7 Must-Have Free Social Media Marketing Tools For Businesses

Any business that wants to exploit the social media potential needs to have the right tools in place. It is quite interesting to note that there are some businesses with tools that are subscribed to paid options. There are, however, plenty of complementary free tools that can improve how companies engage in social media marketing. This blog post discusses seven free tools that are recommended for social media use.

Canva: Best for Graphic Design and Content Creation

All social media platforms require great graphics to engage users but hiring a graphic designer is not a necessity. Canva is an easy-to-use graphic design tool that helps any business create graphics for its posts, advertisements, banners etc. Since there are a lot of template options, images, and fonts available, it can be very useful for beginners who know nothing about business design. The free plan offers extensive personalization which is a great fit for small companies that want to improve the quality of their social media posts.

Buffer: Best for Social Media Scheduling

A business concern these days is how to remain consistent across all social media platforms. Buffer surely helps in scheduling posts and managing different social platforms all in one place. With Buffer, businesses don’t need to waste time making efforts to remember the best time to post as they can plan and track each post before the engagement starts. It is great because it supports three social accounts and allows users to schedule ten posts per account all for free. It is convenient, especially for small businesses that do not need to use social media that much.

Hootsuite: Best for Social Media Management

Hootsuite stands out as a robust solution for businesses that possess several social media accounts. It allows businesses to manage posting times and updates, follow up mentions, and always evaluate the effectiveness of their content. Hootsuite provides a free version that allows you to maintain up to three social accounts and post 30 messages which you can preset. The site also comes with a streaming functionality which enables businesses to monitor keywords hashtags and mentions in real time. This would be most useful for businesses that are active on their social media pages.

Read Also: How to Optimize Your Social Media Calendar

Later: Best for Instagram Scheduling and Visual Planning

Later is a scheduling tool that is specifically designed for Instagram and allows brands to organize, visually plan and publish content across several Instagram pages. It is therefore suitable for brands who are intent on creating a visually appealing Instagram page and want to make their content planning much easier. The free plan allows users to handle up to 4 social accounts and queue 30 posts each month which is economical for small firms. Besides, ordering the content according to the style of the brand works perfectly well with Later’s drag-and-drop feature.

Google Analytics: Best for Tracking Social Media Traffic

Social media has become one of the biggest sources of advertising, regardless of the type of business, however just as important is understanding the content that drives traffic to each company's website. Understanding how visitors come to your site helps you devise traffic and targeting strategies, and Google Analytics is a free resource. It is also possible to link social media accounts to your website and analyze the movement of visitors between resources. By doing so, companies can undertake effective social media marketing maximizing the likelihood of reaching the required customers.

TweetDeck: Best for Twitter Management

For companies that utilize Twitter for business, TweetDeck is a must-have tool. This instrument is free of charge, and provides managing multiple Twitter accounts, hashtags, and mentions in one place. Businesses can send tweets through a certain delay, track conversations as they happen or even take part in them all at once on Twitter through TweetDeck. If you want to keep your Twitter game strong by keeping track of trends or interacting with your followers, TweetDeck helps you do just that, and the free plan lets you use unlimited accounts.

Mailchimp: Best for Email and Social Media Integration

Many people know Mailchimp primarily for its email marketing features, but it is also a perfect free plan for companies looking to combine both their social media marketing and email marketing efforts. This free plan allows a business to create social ads on Facebook and Instagram while sending 10,000 emails monthly to 500 subscribers. This way, companies can use Mailchimp to expand their target audience by utilizing email and social media marketing in tandem, thus increasing the flow of customers.

Conclusion

Here are seven free social media marketing tools to help businesses expand their reach on social media without incurring heavy costs. Using them, for instance, you can design beautiful graphics on Canva and Buffer allows the scheduling of posts while Google Analytics tracks the number of visitors to your site. These are especially great if you're just starting as a small business or if your business is in its growth phase as they are a great way to improve your social media marketing. Alternatively, if you feel the need to professionalize your social media marketing efforts, you may want to consider working with a social media optimization agency .

Using such free tools, businesses can stay in the competition amidst the rise of social media marketing trends.