The best social media marketing tools for 2018 are those that empower you to connect with your audience, attract more followers, and grow your business. By using the right tools, you can keep your company at the forefront of your industry—and in front of your customers.
In this article, we’ll share the top social media marketing tools of 2018 to help you reach a wider audience and generate more leads.
Table of Contents
Best Social Media Marketing Tools 2018
1. Crello
A simplified graphic design tool with 10,000 free templates
Price: Free (with some design elements at $0.99)
Description: Crello is a new, free graphic design tool for creating social media, web, and print images. It provides 10,000 free design templates and millions of stock images and free design elements.
How to use Crello:
You can either create a graphic from scratch or use one of Crello’s nicely-created templates. Using drag-and-drop, you can easily add, edit, and move design elements around on your graphic.
Here’s a quick video on how to create a graphic with Crello:https://www.youtube.com/embed/w0be1NVAE9M?rel=0&showinfo=0
Now, you can even create animated designs with Crello!
Here’s what a Product Hunter has to say:
2. Fastory
Craft stunning Instagram stories, share them everywhere
Price: Free or enterprise pricing
Description: Fastory is like Canva for Stories, as a Product Hunter described it. It’s an online graphics editor that allows you to create animated or static stories easily.
How to use Fastory:
The Fastory editor will guide you through three simple steps to create an engaging story.
- Choose an animation for your text
- Choose or upload a video or photo
- Add your logo
When you “publish” your stories on Fastory, it will send the stories to your email. You can then download them on your mobile phone and upload onto Instagram or Snapchat.
Note: Stories created with the free version come with a Fastory branding in the lower-left corner.
Here’s what a Product Hunter has to say:
3. Storyheap
Manage your Snapchat & Instagram Stories
Price: $49 per month, $99 per month, or $199 per month (with a 7-day free trial)
Description: Storyheap might be the only tool around that lets you manage your Instagram and Snapchat Stories — create, schedule, and analyze your stories — from a single dashboard.
How to use Storyheap:
Storyheap works like most social media management tools, except that it focuses on stories only. To schedule a story, upload an image or video and select your posting time. Storyheap will then add that story to your queue.
Besides creating and scheduling stories, you can also see the performance of your stories (e.g. views and screenshots) and the growth of your accounts (e.g. followers, average views, and open rate).
It might be good to note that some people are concerned about whether Storyheap is violating Instagram and Snapchat’s Terms of Service, though Storyheap seemed to have found a workaround that doesn’t violate the terms.
Here’s what a Product Hunter has to say:
4. Botletter
Send newsletters on Facebook Messenger
Price: Free (for 1,000 messages every month), $23.50 per month, $53.60 per month, $85.50 per month, or custom pricing
Description: Facebook Messenger is growing as a promising marketing channel. With Botletter, you can grow your Messenger subscriber list, send your subscribers messages on Messenger (or botletters), and analyze your performance.
How to use Botletter:
Using Botletter is very similar to using most email marketing tools. The main difference is that while you send emails with email marketing tools, you send Messenger messages with Botletter.
Besides crafting your message, you can also add a Messenger card with an image, title, and call-to-action.
Here’s what a Product Hunter has to say:
5. PixelMe
URL shortener for savvy marketers
Price: $10 per month, $29 per month, $79 per month, or custom pricing (with a 7-day free trial)
Description: PixelMe is an URL shortener that allows you to include a retargeting pixel in a link. When people click on your PixelMe links, you’ll be able to retarget them with ads on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and more.
How to use PixelMe:
All you have to do to set up your PixelMe account is to add the pixel IDs of the ad platforms you want to use. For example, for Facebook ads, that would be the Facebook Pixel.
Once you have done that, simply copy and paste your link into PixelMe and let it generate a shortened link for you. Now, share away! When enough people click on that link, you’ll be able to create a custom audience in the ad platforms and retarget them with a very relevant ad.
types of social media tools
1. Social audio platforms and formats
Examples: Clubhouse, Twitter Spaces, Spotify
Used for: Listening to live conversations on specific topics.
How your business can use them: New social audio platforms (like Clubhouse) and formats (like Twitter Spaces) have thrived during COVID-19 lockdowns while people have been at home with more time to join live conversations.
The most significant advantage of audio social media platforms and formats is the high attention and engagement you’re likely to get from opt-in listeners.
Lively, engaging conversations can help you build your image as a leader in your niche and introduce your business or products to valuable audiences already interested in topics related to your niche (otherwise, they wouldn’t be tuning in).
Here are some thought starters for using audio social media platforms:
- Host industry panels.
- Broadcast news and big announcements.
- Host interactive sessions (such as AMAs) with your audience.
- Record interviews during a live Clubhouse/Twitter Spaces chat and upload them as a podcast (example: The Social Media Geekout show).
- Build your business’ thought leadership through a 30-60 minute show.
Matt Navarra does a great job of combining Twitter Spaces AND podcasts:
We got you covered. Checkout: @SpaceCastsPod
We record and upload our twitter spaces sessions to this podcast feed each week.
Todays edition will be up in the next day or so
— Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) July 16, 2021
2. Video social media platforms and formats
Examples: YouTube, TikTok, Instagram Stories and Reels, Facebook Watch
Used for: Watching videos in short and long formats.
How your business can use them: Video social media platforms are great for capturing attention, driving brand awareness, and bringing products to life in a way that still photos can’t.
Any video content that you publish should be designed to entertain, educate, and/or inspire your audience. Videos made purely to sell aren’t going to engage viewers.
Some of the best examples of businesses using video social media platforms are:
- Ryanair on TikTok — highly entertaining, show a good understanding of the humor and nuances of TikTok users.
- Notion on YouTube — creates educational content that’s both helpful and inspiring for its users.
- Beautiful Destinations on Instagram Reels — provides travel inspiration through short, professionally shot clips.
3. Disappearing content formats
Examples: Snapchat, Instagram Stories, Facebook Stories, LinkedIn Stories
Used for: Sending ephemeral messages privately and publishing timely, in-the-moment content for all of your followers to view for up to 24 hours.
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How your business can use them: Ephemeral formats like Stories are well-suited for posting timely content, such as announcements, limited edition items, or live events.
Most Stories and Snapchat content also feels more genuine and less polished due to the 24-hour shelf life. As such, it allows businesses to show a more human side.
Here are some ideas for how your business can use disappearing content:
- Polls, voting (using interactive Stories stickers)
- Teasers/countdowns to product launches
- Behind-the-scenes content
- Time-sensitive announcements
A great example is from one of my favorite local bakers, who posts their weekly specials on their Instagram Stories.
4. Discussion forums
Examples: Reddit, Quora
Used for: Asking and answering questions, networking, forming communities around niche- and interest-based topics.
How your business can use them: Be genuinely helpful to your customers by lending your business’ subject matter expertise and answering questions related to your industry. Bonus points if you can share information about your brand and products in your answers, but that shouldn’t be your primary goal of participating in discussion forums.
One thing to note: On Reddit, it’s highly frowned upon to insert any self-promotion into answers. If you’re posting as a business, make sure to answer the original question and only add links to your products if they’re genuinely helpful. Before posting in a subreddit, check the rules to verify if including links to your own business is allowed.
While Microsoft didn’t create the /r/XboxOne subreddit, once they saw how popular it was, they started engaging with Redditors by hosting AMA sessions with game developers.
5. Shoppable social media platforms and features
Examples: Pinterest Product Pins, Facebook Shops, Instagram Shops, TikTok, Shopify, Douyin, Taobao
Used for: Researching and purchasing products from brands directly through social media platforms.
How your business can use them: Take advantage of built-in mobile-friendly features to allow your audience to purchase from you without having to leave a social media app.
Features like Pinterest Product Pins, Instagram Shops, and TikTok’s in-app shopping allow you to connect your product catalog directly to your profile on each app.
Even if your followers don’t like to make purchases on social media platforms or have longer buyer journeys, shopping features can allow you to tag products, add additional product info and drive traffic to your website.
Some great ways to use shopping social media platforms:
- Limited edition drops, e.g., announcing an exclusive product launch on social media and linking or tagging the product via your product catalog
- Social selling
- E-commerce (many social media platforms have e-commerce integrations, such as Shopify, which you can access directly from your Hootsuite dashboard)
- Retargeting, e.g., creating custom audiences based on who has engaged with your Facebook/Instagram Shops
Conclusion
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