Want to save on advertising cost while reach out of a large base of customer? Simple answer, make your content work. But the real challenge of engaging your followers and target audiences consistently and a meaningful conversation doesn’t end at a good content plan. A good content strategy must always be backed with a well thought out execution plan. To effectively manage and monitor social media channel its recommended to use social media technology that can help run launch your content into the social abyss at the right moment and pace.

Here is when you begin scouting the market for those DIY, easy to use social media tools that should fit like a glove. Matching your needs is easiest when you are a structured idea of what you actually would like to have happen. The market offers an endless list of options to choose from and they are can be classified based on the various functions and platforms they can manage. You can invest in one or a combination of social media management, research and insight, social listening, automation, social proof and content creation tools to create a well-oiled implementation system. These tools enable small to large scale enterprise requirements in a budget that won’t make you sweat. Here is a ready list of tools for you to consider;

Social media management: looking to streamline, control, manage and assign work, then look no further. Here are some options that make it simple. Free/ Trial versions are definite win while taking those decisions.

• Buffer
• Sprout Social
• Meet Edgar
• Hootsuite
• Oktopost
• Hubspot

Research and Insight: Great consumer insight goes a long way towards success in marketing. If you are hungry to know who your audience is, these tools make it easy.

• Buzzsumo
• Google Trends
• Facebook Insights
• Feedly
• Social Bakers

Social Media Listening: Brands that have a hard time listening, find it hard to make great conversations with the followers. Investing in monitoring and listening tools significantly impacts your ability to understand, connect with your audience.

• Google alerts
• Mention
• Tagboard
• Keyhole
• Tailwind

Automation: Automation doesn’t end operational task but simplifies them. Tools can perform the many actions namely; schedule and optimize posts for the most engagement, curate content from blogs you love, view reports for valuable insights across multiple networks and create custom responses to common customer queries with chatbots.

• AgoraPulse
• IFTTT
• Zapier
• SocialOomph
• SocialFlow

Content Creation: Keep the creative juices flowing with tools that make it easy to create videos, graphics, presentations, social media posts.

• Biteable
• Canva
• Animaker
• Stencil
• Pixlr

Many of the above tools offer trial versions that can help you get familiar with them.