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A Guide to 5 Free Tools for Increasing Your Social Media Success

Imogen Wright|August 2014

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MARKETING WEEK LIVE 2014

From the outside of the Olympia Grand in Kensington, the sheer scale of Marketing Week Live 2014 isn’t apparent. But stepping through the entrance with my shiny new badge, feeling a little like ‘the new girl’ on her first day, it becomes obvious that this event is absolutely huge, and everyone inside means business.

The buzz inside the venue is positively palpable and everyone – attendees and exhibitors alike – are excited and anticipating something truly tremendous. And they got it.

With over 350 stands, and almost 150 talks, seminars and training sessions over two days, this is so much more than just an exhibition.

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MARKETING WEEK LIVE 2014

Having just sourced all ResourceiT’s merchandise and freebies ready for Microsoft’s WPC2014 in Washington DC, I felt like I was well versed in the ways of branded merchandise but there were some things at MWL14 that I just wasn’t expecting; being handed a beautifully designed reusable coffee cup filled with frothy cappuccino, a stick of chocolate covered marshmallows and an origami puppy within the first five minutes to name just a few!

Although the merchandise was fun and everyone loves a freebie, I was really here to take advantage of all the learning opportunities, and now I want to share my knowledge with you lucky people. One training session that was particularly useful was “15 Tools and Techniques to Increase the Success of your Search & Content Marketing” by Kelvin Newman (@Kelvinnewman) from Rough Agenda (@roughagenda). But I know we’re all busy people so I’ve tried and tested a few and compiled this shorter list of the 5 Best Tools for Increasing your Social Media Success.

Enjoy!

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1. BLUENOD

This Twitter tool is very intuitive and straightforward. The free

version analyses 300 tweets and is perfect for seeing who has

the most social media impact around a particular topic.

What’s the Benefit?

Bluenod allows you to ensure you’re following the most influential people in your sector.

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1.BLUENOD – HOW DOES IT WORK?

Start by searching for the particular hashtag you’re interested in

– I used #new2wpc in this case. Bluenod then displays the

results like the screen shot to the right.

The general rule for Bluenod is: the larger the circle, the more

times that particular user has used the hashtag you searched for.

It is usually safe to assume that if a user is using the hashtag a

lot, they’re a ‘big fish’ in that area. Bluenod also shows you how

people are connect too – which really makes use of the

‘networking’ side of social networking!

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1.BLUENOD – HOW DOES IT WORK?

Additionally, Bluenod displays the profiles who use the hashtag,

as a list - starting with the most frequent user and reading left to

right. When you click on any of the ‘People’ tiles, it shows you

their Twitter bio, their connections and their latest tweets. You

can also follow them directly from the tool which saves you

having to search and add them on Twitter itself.

Another great feature of Bluenod is its ‘Lists’ option. This feature

includes the ‘People with 1000+ followers’ filter, which allows

you to find those who are most influential in the field of your

search term.

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1.BLUENOD – HOW DOES IT WORK?

Bluenod also provides a timeline of when the hashtag you

searched for is used most frequently which is perfect for ensuring

your tweets are going out at the right time. This could be when

many others are using the hashtag, so you’re joining in the

conversation.

One final great thing about Bluenod is the ability to share the

visuals on social media. This could be useful for providing

useable content for your followers, or you can use the link for

sharing the visuals with your colleagues.

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2. BUZZSUMO

This Twitter tool helps you find content around a particular topic

or domain.

What’s the Benefit?

Buzzsumo is great for finding existing content that people actually want to read. Whether you want to Tweet it, write a Facebook post around it, or use other’s content to build a comprehensive piece of

content of your own, Buzzsumo will show you the crème de la crème of content.

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2. BUZZSUMO

Just like Bluenod, you start by using the search bar. I’ve searched for “Dynamics AX” for this example. As you can see,

Buzzsumo shows a breakdown of where things are shared: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+, with the

content that has been share the most at the top of the list.

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2. BUZZSUMO

One really useful feature of Buzzsumo is that you can filter by type and

date. This is particularly handy if you have a specific goal in mind.

Want to tweet something compelling? Infographics work really well on

Twitter. Need something for Facebook? Videos are well received.

When you have the results displayed, you can then view the sharers.

This brings up a list of all the users who shared that particular article,

infographic or whatever it may be.

Like Bluenod, you can sort these by number of followers, allowing you

to find the most influential user to share that piece of content. Unlike

Bluenod, you can also sort by average number of retweets for each

sharer, which shows you yet another layer of popularity.

You can also filter by type of sharer. Need an article with some

industry welly? Go for Journalists. Need a ‘man of the people’ feel to

your post? Go for Regular People.

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2. BUZZSUMO

As you can see from the above, like Bluenod, you can follow people directly from the tool, saving you time as you don’t have to

go on to Twitter to search and follow them.

One more great thing about Buzzsumo is, you don’t have to sign up to anything either; you can just use the tool without having

anything clogging up your email inbox. If you do sign up however, you can export the results to Excel which is handy. Signing

up takes a matter of seconds and remember - the whole tool is free. You can’t really argue with that!

The only drawback with this tool is that the results are updated throughout the day, as opposed to in real time, so they’re not

always 100% accurate. But this is a minor drawback, considering the benefits.

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3. ÜBERSUGGEST

While Übersuggest doesn’t look very pretty, it certainly is a very

useful tool. Like a kind of extension of Google suggestions, when

you look up your search term, it gives you an Excel scrape of

everything that people type into Google when looking for

information around your search term.

What’s the Benefit?

Übersuggest is great for giving you ideas about content for your social media posts and enables you to give your customers what they want to read. It can also be used to influence your keyword

strategy, boosting SEO rankings and to optimize your PPC campaign.

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3. ÜBERSUGGEST

To get started, enter your search term into the search bar. I think

I am beginning to see a pattern with these!

Your results are then displayed like this

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3. ÜBERSUGGEST

There are hundreds of results, spanning across the

alphabet. This isn’t all of them though. Each term

expands further, like so:

You can then select which results are most relevant to you by

clicking on the plus button, which adds them to your ‘list’.

Then all you have to do is select ‘Get’ and it appears for you

ready to copy, paste and keep.

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3. ÜBERSUGGEST

As I mentioned earlier, Übersuggest is great for giving you ideas

about what your customers want to read. You may know that

you want to write about Microsoft for example, and Übersuggest

can tell you that people are searching specifically for ‘Microsoft

Family Safety’ and ‘Microsoft for Mac’, allowing you to give your

customers just what they’re looking for.

Imagine you’re writing a piece about Microsoft Lync to go on the

Services page of your website or Pinpoint profile. Übersuggest

will give you plenty of keywords to plug into your content,

boosting your SEO score and enabling prospects to find your

page quicker.

The only drawback for this tool is that it would be useful to see a

‘Most Searched’ list but as it is, it is all very simple and very very

useful indeed.

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4. KLOUT

While many companies may already use Klout for ranking their

efforts against their peers, some underestimate the power of its

‘Create’ feature. Similar to Buzzsumo, Klout enables you to find

content. However, unlike Buzzsumo, you can not input your own

search term – WPC 2014 doesn’t work – but instead, you search

topics that are already within the tool. Klout enables you to find

content that’s ‘hot off the press’, so is great for anything topical.

What’s the Benefit?

If you want to take part in some real time marketing, Klout allows you to find relevant, of the minute shareable content to share or respond to, saving you time and effort. You’re also able to schedule posts for Facebook and

Twitter and measure their impact.

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4. KLOUT

Like the other tools we’ve looked at so far, you start using Klout

by searching for your topic in the ‘Overview’ tab. I used Microsoft

in this case.

You hit ‘Get Started’ and away you go. You’re shown a list of

people known for being proficient in in the field of your search

term, and then a list of content about it.

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4. KLOUT

As you can see, again you can follow the people known for your

search term directly from the tool and can schedule Facebook

and/or Twitter posts straight away as well. You can also see the

‘Hot Off the Press’ articles in this view as well, which is a very

useful attribute of Klout.  

One of my favourite features of Klout – and it’s only very simple,

not all bells and whistles - is that if you hover over the schedule

button of a ‘Hot Off the Press’ article, it tells you down to the

hour, how old an article is, so you know just how up to date your

sharing content is.

Switch to the ‘Create’ tab and you can add up to 20 topics,

which form a ‘newsfeed’ of hundreds of articles to choose from,

all based on the things you want to talk about, meaning you’re

never lost for words on your social media platforms.

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5. FOLLOWERWONK

Followerwonk searches Twitter bios or profiles so you can find the

followers you really want.

What’s the Benefit?

By finding the people who are influential in your field, you can build yourself a relevant and ‘business-ready’ Twitter following. Although there are other tools that show you influential Twitter users,

Followerwonk has great visuals, and you can filter by ‘social authority’ which is unique to Followerwonk.

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5. FOLLOWERWONK

So how do we start…you get one guess! I used ‘Microsoft partner’ for this example.

Your results are then displayed below, with the user with the highest number of followers at the top. They can also be sorted

by number of tweets, how many users they’re following, how many days old their profile is and their all important ‘Social

Authority’ score.

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5. FOLLOWERWONK

Social authority is calculated using retweets. Followerwonk says,

For the rest of the features, you need to subscribe but they look very useful. There are a couple that are particularly

noteworthy:

1) Social graph relationships - this feature shows you visuals of the relationships of users, and you can filter the results to

show followers of you, the users you follow, and bidirectional relationships.

2) Mutual followers/following venn diagram - this feature allows you to choose two or more influential users and shows you

their mutual followers or users they mutually follow. This allows you to build an even more comprehensive Twitter account.

While the search tab is free to use, the rest of the tabs are a paid for service. However, there’s a free trial for 30 days so I

would go ahead and take advantage of that!

We look beyond how many well-known followers people have – our immediate concern is a user's retweet activity and others' affinity for what they

share.

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Five Great Tools for Increasing Your Social Media Impact

So there you have it:

Personally, BlueNod and Übersuggest are my favourites. What are yours? Tweet at us and let me know! @Resourceit_Ltd