Free Tools to Support Your Social Media Marketing
02/10/2021 | Share:
Social media is a hugely powerful tool for ecommerce websites. The ability to engage with consumers and create a sense of community goes hand in hand with being able to direct shoppers towards an attractive deal or new product.
Interactions through social media can be crucial to retain consumers in today’s highly competitive online market. But, it isn’t always easy to do it effectively, and here’s where this post should help. We will look at the most powerful free tools to support your social media marketing and explain how to use them effectively.
Social Media Analytics
Social media analytics (termed SMA) refers to collecting data and evaluating it to make better business decisions. This runs across all platforms; Facebook, Twitter, review sites, and forums; basically anywhere that consumers can share their feelings or opinions online.
Ecommerce owners will be able to see how well they’re doing on the platforms, for example, how many people are clicking their links, watching their videos, and how many people were reached with a social media post. This will give a real insight into what gains engagement and what isn’t faring so well.
Canva.com
Canva.com is an excellent free resource that ecommerce businesses can use to create image layouts for infographics, business cards, flyers, and so on. But, Canva is particularly beneficial to use for social media image generators, where visuals truly matter.
Canva is a valuable service that provides the right-sized templates for each platform, resulting in professional imagery for your brand – for free. There is a Pro account option, which, although not free, is low in cost and unlocks more design elements, as well as a one-click resizing tool for images across different social media platforms.
Bitly
Bitly is a URL shortener, which is essential when you need to appear professional with your written content. Longer URLs, simply put, look unprofessional, but smaller and neater URLS slotted into creative pieces of content are much more encouraging for a potential consumer to click, follow, and act.
By using Bitly on platforms such as Twitter, where word count is crucial, you can fit in more of the information you want to get across without the post being taken up with unsightly links.
Hemingway App
Content is key online, and it is a huge turn-off for potential consumers when it is poorly written. Content gives an impression of your business, value, and brand, and as consumers read it, they will form an opinion, so great content is a powerful tool in building brand trust.
The Hemingway App checks the quality of your writing, grammar, and spelling, for free (although a paid-for version is available). You enter your content to receive a readability grade, and any errors are highlighted, with options provided on how to change it to upgrade your grade.
With this free tool, you can make your content more readable, your message more concise, and any errors rectified. It fundamentally proofreads and edits your document and enhances it in all important areas.
Google Analytics
Yes, this is not strictly social media, but you can see all social media referrals to your website, which will help you to evaluate your performance. With Google Analytics, you’re able to learn what type of content engages your audience, what they prefer, and what they respond to. This knowledge is crucial in knowing how to drive more traffic to your ecommerce website.
Medium
Medium is rarely mentioned as a top platform for social media; however, businesses today are starting to realise the power of this free tool and its many benefits. Medium is a platform for content, where three types of audiences can reach it: your followers, your company’s readers, and those who follow the tag.
Once you upload a piece of content to Medium, it will be showcased to those you’re already connected with. Medium users can recommend your content to their own followers, and with over 200 million views per month and more than 100,000 active writers, this could be an excellent place to grow your business.
You could write about anything to do with your company, the products, current trends, advice for newcomers, or even funny stories. The key is to ensure there is a nod to your business somewhere and that the content is engaging enough to entice people to want to know more about you.
Top Tip: Use Hemingway App to ensure your content is worthy for Medium!
Social Blade
Social Blade performs analytics of YouTube channels and returns statistics in various forms, including graphs and charts. If you have a YouTube channel, then Social Blade is a vital tool to gauge your channel’s performance, as well as the performance of your competitors.
There is a paid-for consultation feature, where you can have a one-to-one consultation with a YouTube expert who will advise you on how to best use the platform for your business.
Facebook Shop
With nearly 70% of all adults with internet access using Facebook, this is a platform that you need to be using for business marketing. It has many tools and features that can be paid for, such as video adverts, but there’s a wealth of free tools too, and none more significant for today’s ecommerce businesses than Facebook Shop.
Facebook shop allows businesses to create an online shopping experience free of charge. This means that you can showcase your products, explain their benefits, detail their features, and engage with potential consumers.
A Facebook shop is a great way to grow an ecommerce business, allowing you to gain more customers by tapping into new audiences. It is straightforward to share content and an excellent way to market your products, increase sales and boost your online presence.
Conclusion
The internet is the way to make it in today’s business world, especially social media. With so many platforms offering free tools for marketing, business exposure, and growth, the only investment you need to make is time.
