of the network, here are five specific Google+ features to check out!

1. Helper Extension for Chrome

If you’re already using Chrome as your Web browser, you’re one quick download away from a free extension that makes using Google+ a little easier. With the Helper for Google+ extension, you gain access to the following benefits:

• One-click tool to share Google+ content on Twitter and Facebook
• Desktop notifications on new posts
• Bookmarking tool for reading Google+ posts later

To download the extension: Go to Chrome’s Web store, download the extension, follow the setup instructions, and you have a one-click tool to extend your reach.

2. Built-In Formatting Codes

Google+ allows you to change the style of text you post with various short codes you might not know about. Here, for example, are a few ways you may customize your text:

• Bold: Add an asterisk at the beginning and end of the words you want to make bold (i.e., *post header*)
• Italics: Add an underscore before and a plus sign after the words you want to set in italics (i.e., _post header+)
• Strikethrough: Place a dash before and after the words you wish to have a line run through (i.e., -post header-)

3. Google+ Ripples

When you want to see the responses to a Google+ post in a clear, visually focused way, try Google+ Ripples. Go to the top right-hand corner of your post, click the downward-facing arrow, and click the option to “View Ripples.”



From there, Google+ will take you to a chart that shows how your content has spread, including what users have shared it, who’s liked it, etc.

4. Google Brand Page Audit

When you want some clear information about how well your Google+ page is performing, go to Steady Demand. With this free Google+ tool, you enter your brand page’s URL and receive a free report on what you’re doing right and wrong. Steady Demand checks to make sure you’re linking to your website from your profile, for example, as well as how well your posts are performing. After looking at the resulting metrics, you have a clear guide for improving your page.

5. Turned-Off Google+ Emails

Google+ recently launched a new feature that, by default, allows anyone connected to you on Google+ to be able to email you through Gmail. Some users see this as a new convenience; others see it as a huge privacy breach. If you want to disable others from being able to auto-email you, there’s good news —you can. Here is how:
From within your Gmail account, click the wheel at the top right-hand corner of your screen, above your inbox.


Click the “settings” button. From within your settings dashboard, scroll down to the section marked “Email via Google+” and change the dropdown settings from “Anyone on Google+” to your preferred option, either “extended circles,” “circles,” or “no one.”



Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click “Save changes,” and you’re all set.

Your Thoughts

Have you already been utilizing these Google+ tools and features, or were some of them new to you? What other features have you found to be helpful or useful for you?

The Brit Awards are the most tweeted about show in the UK

After a 10-year high in ratings last year, the Brit Awards last night marked one of the lowest-rated broadcasts yet, with a mere 4.20m viewers. The show still broke one record though, and not the music kind. With a little help from Beyoncé and One Direction, just over 4,000,000 tweets were sent during the show, which doubled last years total and was just half a million less than the viewers who tuned in to watch it in real-time.

Source: gizbot.com

The music awards, despite attracting less viewers, overtook X Factor as the most tweeted about show in the UK. But if the show wasn't exciting enough to entice tons of viewers, what made it so tweetable?

Although the show had over 4 million tweets, only 2.17 million of them were posted on the site. The other 2 million were for the Brit Awards first ever social vote for Best British Video.

It's the first time a prize has been voted for during the live event, and made the show more interactive for viewers at home. Each nominated video was assigned a hashtag for voters. Sadly enough for the other nominees, One Direction won the award hands down.

That led teenage heart-throb Harry Styles to send out a loving tweet to fans...

Which led to over 150,000 retweets, and over 200,000 favourites, making it the most retweeted tweet of the night.

Beyoncé was the most tweeted about performer of the evening, after her live performance was announced just a few hours before the appearance.

Alex Turner of the Arctic Monkeys performed a rock'n'roll stunt, dropping the microphone on the stage during his speech. The rebellious act resulted in his name top-trending on Twitter.

What's more, the tweets hit a record peak of 78 thousand tweets per minute... that's 1,300 per second. The highest demographic of tweeters were female, which is not surprising, since a lot of them revolved around One Direction.

29 Social Media Tools Recommended by the Pros

Are you looking for ways to enhance your social media marketing?

Do you want new tools to simplify your job?

We asked a group of social media pros for the hottest social media tools they use today.

Check them out to see if these social media tools are a good fit for you!

#1: RivalIQ

 Jay Baer

Figuring out precisely what works in social media is a tricky (yet entirely necessary) proposition.

I’m always seeking to improve clicks, shares and social media engagement on my own content as well as our Convince and Convert clients’ content.

Recently, I started using RivalIQ to get at what’s working in social, and this easy-to-use, reasonably priced analysis platform produces a steady stream of insights while saving me a ton of time.

Here, I set up a collection of consumer products companies (RivalIQ calls them a “landscape”) for a strategic plan we’re building. With just a click or two, I can find the top 50 Facebook posts (by engagement rate or total engagement behaviors) among these companies over the past 7, 14, 30 or 90 days.

RivalIQ provides competitive intelligence.

Plus, I can click another button and export the snazzy charts and graphs to PDF or PowerPoint instantly.

RivalIQ also has a nifty alerts function, so if a company I’m monitoring publishes a disproportionately successful tweet, Facebook post or LinkedIn post—or even changes their website home page copy—I get an email letting me know.

Today, as the industry matures, social media is less about colonization, and more about optimization. RivalIQ helps me learn and improve every day. I like the software so much, I immediately invested in the company.

If you want to see an entire landscape and kick the tires, I built one just for Social Media Examiner readers that you can access here. It includes many of the major national Olympics organizations and their social media.

Jay Baer is the founder of Convince & Convert.

#2: Pocket

Mari Smith

One of the biggest challenges in social media is how to consistently curate and create exceptional content. A wonderful tool I love to use for the curation part is Pocket!

Pocket (formerly Read It Later) allows you to consume and save a wide variety of online articles, which you can then post to Twitter or Facebook, schedule via Buffer or review at a later time.

Save a variety of online articles to share with your audience at a later date.

Pocket has many options for integrating with your existing systems: a browser-based option at GetPocket, a Chrome Extension with Twitter integration (see screenshot below) and a mobile app for all operating systems.

Pocket Chrome extension with Twitter integration.

Plus, Pocket is integrated into more than 500 apps including Flipboard, Tweetbot (my favorite Twitter mobile app) and even Facebook’s new mobile reader app, Paper.

As a regular practice in my company, first I take time to review my Twitter and Facebook lists and quickly save the standout articles to Pocket, adding appropriate tags for various social networks.

Then, my content manager reviews Pocket and pulls out the articles I’ve saved, adding them to the collection she’s already cherry-picked and scheduled for me on HootSuite. The main platform I use my Pocket articles on is Twitter, followed by my Facebook page where I add a tag. I like to schedule my own Facebook posts directly on my page, as I always add a personal narrative.

Give Pocket a try if you haven’t already; I’m sure you’ll love it, too!

Mari Smith is a leading social media strategist and premier Facebook marketing expert. She is co-author of Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day and author of The New Relationship Marketing.

#3: ShareRoot

Ekaterina Walter

I am most impressed by ShareRoot because it is an all-in-one solution for Pinterest. The company offers a suite of self-service tools that you can use to manage content on Pinterest, drive Pinterest engagement and produce sales.

ShareRoot is such a time-saver because it lets you schedule pins. It also has a cross-promotional pin creator, board cover creator and a Pinterest tab for Facebook so you can convert your Facebook fans to Pinterest followers.

ShareRoot’s toolset helps brands manage their Pinterest page.

Two of ShareRoot’s core tools, contest management and Pinterest targeted advertising, help you achieve deeper connections while growing your engagement rates.

ShareRoot is currently testing its flash sales tool that helps generate revenue and turns your followers and interested pinners into paying customers.

Ekaterina Walter is the co-founder and CMO of Branderati, and author of The Power of Visual Storytelling.

#4: PowToon

Brian Carter

I want to tell you about PowToon (an easy way to make videos), but first let’s look at YouTube, because great content doesn’t help if no one sees it.

I’m always on the lookout for the next digital marketing opportunity that will give a big advantage over competitors. Right now, that opportunity is YouTube PreRoll (a.k.a. YouTube in-stream) advertising. The barrier to entry is creating a high-quality video, which can be expensive because even the most affordable video creation companies charge at least $300 to $1500.

Enter PowToon. It’s one of the easiest and cheapest ways to create a good video and—this is the crazy part—it’s free.

PowToon gives you an animated video workspace and makes it easy to create your own videos.

Having a PowToon video got Visioniz a 37% increase in sales and boosted SimpleWifi‘s conversion rate by 300%.

If you take your time with PowToon, you can create something that’s more than adequate in a matter of hours and start taking advantage of YouTube PreRoll the next day.

To prove my point, I made this PowToon in just over an hour, and it was my first one! The quality and speed can only get better from there.


Brian Carter is the author of The Like Economy and LinkedIn For Business.

#5: EveryoneSocial

Jesse Stay

My favorite social media tool is EveryoneSocial. The app encourages businesses to engage 
employees as “social ambassadors,” making them key parts of the company’s social media strategy.

The website empowers employees to find engaging content they can share with their followers on different social networks using EveryoneSocial’s powerful content discovery engine.

Alternatively, EveryoneSocial can recommend articles and websites for employees to share, giving your company a very large voice that’s much more personal than a generic Facebook page or Twitter account.

EveryoneSocial helps employees be brand ambassadors.

EveryoneSocial provides a powerful analytics engine to track how much employees are sharing, as well as how well they’re driving clicks. The analytics even allow you to get employees competing against each other for the top sharing spot.

EveryoneSocial drives home an important paradigm shift in social media. The future of social media is not just Facebook pages, Google+ pages or Twitter accounts. The future of social is in empowering individuals—including your employees—to share your products one with another.

The more you promote and empower your employees and key player social presences, the stronger social media success you’ll have in the future.

Jesse Stay is the founder and owner of Stay N’ Alive Productions, LLC.

#6: vCita

Jon Loomer

My current favorite tool is vCita. It’s a plugin that manages the purchase and booking process of my one-on-one coaching sessions. vCita calls itself a “client engagement platform for small businesses.”
If you’ve ever been to my site, you’ve undoubtedly seen the active engage flyout that happens at the bottom right.

The active engage flyout on JonLoomer.com.

When you click the Schedule Now button, you are taken directly to my calendar where I’ve set specific times and days that are open for one-on-one sessions. vCita also dynamically syncs with my Google calendar, so whenever I add an event that is a conflict, vCita will block it off on my calendar.

Cita lets visitors choose a meeting date and time on your calendar.

One-on-one sessions were a minor part of my business until about six months ago. It wasn’t until I started using vCita that they became a major part. In fact, I was forced to raise the price of my sessions to keep up with demand!

Jon Loomer is a Facebook marketing coach, author, speaker and strategist. 

#7: OptinMonster

Ian Cleary

Growing the number of email subscribers for your blog is a great way to build a relationship with potential customers, but it’s challenging to convert visitors to subscribers.

OptinMonster is a WordPress plugin that helps you create attention-grabbing opt-in forms. The plugin is really well designed and you can get a variety of opt-in boxes up and running very quickly.

Create attention-grabbing opt-in forms.

One of the most interesting features of OptinMonster is the Exit Intent feature. You can create a popup box to collect emails and set it up so that it only appears when your website visitor is about to leave your website.

OptinMonster tracks the position of your visitor’s mouse pointer and if they move it outside the main window, the popup appears. The plugin also has options for a floating footer bar and a slide-in box.
Ian Cleary is the founder of RazorSocial.

#8: smqueue

Neal Schaffer

I have become a BIG fan of smqueue.

If you have over 100 blog posts or pieces of content that you want to share once or twice a day, this tool is a great way to automate those social media posts. You can share them on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

You can set recurring queue time slots.

While some may cringe at the thought of any automation in social media, numerous studies have shown that promoting the same post multiple times helps your content become more discoverable in social media. Other than paid social, using some element of automation is the only way a social media marketer can scale.

The challenge though, becomes in ensuring that both the content and timing are relevant. Assuming that the content you want to share is evergreen, continue reading!

smqueue gives you control over the wording of your post (including adding a photo and shortening your link), how frequently and at what times to post and when to expire content.

You decide the wording, posting frequency and expiration of content.

The only drawbacks are that you must have at least 100 entries for the recurring queue to begin, and you cannot brand the shortened URL.

By regularly adding new content to the queue and moderating it, I have found smqueue to be an excellent way of augmenting what I am already doing in social media marketing, with no additional effort other than the setup.

Neal Schaffer is the president of Maximize Your Social, author of Maximizing LinkedIn for Sales and Social Media Marketing: Understanding, Leveraging and Maximizing LinkedIn.

#9: Nimble

Viveka von Rosen

I started using Nimble because I’m one of those social media “super connectors” whose network is just way too big. Even with tagging and lists and all the other ways I have of segmenting my audience, I just couldn’t keep up with all of my key connections.

Nimble does a really good job of helping me find and engage with my important contacts via the Engagement Opportunities From Important Contacts feature on their homepage. I don’t know what algorithm they use, but its freaky accurate!

Nimble also lets you keep a list of activities to do and people to stay in touch with, as well as track leads, prospects and deals.

With Nimble’s Deals function I can pull a prospect from my contacts, add details of our potential deal, track that deal through its different stages and either close the deal or if it falls apart, make notes as to why. And, of course, I can export that information.

Create deals within Nimble.

The tracking is crucial to refining my prospecting funnel so that I close more deals more effectively. (And not as many prospects fall through the giant gaping cracks in my brain.)

Nimble gives me more filters than LinkedIn to sort my contacts, allows me to search keywords and hashtags throughout my social networks, tracks my activities on the calendar feature, lists my messages and lets me sort them. As a bonus, Nimble allows me to delegate work to my assistant and it plays well with HootSuite.

If you haven’t tried Nimble yet, you should. It isn’t just a vibrant social CRM, it’s a one-stop shop for contact, calendar, prospect, deal and even inbox management!

Viveka von Rosen is the author of LinkedIn Marketing: An Hour a Day and known internationally as the “LinkedIn Expert.”

#10: BuzzSumo

Lee Odden

BuzzSumo is a free tool you can use to identify the links that are most shared on social networks, as well as influencers for specific topics.

For example, if you want to know the top content by social shares for a certain keyword phrase, BuzzSumo provides social share information that includes Google+ shares, Facebook likes, LinkedIn shares and Twitter shares. You can filter the data by content type (e.g., article, infographic, videos, guest posts and more).

You can also search a domain to find the pages with the most social shares and then filter by Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter. This is handy for spot checking your own site and others’.

You can search for the social shares on any URL.

The influencer search option offers a list of people who match your query and includes their Twitter information. You can filter these results by type (e.g., bloggers, influencers, companies and journalists), then export to CSV or Excel for further analysis.

BuzzSumo is definitely a work in progress, but as a free tool, there are some very interesting features and it’s really easy to use.

Lee Odden is the CEO of TopRank Online Marketing.

#11: Harvest

Jamie Turner

In the early days of social media, things were much simpler. You’d write a blog post, share it on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and be done with it. But as time has gone on, social media has become more complex and time-consuming.

Today, you might have multiple social media campaigns running for both your own company and for your clients’ companies. It’s gotten harder to figure out where your time is going (and which client to bill for your efforts). If that’s as much of a problem for you as it is for me, then you’ll want to check out Harvest.

It’s the simplest and easiest time-tracking tool I’ve found (and I’ve done plenty of homework on this). The user interface makes it incredibly simple to add a project and track your time. Better still, if you’re a consultant, agency or business owner, you can track different projects for different clients and analyze the results. It even has a billing module that allows you to invoice clients for the work.

Tracking your time is easy with Harvest.

In the long run, Harvest has enough features that you can use it to track all of your time, but it’s streamlined enough just to track time on your social media campaigns if that’s all you need. I love it. Check it out!

Jamie Turner is the CEO of 60 Second Marketer.

#12: Calendly

Douglas Karr

Over the last decade I’ve amassed quite a following on social media. The process is fairly consistent: Folks follow me, then they listen or watch me in a podcast, video or webinar, and when they need my assistance, they connect. This connection point is critical. People need your help on their schedule, not yours.

In the past, I’ve been really difficult (if not impossible) to get a hold of. I get dozens of calls and hundreds of email requests every day. If all I did was negotiate common times to connect, I would lose half of my week. Compound that with the back and forth of “What time is good for you?” emails and the time lost is downright frustrating.

The truth is I’m terrible at managing my calendar, so why not let the people who want to connect with me handle it themselves? This is what Calendly does for me.

Let Calendly manage your calendar for you.

When people view my Calendly, they’ll see the times I’m available to meet. They can find the date and time that works for them and set it on Calendly, then Calendly synchronizes directly to my Google calendar.

Social media isn’t very valuable unless it’s leading to opportunity. Calendly helps me find those opportunities!

Douglas Karr is the founder of DK New Media.

#13: Friends+Me

Denise Wakeman

One of my current favorite social media resources is Friends+Me, an automated social sharing tool. While I know the topic of social media automation is controversial, sometimes it makes sense when time is limited and you want to get your message out to several different networks.

Friends+Me enables you to share (repost) your publicly published Google+ posts to Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Tumblr. It’s important to note that if your Google+ post is private, Friends+Me will not repost it anywhere.

Friends+Me broadcasts your messages to other networks.

With Friends+Me, you can manage exactly where you want to repost your content. For example, if you want to repost on Facebook but not on your LinkedIn profile or Twitter, you simply tag the post #f and it will only be published on your Facebook page or profile.

Recently, Friends+Me added a scheduling feature that you can choose to enable or disable. By scheduling reposts, you control the day and time they show up on your other networks.

For example, you may not want your Google+ posts to simultaneously publish to your other social profiles. You can easily schedule them to post to those networks as soon as 5 minutes later or up to 3 days later.

You can schedule your Google+ posts with Friends+Me.

Why would you use this tool? If you’re active on Google+, you know the conversations are rich and often go deeper than on other networks. When you repost from Google+, it includes a link back to the post on your Google+ profile or page. It’s an easy way to encourage your connections to join you on Google+ and build your community there, as well as introduce people to new content and thought leaders.

Denise Wakeman is an online marketing strategist and host of Adventures in Visibility, a live hangout on air helping entrepreneurs boost their visibility on the web.

#14: BuzzFork

Stanford Smith

BuzzFork is a Twitter marketing tool that helps get your profile in front of Twitter users based on common interests. It uses an algorithm to review a user’s tweets (based on your criteria), then favorites those tweets from your account.

If you’re like me, you pay close attention to people who favorite your tweets and probably follow them back. BuzzFork leverages this social quid pro quo to add targeted followers to your Twitter audience.

I was extremely skeptical about BuzzFork’s “favoriting” algorithm, but was pleasantly surprised with the results. Almost all of the favorites were for tweets that I found useful, entertaining and relevant.

Try BuzzFork’s favoriting algorithm.

BuzzFork also helps you analyze your recent followers based on their Klout score and interests. This information is useful for discovering popular topics within your Twitter community.

A quick review of my dashboard revealed that productivity is a popular topic, and that prompted me to write several successful articles about it.

You can find out about popular topics in your dashboard.

All of your follower data can be exported, allowing you to segment your recent followers by interests. This comes in handy if you want to promote interest-specific topics to Twitter influencers.

BuzzFork is the perfect tool for bloggers who want to quickly expand their Twitter reach in a smart and personalized way.

Stanford Smith is the co-author of Born to Blog, and offers practical blog and content marketing tips and strategies at Pushing Social.

#15: Newsle

Stephanie Sammons

Newsle has become one of my most favorite social media tools for gathering relevant and important stories about the members of my network. I’m spending time on this site daily.

Newsle is a free tool that finds real published news about real people (it doesn’t find tweets or social status updates).

Newsle integrates and follows your LinkedIn connections, personal Facebook connections and email contacts, then scours the web for recently published articles about those people. You can also follow and track online stories about anyone, even those who are outside of your network!

Not only does Newsle show articles about your first-degree network, it goes a step further with the Friends of Friends feature. This is a great way to find new relevant people to contact and build a relationship with.

You can rank the articles that are surfaced by most recent or most interesting in your Newsle dashboard, and you can share the articles with your social networks or via email.

You can share the most recent articles from your dashboard with your social networks.

What works really well is to send a private email to your connection referencing an article you’ve seen about them in Newsle, or even promote the article publicly to your social networks with a tag or mention. This is a great way to strengthen a relationship and give your connection greater visibility through promotion.

If you’re publishing or being quoted in online articles, be sure to submit them to Newsle so you can build your own profile and help others find and follow you.

I’m a huge fan of Newsle as a social media tool that can help you become a smarter marketer. I highly recommend you check it out!

Stephanie Sammons is the founder of Build Online Influence.

#16: Piktochart

John Lee Dumas

I recently discovered Piktochart, an infographic and graphic design app. My favorite thing about the app is that you don’t need any design experience to create amazing graphics for your social media posts because Piktochart offers really great resources, including video tutorials.

Piktochart has several themes to choose from, and they offer a free account or a pro account.

There are many themes to choose from.

I’ve been able to create some really good infographics with just the free account, and they’ve been great for use in blog posts and across social media to help promote content we’ve created for our audience.

Here’s an example of an infographic I created that walks you through preparing for a Skype video interview. I wouldn’t have been able to create it on my own without the app.

Use Piktochart to create an infographic to promote your content.

Piktochart is really an all-around great app that ups your social media game by providing you the opportunity to easily create intriguing infographics for your audience to consume!

John Lee Dumas is the founder and host of EntrepreneurOnFire.

#17: 22Social

Ric Dragon

The team here at DragonSearch has been getting a lot of use lately from the 22Social app for Facebook.

With 22Social, you’re able to turn your Facebook business page into a veritable website. You can create multiple content pages that users access via Facebook tabs, and even configure a like gate—the page people see when they haven’t liked your page yet.

The app provides a portfolio of layout options and in the process encourages some smart communication. Each layout can include video, photos and text.

22Social offers many layouts to choose from.

22Social has illustrated just how well a Facebook page can act as a website by redirecting their own website back into their Facebook page.

22Social isn’t free. It’s $2 for the first month, then $22 (of course, right?) per month after that. Considering how it can really turn your Facebook page into a dynamic lead-generation portal, it’s a fair deal.

Ric Dragon is the CEO of DragonSearch.

#18: Jelly

Simon Mainwaring

Many a business would be better served with direct connections to their customers. In recent years we’ve seen the growth of social media and brands using different channels to interact with customers on many levels.

But with so many different questions being asked and answered all at once, a reliable and manageable feedback loop often gets lost in the shuffle. That’s where Jelly fits in.

What at first seemed like an app designed to ask friends for answers to homework has grown into a social media experience in which brands can directly appeal to their customers’ needs.

Posting a simple question lets your company crowdsource opinions on a specific product, service or issue that you want to know more about.

You can use the Jelly app as a research tool.

Not only does this allow for better managed engagement, but it casts your brand in a positive light because you’re interested, listening and responsive.

The true depth of this app is far from being explored, but I see a very positive future for it in the mix of social media channels.

Simon Mainwaring is the CEO of We First and author of the New York Times bestseller We First.

#19: NeedTagger

Kim Garst

Twitter is a major business-building social media platform. The challenge is sifting through the noise to find conversations that matter to you and your business.

If you’re using Twitter Advanced Search to connect with potential customers, respond to compliments or complaints and directly market your products or services to people who say they need your solutions, then you are going to love NeedTagger!

NeedTagger does the heavy lifting for you. It’s a power search engine built specifically for Twitter. It finds real-time conversations that are taking place about topics you’re interested in.

NeedTagger allows you to search for conversations about your target industry.

People might be talking about your products, news stories that touch your niche or even content that is trending. NeedTagger finds them for you.

Kim Garst is the CEO of Boom Social.

#20: Pushover and IFTTT

Paul Colligan

The immediacy of social media can either be empowering or enslaving, depending on what you do with it. As alerts and updates are coming in 24/7, every marketer must decide when to (and when not to) be interrupted with social updates, messages, replies, etc. Too many interruptions and you won’t ever get any work done.

Conversely, social emergencies seldom happen on a predetermined schedule.

Ever tried to have a conversation with someone who’s always on their phone “in case something happens”? Do you find yourself being that guy (or gal) and wishing you could find a filtering solution that makes sense?

A careful combination of Pushover, a service for sending phone status messages, and the popular service IFTTT, has helped solve this issue for me.

I’ve set it up so that when certain terms are mentioned on certain social services, I’m alerted right away. When urgent stuff happens, I’m notified on both my iPhone (via notifications) and via a vibrating message on my Pebble Watch.

The combination of Pushover and IFTTT allows you to receive real-time notifications on your Android and iOS devices.

Why the Pebble watch? I find it far less intrusive to quickly glance at a watch versus a phone screen when you’re in conversation with someone.

The other stuff I consume on my own terms at a time that makes sense to me.
Paul Colligan is the director of content marketing at Instant Customer.

#21: Swayy

Rick Mulready

If the team that created Swayy is reading this, I’m giving you a virtual high-five right now.
I love Swayy and it’s the coolest social media tool I’ve come across in recent months. It solves the challenge many people have of wanting to consistently find and share valuable content, yet don’t have enough hours in the day to discover it.

It’s like having your own personal assistant that scours the Internet and finds great content for you (like articles, videos and such), so you can share it with your audience. And not just any content, either. It delivers content that’s relevant to your audience and that they’re most likely to engage with.

Swayy helps you discover content to share with your audience.

Swayy integrates with your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts.

Like many other tools on the market, it has a few different pricing plans that allow you to scale depending on your needs. The free version is very effective though, and great for giving it a test drive.

Definitely give it a try. It will simplify your social media efforts and I have a feeling you’ll want to give the Swayy team a virtual high-five too!

Rick Mulready is the creator of the Inside Social Media Podcast.

#22: Circloscope

Martin Shervington

Google+ circles can require a lot of management. This is why I recommend you use Circloscope (a Chrome extension).

It’s the only tool available that helps you tame your circles, turning them into well-curated, useful collections of people and pages.

Using Circloscope, you can uncircle a selection of people whose accounts are no longer active and uncircle a group of people who don’t circle you back. These are useful tasks to make sure you’re staying up to date with your contacts or freeing up space if you’re close to reaching your 5,000-person limit.

Use Circloscope to easily manage your Google+ circles.

Circloscope also lets you find the people engaging with and sharing your Google+ posts or linked content. This is a huge feature because you can quickly see whom you should spend more time connecting with. You can do the same with Google Ripples, but it is a lot more work!

All in all, Circloscope is an essential circle management system for your Google+ toolkit. I don’t know how I would manage my profile or pages without it.

Martin Shervington is the author of The Art and Science of Google+ and a marketing consultant.

#23: Songza

Mark Schaefer

I have an unusual and fun suggestion for a great new social tool to try. I have become addicted to an app called Songza.

It’s an Internet-style radio station with a social twist. You can find creative and amazing playlists for every possible mood or life situation.

You can find the perfect song to reflect your mood.

The lists are carefully curated by an expert music nerd community and you can comment on the playlists and follow them. So whether you are intently analyzing your tweets, blogging on a quiet Sunday morning, or snapping Instagram photos at a crazy party, you can find the perfect soundtrack to your social media life at Songza!

Mark Schaefer is a college educator, blogger, speaker and consultant who specializes in corporate social media marketing workshops. 

#24: Talkwalker

Gini Dietrich

A few months ago, I discovered Talkwalker as a replacement for Google alerts. If you’re familiar with Google alerts, the setup will look similar.

The Talkwalker home page has the same functionality, and you can decide what information to look for and how you receive updates.

Talkwalker has the same functionality as Google alerts.

When Talkwalker finds new mentions based on your target words, you receive an email broken down by news and blogs. It provides the title, description and link. It also provides a nifty Tweet button so you can share the content directly from your email.

Email alerts are broken down into news and blogs categories.

To boot, they just launched a HootSuite integration, which means you can monitor all of your queries there instead of in your email.

Talkwalker integrates with HootSuite.

While Google alerts still work, I like the results that come from Talkwalker better. The information is more accurate and provides links Google typically misses.

The only thing it doesn’t do is return anything that links to you without mentioning your search query (e.g., if my search query is “Spin Sucks” and someone links to it but calls it “Gini’s blog,” I won’t see it).

Good riddance, Google. We found something better, more accurate and much more convenient.

Gini Dietrich is the founder and CEO of Arment Dietrich.

#25: Hang w/

Joel Comm

Many apps have been used to stream live video to friends and followers, but Hang w/ takes it to the next level by integrating with iOS and Android, as well as delivering the live stream to Facebook’s news feed.

As a broadcaster, you can select 3-, 6- or 9-minute “hang” sessions, and enter a custom title for each live video stream.

You can enter a custom title.

Smartphone followers who have push notifications turned on are instantly notified when someone they are following begins a Hang w/, and they can interact with the broadcaster via text chat.

A great way to create spontaneous broadcasts.

The app needs some polish, but I have a great time creating spontaneous broadcasts and engaging with my followers.

Joel Comm is the author of Twitter Power 2.0 and So, What Do You Do?, and host of the Joel Comm Show, a business podcast.

#26: Meddle

Ted Rubin

I started playing around with Meddle lately. It’s a hybrid social posting, blogging and curation service, with a focus on making it simple to share insights on content you’re reading, while you’re reading it.

I like it because it allows me to turn comments I’d typically leave on a blog post—which have limited visibility and virility—into new content that I can share as my own. Meddle also generates versions of my comments for Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, allowing me to complete the content creation and distribution cycle in a minute.

Meddle is a great curation service.

Adding my editorial perspective on content that matters to my followers is a very effective way for me to get my point across without having to write a full blog post. It also saves the comment, most important part of the post/article and the post URL itself in a place and format I can easily access for content creation at a later date.

I’m looking forward to Meddle adding better mobile support, more social networks and the ability to post content straight into my blog, which the CEO at Meddle tells me is in the works.
However, for people who don’t have the time, skills or desire to blog, this is a great personal content marketing platform in and of itself.

Ted Rubin is a leading social marketing strategist, keynote speaker, brand evangelist and co-author of Return on Relationship.

#27: tchat.io

Michael Stelzner

I recently discovered a new web-based app called tchat.io. The simple interface is great for Twitter chats because you can tweet from within the app, and it automatically adds the chat’s hashtag to all of your tweets.

It’s easy to keep track of the conversation because the app only shows tweets related to a specific hashtag (you can switch hashtags on the fly).

You can tweet from within the app.

This app is close to real time and has all of the basic functionality you would expect from any good hashtag-based Twitter chat client.

If you’re involved with Twitter chats, tchat.io is definitely worth checking out.
Michael Stelzner is the founder and CEO of Social Media Examiner and My Kids’ Adventures.

#28: Canva

Donna Moritz

By far the biggest standout tool for me has been the web-based DIY graphic design tool Canva.
Canva has a healthy library of social media and blog image templates that allow for easy and timely creation of images. No design skills necessary!

Social media templates let you create images quickly and easily.

Canva’s Copy feature makes it easy to create not just one image, but a series of images. If you are creating a tip, how-to or quote image for your community, why stop at one? Make a dozen images by “batching” them.

Simply click on the Copy This Page option to produce an exact copy of your image, then edit the new image to replace text or graphics. Repeat as necessary until you have an entire series of images ready to schedule.

Canva is releasing Instagram-style preset filters with the added ability to create your own unique photo effect for your brand (you can see an exclusive sneak peek below). You can copy the photo effect code across all of your images to develop a consistent style for their visual content.

Canva’s new Photo Effects allows users to get creative!

With a growing list of features that help you create original, shareable images, I am excited to see Canva become a permanent fixture in the toolbox of social media marketers and community managers.

Donna Moritz is the founder of SociallySorted.

#29: LeadPages

Amy Porterfield

LeadPages is a tool that I use on a near-daily basis. When I was first introduced to this tool, I knew that it would help my email list grow in a big way.

I’ve used LeadPages for everything including sales pages, product launches, free giveaways, live webinars and so much more. If there’s a way to use LeadPages, I’ve done it!

I most recently used it for launching a product that is not my own. I created a webinar to help people figure out if the product was right for them, then created a LeadPages page for it. Ever since I’ve been using the countdown timer on webinar registration pages, my conversion rate has skyrocketed.

The LeadPages page created for a webinar.

After people sign up for the webinar, they’re redirected to a thank-you page, where I have a video that lets them know they are officially registered. This thank-you page also provides an opportunity for people to like my Facebook page, which helps me stay top of mind in the days leading up to the webinar.

The thank-you page gives people the opportunity to like your Facebook page.

As you know, I feel that Facebook marketing is the best platform for list building and specifically Facebook ads are extremely powerful. I drive all of my ads’ traffic to my LeadPages.

Another great thing about LeadPages is that the team is always innovating and offering more features. A couple of the newer features I love are LeadBoxes and LeadLinks.

LeadBoxes can be used on web pages and even in blog posts. To add them to a blog post, all I have to do is add a hyperlink to the post, and when someone clicks on it, a LeadBox pops up with an opportunity for someone to join my email list.

LeadLinks integrates your email service provider with your webinar provider. When you insert the link in an email and a person clicks on it, they’re automatically registered for your webinar and tagged in your email system. It’s a great thing to use for your existing email list because you don’t need to gather names and emails since you already have them.

The bottom line is that LeadPages is a tool that I can’t live without!

Amy Porterfield is the co-author of Facebook Marketing All-in-One for Dummies and a social media strategist.

Who are these social media pros?

The social media marketing experts who contributed to this article are all speaking at Social Media Marketing World 2014.



You’ll hear from 80+ of the world’s top social media marketing pros as they reveal their newest social media marketing tips and practical, real-world, proven examples.

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What do you think? Do you use any of these social media tools? What’s working well for you today? Please share your thoughts in the box below