Useful Social Marketing Apps
There are a million and a half programs designed to make your social media marketing game more efficient and more aesthetically pleasing. Even so, it can be hard to find one that works for your budget and goals. In my experience, it’s been a process of trial and error. But here are a few tried and true applications that make my life a little easier.
Adobe Spark Mobile:
Adobe Spark can be purchased as part of the Creative Cloud, but I have the mobile application, Adobe Spark Post, downloaded on my phone and absolutely love it. Primarily I use Spark for creating Instagram stories or resizing photos.
Pros: Spark allows you to select from hundreds of templates to create social posts. Once you select a template, you select the size (everything from Facebook banners, Twitter in-timeline posts or Instagram stories), and begin creating your graphic. You have complete control of text, with the ability to change the font, color, weight, line height, etc. Perhaps my favorite part of the app is the ability to not only add photos from your library but to include logos, for branded content, and icons, which are great for making Instagram story highlight covers. You can also add animation to the posts to bring your post to the next level. It’s easy to export to your library or post directly from the app.
Cons: It’s a bit tedious to do on your phone. You can download the computer version, however then you end up having to send to your phone anyway in the event of posting Instagram stories.
Grammarly:
Grammarly is a must-use tool if you write copy for anything. It checks spelling and grammar in google search fields, web code, emails, MailChimp, you name it. It’s a plug-in for your computer, so it automatically scans whatever you’re working on, checking for any errors.
Pros: You don’t have to remember to run a “spell check.” Because it lives as a browser plug-in, that extra step is eliminated. Grammarly just underlines any errors it finds in red, giving you the option to right click on the error and select one of their corrections or click ignore to eliminate the red line.
Cons: It doesn’t work in Google Docs… yet. Google does a good job of catching spelling errors, so the need for Grammarly isn’t as important, however, because I work in Google Docs a lot, I personally can’t wait until they are compatible with everything on the Drive.
DashThis:
This is social media reporting made easy. DashThis is a program I use for internal social media reporting. It is connected to all of the platforms, both paid and organic and allows me to see progress made in one month.
Pros: DashThis presents analytics both visually and numerically. I can see trends over the lifetime of a particular social account, or I can compare to the previous period of time (typically a month). It also shows you what percent increase or decrease you had in the previous cycle, as well as the same cycle a year ago. You can customize the dashboard for each platform for how you want to report. It allows you to add comment fields where you can summarize data or offer suggestions. It also has the ability to export data to a PDF. I also really love that it shows you the top performing posts in each period of time.
Cons: It doesn’t define what each metric is. In terms of sharing this content with a client, it would be helpful to have a brief sentence or “hover-over” feature that gives a definition of “engagement” versus “impressions.” That is an extra step I would have to explain in a separate document. However, because we use this primarily internally, it ends up not being a big deal.
ColorStory:
Any Instagram grid perfectionists out there? ColorStory is an organizers dream come true. It’s a photo editing app that also lets you plan your grid.
Pros: ColorStory links to your Instagram profile and allows you to plan out your profile grid, by populating already published posts and letting you upload new images to see how they work in the space. It’s a good way to stay on-track and on-brand within your profile. I love how it mimics the Instagram profile and gives you the ability to drag and drop images in place to see how they look. It’s also great to see how non-square images will populate in your grid. While Instagram allows you to post any size image, it will reformat it into a square for the grid. A ColorStory allows you to see how it will crop the photo.
Cons: I’m not a fan of the photo editing functionality in the app. I typically edit photos elsewhere and just use the grid planning feature. It does allow you to publish instantly from the app, but the “scheduling” function is really just sending you a reminder to post at the time you set.
There are so many more apps that I use on a regular basis, but these continue to be a few of my favorites and just make my life easier.