16 Twitter Tools for Social Media Marketers

Do you use Twitter in your social media marketing?

Want to be more efficient and productive on the platform?

To talk about a wide range of Twitter tools for social media marketers, I interview Ian Anderson Gray.

The Social Media Marketing podcast is an on-demand talk radio show from Social Media Examiner. It's designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover what works with social media marketing.

In this episode I interview social tools expert Ian Anderson Gray. Ian blogs about social tools at Seriously Social, which can be found at iag.me. He's also a website developer, speaker, and social media consultant.

Ian will explore a slew of Twitter tools for marketers.

You'll discover tools for social sharing, managing followers, analytics, and more.

Listen as Ian Anderson Gray shares sixteen tools marketers can use to get the most out of Twitter.

Share your feedback, read the show notes and get the links mentioned in this episode below.

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Here are some of the things you'll discover in this show:

Ian's background

After college, Ian says he got started in the technology sphere by building websites at the web agency he founded. Then, about five or six years ago, he became interested in social media and started blogging at Seriously Social.

Ian's blog, Seriously Social, is found at iag.me.

He shares that he was most interested in the tech side of social media. Specifically how tools could help him be more efficient and productive. That's when he began writing on social media tools. From there, Ian has moved on to consulting and speaking.

Listen to the show to discover Ian's original career path.

Social Sharing Tools

Ian starts off with missinglettr, a relatively new tool he's using as a drip-feed marketing system for Twitter. He explains that it extracts images, titles, and text excerpts from your latest blog posts, and then posts them through your Twitter account for up to a year.

Simply connect missinglettr with your RSS feed, Ian says, and whenever you have a new blog post, you're notified to go into missinglettr and review the pieces extracted from that post. Select the ones you like and edit them and you'll have a whole year's worth of content from a single blog post. For example, in a list post, Ian explains, missinglettr will likely extract the title of each section, as well as your logo, some text quotes, and images.

Missinglettr takes pieces of your blog posts and turns them into tweets.

He says Missinglettr offers a free plan that doesn't include extracting images, and quotes premium plans starting at $15 a month.

To keep up with the latest articles from his favorite authors and blogs, Ian uses Feedly. He explains how to take things a step further by connecting it with Buffer and IFTTT (If This Then That).

After you add both your Feedly and Buffer accounts to IFTTT, you can create a recipe that says IF you save an article for later in Feedly, THEN it will be added it to your Buffer queue for sharing to your Twitter followers.

Ian says it's an easy way to share the best content you find (either your own or other people's) as you read it, and mentions that it works whether you're using Feedly on a smartphone or the web. He shares that while IFTTT is free, Buffer and Feedly both offer free and paid options, and explains that for this combination to work, you'll need to have a paid Feedly account, which is $5/month.

While Friends+Me is technically a Google+ sharing tool, Ian says it works really well for cross-posting whatever you put on Google+ to Twitter, as well as other social networks. The tool offers both free and paid plans. Ian likes it because Friends+Me takes only the title of your Google+ post (it knows you have only 140 characters per tweet), the article link, and the article's image, and shares it to Twitter.

Friends+Me shares your Google+ posts to other networks.

Listen to the show to learn what Ian really likes about Friends+Me.

Content Discovery Tools

If you're looking for timely content to share, Ian suggests using the Trending Now feature of BuzzSumo. For example, if you search 'social media' on BuzzSumo, you'll find up-and-coming articles on that topic. Ian goes on to explain that you can even create an RSS feed from that search, the put the feed into Feedly.

Because BuzzSumo looks at articles that are starting to get a lot of shares, you usually find articles that are beginning to gain traction, and that's what Ian shares to his audience. To make sure his search is timely, he uses the time settings and tends to look at articles that are four to eight hours old.

Ian says BuzzSumo offers a good free option but that the trending feature comes only with paid accounts, starting at $99 per month.

Listen to the show to hear why you need more than Feedly for discovery.

Follower Management Tools

The primary tool Ian recommends for managing followers is ManageFlitter, which is available on web and mobile. He says they offer a free plan and a relatively inexpensive paid plan that starts at $12 per month.

To find relevant people to follow, Ian suggests using Power Mode to find all of the people somebody else in your industry or area of expertise follows. For instance, Ian can look at all of the people Social Media Examiner follows, and then filter that list to see only people in a particular location, who have a certain number of followers, and have had an account for more than six months. He can then use that filtered list to find people he wants to follow.

Search for potential followers who have certain characteristics on ManageFlitter.

You can also do a search to see who isn't following you and then go through and selectively unfollow people. Ian shares that one feature he uses often is the Never Unfollow List, so he never mistakenly unfollows an important account. Both Power Mode and Never Unfollow are premium features.

Ian discusses how ManageFlitter works with Twitter, and talks about daily limits on unfollows. He also cautions listeners to be careful when following new accounts. He explains that if you have 50k followers and you're following 30k, then you could likely get away with following 200 to 300 accounts per day (a number he believes is a bit excessive). If you have 300 followers, then you want to keep the number of people you're following each day down.

Another helpful tool Ian shares is Commun.it. He explains that it's more of a free segmenting tool that looks at all of the people you currently follow and divides them into influencers and supporters, giving you insight into the people who are following you and engaging with your content.

Commun.it helps you understand the different types of people who follow you.

He says Commun.it will also give you a list of people you might want to unfollow because they're not engaging with you, plus people you might want to follow.

Listen to the show to hear why Ian believes Twitter tools don't get as much notice as they used to.

Analytics Tools

Ian shares that he uses the free Twitter Analytics that are baked into Twitter. You know the information comes from Twitter so it can't be wrong, he explains. You get a lot of information, and can even download the data to an Excel spreadsheet.

Ian shares that you can find out things like how many engagements you received per tweet, which lets you see which tweets received the most likes or click-throughs. You can also see what type of tweet has been the most popular – whether it's text, link, image, video, or even lead generation cards, and which Twitter followers are most engaged with your tweets.

Ian adds that Twitter analytics give you demographic information in a variety of categories, too. This will show you where your audience lives, from country to region and city, as well as some economic indicators.

Although he's big on Twitter's analytics, Ian reminds listeners to check the analytics baked into any of the social media management tools they may be using, such as Hootsuite, SproutSocial, or AgoraPulse; more on AgoraPulse later in this episode.

Ian briefly mentions Do You Even List?, a tool that will send you a free weekly email that tells you the top people interacting with your posts, then goes on to discuss the built-in analytics found in Tweetbot, an iOS app. From within the app, you can get a glimpse of daily stats and activity including how many stars your tweets have received and how many retweets and new followers you've gotten.

Because Ian uses mostly Android devices, Mike asked him what mobile app he recommends. Ian shares that he uses the official Twitter app, as well as the mobile version of AgoraPulse because it syncs with the web app. More on AgoraPulse below.

Listen to the show to discover what Social Media Examiner did in our Twitter analytics in response to what we learned.

Monitoring Tools

Add a separate column for anything you want to monitor in Hootsuite (pictured) or TweetDeck.

Ian explains that monitoring tools let you know if someone has mentioned a particular phrase or word.

Twitter, he says, is really good at alerting you when people @mention you. However, if you want to see when someone uses your brand name or one of your competitors' names, a monitoring tool will notify you so you can get involved in the conversations.

Ian shares that if you're using TweetDeck or Hootsuite, you can create a new column to monitor specific keywords, and he says that's what he would do. For example, if you want to keep track of a competitor, you would put a Twitter search with their name in a column. Then you will see all of the people mentioning that name in one place.

Ian also discusses using Mention.net alerts to find anyone who is linking to his website.

Listen to the show to learn how Mention.net is like Google Alerts.

Engagement Tools

Ian talks about how managing engagement can be very time-consuming, especially for brands and small businesses.

He says the reason he likes AgoraPulse is that it displays all of the Twitter mentions or messages you receive in the same way other tools such as Hootsuite do. However, as you reply to each one in AgoraPulse, it disappears from view much like an email inbox – once you respond, you can archive it. You can also delegate tweets to team members and see who has responded to a tweet.

Use AgoraPulse to efficiently manage your Twitter conversations.

Because AgoraPulse has a mobile app, you can use this feature from your desktop or a mobile device.

Listen to the show to find out what other social networks AgoraPulse monitors.

Chhirp, a free app available for both iPhone and Android, lets you record up to a full minute of audio, then tweet it to your timeline on Twitter. Once the tweet hits, the audio plays within your tweet so your audience can simply click and listen to your message.

Chhirp allows you to tweet with your voice.

Setup is simple: you just give Chhirp access to your Twitter account. To record your audio, tap the Microphone button to begin and once more when you're done, then tap Send. Your audio is a Chhirp!

After recording this podcast, Chhirp was removed from the U.S. iTunes and Google Play stores.

Listen to the show to learn more and let us know how Chhirp works for you.

Today's show is sponsored by Social Media Marketing World 2016.

You can now sign up for Social Media Marketing World 2016. It's the world's largest social media marketing conference. By attending, you'll make connections with 100+ of the world's top social media pros (plus 3,000 of your peers) and you'll discover amazing ideas that'll transform your social media marketing. Speakers include Guy Kawasaki, Mari Smith, Michael Hyatt, Jay Baer, and Michael Stelzner.

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See what attendees experienced at our 2015 conference.

The event takes place in San Diego, California on April 17, 18, and 19, 2016.

In this episode, Instagram experts Jenn Herman and Sue B. Zimmerman share what they'll be speaking about at Social Media Marketing World. Jenn will be doing a session on running Instagram contests, and Sue will be talking about how to use Instagram's Direct Message feature to grow your audience and close more sales.

We also have Peg Fitzpatrick doing a session on how to make your images stand out on Instagram, and Nathan Chan is sharing how to rapidly grow your Instagram following and your email list. Plus, Matt Rozen from Adobe and Matt Steele from the San Diego Zoo are holding a panel discussion on Instagram and the power of visual storytelling.

Hundreds of people have already committed to coming to the conference and have purchased their tickets. If you've always wanted to go, visit SMMW16.com and learn more.

Click here to check out the speakers and the agenda and grab your early bird discount.

Listen to the show!

Ways to subscribe to the Social Media Marketing podcast:

What do you think? What are your thoughts on Twitter tools? Please leave your comments below.

Ian Anderson Gray talks with Michael Stelzner about sixteen Twitter tools for social media marketers.

View the original article here

Original source: 16 Twitter Tools for Social Media Marketers.
http://www.jretechnology.com

How to Easily Create Quality Social Media Images

Do you use images to support your social media marketing?

Are you looking for an easier way to create strong visual content?

You don't have to be a designer to create quality images.

In this article I'll show you how to create a variety of social media images quickly and affordably.

Discover how to easily and affordably create quality images for social media.

The first thing you need to do is set up your free Canva account. To do this, you can sign up with your Facebook account, Google account, or email address.

Set up your Canva account.

Next, select whether you'll use your account for work, personal, or educational purposes.

Choose how you plan to use your account.

Don't worry. It doesn't matter what choice you make here as it will ultimately give you the same template options and not require you to pay for your account. Because you're not paying for an account right off the bat, it puts you into a personal account by default no matter what you choose.

The upgrade option for Canva for Work will always be available if you choose to upgrade later. But there's plenty you can do in the free version, so you can stick with that for now.

The only thing you may have to pay for with the free version is any template that uses a stock photo background for which you'll be charged $1. However, I'll show you how to identify stock photo backgrounds and replace them with your own images or other stock photos if you choose.

Next, let's take a quick peek at the Canva dashboard. Once you get through the quick demo, your dashboard will look like this.

This is what your main Canva dashboard looks like.

You can click the drop-down arrow next to your name to find your Settings and View Profile links.

Click the drop-down arrow next to your name.

You can edit your profile to show your name, username, website, and location. This comes in handy if you want to share your designs with the public. Your public URL will be http://canva.com/username.

Edit your profile settings.

Only the designs you specifically toggle to become public will be public. The rest stay private.

Click on your profile photo at the top left to go back to your main dashboard. To see all of the template options available to you, click on the green Create a Design button in the left sidebar (under your profile photo) or click the +More button under Create a Design section to the right.

Click the +More button to see available templates.

This reveals 50 image templates that you can use for social media posts, documents, blogging and ebooks, marketing materials, social media and email headers, events, and banner ads. Hover over a template to see the dimensions.

Hover over a template to see its dimensions.

If you'd rather choose your own dimensions, click on Use Custom Dimensions and enter your own sizing requirements.

Enter your own custom dimensions.

Tips for Getting Started

Here are a few tips as you get started with Canva:

Suppose that you need a specific-sized image, but you can't find a template of that size. You can find a template that is larger, however. Use the larger template to create the image in Canva, export it, and then crop it to the size you want using another application like Preview (for Mac users), Gimp (free for Mac or Windows users), or another image-editing tool.

Don't limit yourself based on the template category or name. Say you're looking for a Facebook cover photo, but you don't like any of the Facebook cover photo templates. However, you do like a template that you find in the Presentations. Facebook cover photos are 851 x 315 (all dimensions given in pixels), and Presentation templates are 1024 x 728. All you have to do is make sure the design you want from the Presentation template fits within 851 x 315 when you crop it. Now you have the perfect Facebook cover photo from a Presentation template.

Now let's look at how you can create a great design using a predesigned template. The first thing your business needs to make a good first impression is consistent cover photos, header images, and channel art for your top social networks. Canva offers templates to create everything you need.

Here's something worth noting about the sizes of cover photos, header images, and channel art:

Facebook cover photo: 851 x 315YouTube channel art: 2560 x 1440Twitter header: 1500 x 500LinkedIn company page banner image: 646 x 220LinkedIn showcase page hero image: 974 x 330Google+ cover photo image: 1240 x 700

The questions you have to ask yourself are do you want to create a unique image for all of them or can you get away with one image to rule them all? According to size, a YouTube channel art image created the right way could effectively be cropped to fit all of your other properties. Or, for that matter, any Canva template that is larger than 2560 x 1440 would do.

Choose a social media template.

You'd want to look at all of your profiles and pages to ensure that you don't put any text or important graphics in a place that would be overlapped by your profile photos or buttons used by each social network.

So let's say you wanted to use the YouTube Channel Art template for everything. To start, click on the YouTube Channel Art template. On the following screen, in the left sidebar under the Layouts tab, you'll see the templates you can choose from.

Choose a layout from the Layouts tab.

When you hover over the templates, you see a $ sign for templates that include a stock photo for which you'd have to pay $1 to use, or a FREE sign for templates that have free imagery.

When you select a template, it appears in the workspace to the right where you can begin editing.

Edit your design in the workspace on the right.

Suppose want to use your own photo for your template background, and don't want to use the default stock image from Canva. Click on the background to select it. You can tell it's selected by looking at the border and what's in focus in the circle at the bottom.

Click on the background to edit it.

Next, click the trash can icon to delete the background/stock image from Canva.

Click the trash can icon to delete the background.

Now go to Uploads in the left sidebar and upload the image from your computer that you want to use as your background.

Click Uploads to upload your own background image.

Once uploaded, drag the image to your template to add it as the new background.

Drag your image to the template.

Click on any additional elements that you want to edit. For most elements, you can change the color and move, rotate, or delete them.

Click on the element you want to edit.

You can also add new elements by doing a search from the Elements tab in the left sidebar. There are plenty to choose from, with both free and premium options.

Search for elements to add to your design.

You can edit the text on the template, including the font, size, color, alignment, spacing, positioning, and rotation.

Choose a font size for your text.

Use the Text tab in the left sidebar to add new text areas. Again, you can choose from both free and premium options.

Add new text areas to your design.

If you want your text to stand out more, click on your background image and then click the Filter button to reveal advanced options.

Tweak your background image to make your text stand out.

You can adjust the brightness, contrast, saturation, blur, and other features of your background image. I suggest that you set your text as you like it first, and then adjust these settings to ensure your text is as legible as possible.

As you move elements around, Canva displays guides so you can align everything perfectly.

Use the guides to position image elements.

When you're finished, click the Download button at the top right and choose the format for your image. If you've chosen a template with a Canva stock image, you're also prompted for your credit card information to pay $1 for use of the stock image.

Click the Download button to download your image.

The design is also saved to your Canva account, so if you realize you've made a mistake or need to edit the image later, you can go back in and do so. If you need to edit an image with a Canva stock photo, you have to pay another $1 every 24 hours, so keep that in mind.

You can also toggle the option to make the image public. This is helpful if you're planning to create several images and want public feedback as to which image you should choose, similar to how people share several book cover options so their audience can help choose. You can create book covers in Canva too, by the way.

Your image filename usually corresponds to the name of the template. I like to change the filename to something more meaningful for search engine optimization. In this case, because I'm using the image for my cover photos, I changed the name of the main file to kristi-hines-freelance-writer.jpg. Then for each network, I'll add -for-facebook, -for-twitter, -for-youtube, and so on.

At this stage, I like to open up the newly created image in an image editor, and do some customized cropping and resizing for each of the social networks so, as mentioned earlier, photos and buttons don't overlap the text.

Here are the results, starting with Facebook.

A Facebook cover image.

Then Twitter.

A Twitter header image.

Then LinkedIn.

A LinkedIn company page banner image.

Ironically, the biggest issue I had was applying the template to YouTube itself. Due to their device cropping areas, the text was completely cut off unless users were viewing my channel on their TV.

YouTube channel art.

To combat this, I went back into Canva and created a duplicate of my custom template.

Create a duplicate of your custom template.

Using the duplicate copy, I shrank all of my text and moved it to a good area for cropping. Then I downloaded the images again.

Download your images.

Both images were downloaded to my computer in a folder. Alternatively, you can click the Options link and specify an image you want to download.

After adjusting the YouTube Channel Art cropping for specific devices, I ended up with this.

Redesigned YouTube channel art.

Last, but not least, with Google+, the full image is shown if users scroll up when they visit your profile. If they don't, they see only part of your cover photo like this.

Unless users scroll up, they'll see only part of your Google+ cover photo.

Hence, you might need to scoot your text down a little more by duplicating your custom template in Canva yet again and editing it accordingly. Make sure all of your text is showing, regardless of whether people scroll up or not.

As you can see, there are lots of ways to use Canva to create great professional designs for social media. And that was just for your cover photos! Now that you know how to use Canva, here are some additional images you can create to use for your social media marketing, plus some tips for each.

You know what makes one blog post in the following portion of the Twitter news feed stand out from the rest?

Custom blog post images stand out in the Twitter news feed.

If you said a custom blog post image, you'd be correct. While Salesforce may not have used Canva to create the image above, you can. Canva offers several templates for social media posts.

Choose a template for your social media post.

If you don't like the templates you see here, you can explore any of the other templates Canva offers to find the best one for your custom blog post image.

There are a few other points to keep in mind when creating a custom blog post image. For example, if you're planning to promote your blog post on Facebook through ads, be sure that your custom blog post image doesn't have more than 20% text coverage. Use this tool from Facebook to find out.

Once you've created your custom blog post image, change the filename to include the keywords you're optimizing your blog post for. Then, depending on your blog platform, plugins, and design preferences, use that image first in your blog post, in the featured image field, and in your blog post's open graph settings.

Use your custom blog post image in the featured image field.

Are you often disappointed by how your video thumbnails turn out? YouTube, Facebook, and other video networks allow you to add a custom thumbnail to your videos while uploading them or editing them after the fact.

You can add a custom thumbnail to your Facebook video.

You can increase the likelihood that people will click on your videos by making custom video thumbnails for them. Canva offers a YouTube Thumbnail template at 1280 x 720.

Create a YouTube thumbnail with Canva.

You can also use the templates that have a 1080p resolution, such as the Presentation (16:9) or Desktop Wallpaper template, both of which are 1920 x 1080. Both have layouts that are highly adaptable for videos.

If you're advertising on social media, you need a great image to capture your target audience's attention. You can choose from several Canva ad templates for social media and standard display banner ads.

Canva offers templates for social media and display banner ads.

You may want to look at the social post templates for Instagram and Pinterest ads.

Choose from the Social Media Posts templates for Instagram and Pinterest ads.

Use the Large Rectangle ad template with large text and a good cropping for LinkedIn text ads.

Preview your ad as you build it.

If you need some design inspiration for your social media ads, check out AdEspresso's Facebook Ads Gallery and Moat's Ad Directory. Note the latter is for regular banner display ads, so they'll likely break the 20% text rule that Facebook enforces.

If you want to tap into the SlideShare network to add more media options to your blog, LinkedIn profile, and social media posts, you can use Canva's Presentation templates. There are a few ways to go about it.

Use One Presentation Layout

Start with the first slide. Then duplicate that slide to create additional slides and update the text accordingly.

Create a slide and then duplicate it.

Click + Add a New Page to get additional blank slides that you can customize with elements, text, and backgrounds of your own.

When you're finished, download your slides as images or a PDF document.

Use Multiple Layouts

Start with the first slide as shown above. Then click + Add a New Page. Click on the new page you added and choose a different layout in the left sidebar.

Choose a different layout for your new slide.

Continue adding new pages and selecting different layouts for each page to create a slideshow with variety. Then download your slides as images or as a complete PDF document.

Use Different Templates Throughout Canva

Use the same idea as above, but rather than choose different layouts from the Presentation template, use different layouts from templates throughout Canva that can all be sized the same. Download each of your slides as an image.

After you download all of your slides as images, you can drop them into PowerPoint or your presentation software of choice, and then upload them to SlideShare.

In Conclusion

As you can see, there are plenty of ways you can use Canva's free version to create attractive designs for your social media marketing. These images help you create a great brand for your business, make your content stand out in the news feed, encourage people to click on your ads, give you something to hand out at networking events, and much more.

What do you think? What other ways do you use Canva for your social media marketing? Please share your favorite tips, tricks, and uses in the comments below!

Tips for marketers to quickly, easily, and affordably create quality social media images.

View the original article here

Original source: How to Easily Create Quality Social Media Images.
http://www.jretechnology.com