What follows are – by any list or metric – 51 big names in online marketing, content marketing, and e-commerce along with their top social-media tool and reason for loving it. Animoto Mari Smith, Facebook marketing expert “Native video is the top-reaching post type on Facebook and gets three times the engagement of link posts and two times that of photo posts. I use it to share, organize, and measure all the content I post across my main three social accounts: LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Twitter Promote Mode Brian Clark, founder, Copyblogger “Now that the days of organic social media distribution for content marketing are long in the rear view, the most valuable social media tools are the advertising features of the platforms themselves. In less than five minutes you have a high quality and visually appealing graphic that will make your followers think you have a graphic designer on call.” 23. But love has to be the foundation.” 25. Facebook Messenger Sujan Patel, founder and CEO, Web Profits “Social media is becoming more personal and customers are actually talking to companies. Visual content has become so important for social media posts to help tell the story of your post and content. And Ripl is the easiest tool that goes beyond static images and lets you create animated visuals to post in your channel of choice.” 41. It’s a form of social media: a blog.
Editor’s note: You may have missed this article when CMI published it in 2016. It’s been updated because we know our readers always love to discover or be reminded of a great social media tool.
Let’s be honest, social media is a jungle. Forget about the flood of apps, integrations, and add-ons, just figuring which network you should invest in is overwhelming.
What if you could ask today’s influential online marketers one question: “What social media tool is your all-time, desert-island, can’t-live-without favorite?”
That’s what I did.
What follows are – by any list or metric – 51 big names in online marketing, content marketing, and e-commerce along with their top social-media tool and reason for loving it.
1. Instagram
Ann Handley, chief content officer, MarketingProfs
“Instagram is my favorite social network because of its social storytelling simplicity. From fun personal accounts – like Small Chalk and Adam Padilla – to corporate brands, it connects more immediately and deeply with people than any other platform. I still haven’t forgiven them for introducing an algorithm. (Chronological was so much more in line with the ethos of the platform.) But I can’t quit you, Insta.”
2. Twitter
Joe Pulizzi, founder, Content Marketing Institute
“I use social media as almost a pure response vehicle. And I won’t start any new social media app, platform, or tool until I’m 100% committed to it. My goal with Twitter is to keep in touch and communicate my appreciation to those people that support me. Once I built an audience on those platforms, my goals and execution changed.”
3. Buffer
Joanna Wiebe, creator, Copy Hackers
“Buffer. Three reasons. (1) You can install a browser widget that lets you Buffer any page or image you come across to be sent immediately or later. (2) Its Content Inbox: I can enter the URL of a favorite blog and Buffer instantly creates a huge list of tweets from that blog. (3) The company is transparent. I don’t expect every company to publish what they earn vs. what they pay people the way Buffer does, but it’s a warm-and-fuzzy approach to helping disconnected folks like moi see the humans behind a software company.”
4. BuzzSumo
Neil Patel, entrepreneur and influencer, NeilPatel.com
“With BuzzSumo you can see what is hot in your space on social media and what isn’t. From there you can craft ideas on the type of blog posts you should write to generate traffic and leads. The best part about BuzzSumo is it shows who has shared the content so you can reach out to those influencers and ask them to share your content as well.”
5. Animoto
Mari Smith, Facebook marketing expert
“Native video is the top-reaching post type on Facebook and gets three times the engagement of link posts and two times that of photo posts. I love using Animoto’s gorgeous templates, themes, and stock music. Its marketing builder tool also makes it super-duper easy to add text overlays – vital for sound-off autoplay videos in the Facebook newsfeed because 80% of video ads on Facebook are watched with sound off.”
6. Moz’s Fresh Web Explorer
Rand Fishkin, founder, SparkToro
“Next to BuzzSumo – and without sounding biased – my favorite tool is Moz’s Fresh Web Explorer. It’s great for setting up mention alerts as well as finding content to share socially through keyword notifications. The mention authority feature works directly with Moz’s page and domain authority metrics and helps sort through all the noise you normally get with catch-all monitoring tools.”
7. Tweeps Map
Brian D. Evans, founder, Influencive
“The problem with a lot of marketing these days is that it’s not laser targeted and is far too broad. I use Tweeps Map because it gives me a visual representation of where my followers are geographically. I can then run targeting to followers from specific areas, and make sure that the content is relevant and valuable for those followers.”
8. Sumo
Jeff Bullas, CEO, JeffBullas.com
“Sumo is a hybrid tool that’s a bit like a Swiss Army knife. It’s helped me thrive and survive in the wilds of the digital world by creating social-sharing buttons – onsite, SMS, Flipboard, and WhatsApp – and tracking my social counts on blog posts. The feature I really love is its Welcome Mat: a pop-up that captures emails. In less than 12 months, it’s collected over 40,000 email subscribers.”
9. Planoly
Candice Galek, founder, Bikini Luxe; columnist, Inc.
“While native social media posts get the most engagement, there’s nothing easier than scheduling posts that will be auto-shared while you sleep. Think about it, you’ve got Instagram followers from all over the world, and you can’t possibly be awake at all hours of the day and night.
“Planoly helps us to not only schedule and auto-post content, but also quickly discover (content) by searching for hashtags or usernames. There’s even a simple bulk upload function where you can add your own content and plan it in a way that makes your social media feed look cohesive and appealing. Since using Planoly, we’ve been able to source content more easily and our feed looks better than ever.”
10. Elevate
Jason Miller, global content marketing leader, LinkedIn
“I like to keep things simple and streamlined: Less is more. The tool I use religiously is Elevate: LinkedIn’s employee advocacy tool. I use it to share, organize, and measure all the content I post across my main three social accounts: LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. I share daily from Elevate and track engagements.”
11. Twitter Promote Mode
Brian Clark, founder, Copyblogger
“Now that the days of organic social media distribution for content marketing are long in the rear view, the most valuable social media tools are the advertising features of the platforms themselves. Facebook (and Instagram) of course, but also Twitter given its high-profile resurgence. We’re testing Twitter Promote Mode, which for a recurring monthly fee promises to give constant broader reach – just like the good old days.”
12. Facebook Audience Insights
Larry Kim, founder, MobileMonkey
“I’m big into audiences: figuring out what are the interests, behaviors, and demographics of your target customers. For this I use Facebook Audience Insights because it tells you just about everything you’d want to know: job titles, education level, lifestyle, location, household information, purchasing behavior, and much more.
“By better understanding who your target audience is, you can more accurately create content that they’re likely to engage with.”
13. Backly
Sam Hurley, founder, Optim-Eyez
“Backly is one of my all-time favorite social media tools because it provides shared credit to both content publishers and the curators who spread their material. It’s simple, quick to use and integrates with other social-sharing tools like Buffer.
“Your face will appear in a pop-up on the articles you share, along with custom text and a link where you can direct visitors back to your own best content.”
14. Kicksta (formerly Kickstagram)
Cammi Pham, partner, ThinkRenegade
“With the new Instagram algorithm change, consistently posting at the right time has become even more important. Kicksta makes it easier to upload, process photos, schedule, and add hashtags to the first comment from desktop. For hashtags, I use 80% fixed and 20% tailored. This gives my team more time to focus on real-time engagement, which is life or death on social.”
15. AgoraPulse
Steve Rayson, director, BuzzSumo
“Keeping track and managing social mentions and messages is hard work. I love AgoraPulse’s approach of helping you achieve inbox zero and that great feeling when you have cleared your messages. AgoraPulse does more than bring together all your mentions and messages, it allows you to work effectively as a team to respond to everything.”
16. Venngage
Ross Simmonds, digital strategist, RossSimmonds.com
“My favorite tool is Venngage. As someone who really likes experimenting with the potential of visual content and visual communication, having access to an infographics tool that is so easy to use speeds up my visual output. Whether you are creating graphics for social, SlideShare, or a presentation, Venngage is super versatile and intuitive.”
17. IFTTT
Pam Moore, CEO and founder, Marketing Nutz
“I love using If This Then That (IFTTT) to enable native posting of images on Twitter that are originally posted to Instagram. You can set specific criteria by using hashtags or set it to post to Twitter automatically by default. IFTTT also offers a nearly limitless supply of social and cross-platform ‘recipes.’”
18. Rival IQ
Jay Baer, founder, Convince & Convert
“Rival IQ is a terrific tool to compare your own social media engagement rate and top-performing content versus your competitors’. Insightful and easy to use, it includes automated, custom reporting. One click and BAM – you have a PDF or PowerPoint deck with all the information you need to make better social media decisions. We use it daily.”
19. Foursixty
Griffin Thall, co-founder, Pura Vida Bracelets
“Pura Vida was a brand built on social media, especially Instagram. We’ve experimented a lot and use a pretty advanced e-commerce tool stack, but for social commerce, Foursixty is by far the best.
“Foursixty lets us create shoppable Instagram feeds onsite and add them to places like our homepage, product pages, and even the checkout. Conversions from the app make up roughly 17% of our online revenue. I would highly recommend it for any brand.”
20. Followerwonk
Michael Brenner, CEO, Marketing Insider Group
“Twitter remains my primary social media platform. But alone, Twitter’s unmanageable. That’s why I use Followerwonk to understand who my audience is, when they are most likely to engage, and to find followers who overlap with similar social profiles and influencers. Its analyze feature – which integrates with Buffer – tells you exactly when to post your most important updates for exposure.”
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