An effective social media marketing strategy requires you to post new, fresh content on your social media profiles regularly. Businesses that are successful on social media often post content a few times a day.

However, simply posting frequently is not enough for a business to succeed on social media. The engagement generated by your posts is equally important. Businesses that use social media are constantly looking for ways to increase engagement whether is obtaining likes on Faccebook, reTweets on Twitter or shares on other social networks. This is where scheduling can help. It allows a business to post content at times that receive the best engagement from users.

The ability to measure and track your performance is also very important for a business to be successful on social media.

Unfortunately, all these tasks take time and effort. Maintaining an active social presence and performing all tasks manually can easily become a drain on your company’s resources. Fortunately, there are many free tools that can help increase efficiency and productivity of your business on social media.

In this article we take a look at 5 such must have tools that your business cannot afford to miss. In my personal experiences, these tools are a must if you want your business to succeed with your social media marketing efforts.

1. Buffer

Buffer lets you to deliver your content to users at times it receives the most attention and has the highest potential to go viral.  It is a free tool that offers a new and smarter way to share your content on Social Media. It makes it easy to post to multiple social networks at once and achieve the best results. Studies show that using Buffer can increase engagement by up to 200%.

The best thing about Buffer is that it spreads your posts at optimal times throughout the day to achieve the best results. All you have to do is keep your queue topped up with interesting content and it will do the rest for you.

It currently supports Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Other networks are expected to be added soon. After you have completed your set-up, you will be adding content to Buffer instead of sharing it individually on your Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn profiles.

Main Benefits of Using Buffer?

• Buffer maintains a post queue and spreads the posts at optimal times throughout the day.
• Buffer lets you post to several social networks at once
• One of the best things that sets Buffer apart from others, is its ability to schedule your posts automatically to achieve better results.

How to Use Buffer

It is very easy to use Buffer. You can be up and running within minutes. Brief instructions on how to use Buffer are given below:

• Step 1: Create A Free Account
•  Step 2: Connect Your Social Networks
• Step 3: Install the Buffer Ad-on On Your Browser.
• Step 4: Customise and adjust post times
• Step 5: Start posting to Twitter and Facebook using your Buffer button.

2. HootSuite

Hootsuite is one of the most popular and widely used social media tools. It offers free and paid versions. HootSuite is an essential tool for managing social networks by allowing teams to efficiently track conversations and measure campaign results.” Like Buffer, it also lets you schedule your posts for optimal results.

Improve productivity by managing all of your social networks within HootSuite. The dashboard is designed for you and your team to listen, engage and measure all from one simple interface.

It integrates the following networks:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Google Plus Pages
• Foursquare
• Myspace
• WordPress
• Mixi

Additionally you ca use HootSuite’s app directory to add even more social networks and tools into your dashboard.  Example networks include Tumblr, YouTube, Flickr, as well as marketing focused tools such as MailChimp, SocialFlow, InboxQ, Constant Contact, and many more.

How to use HootSuite?

• Sign-up for a free account
• Connect your social networks
• Install the HootSuite browser plugin
• Click on the browser toolbar to share content as you browse the Internet

Benefits of Hootsuit

• Makes it easy to share content across several social networks
• Use browser add-on to post as you browse without the need to login seperarately
• Use automatic scheduling feature for best results

3. Bit.Ly

Bitly gained recognition and popularity as a URL shortener but it has since expanded and offers additional services. It now also offers bitmarks which can be used to share links to your favourite content much like other social bookmarking services like Digg or Stumble upon.

Marketers and businesses use Bitly to shorten links before sharing across various social networks. One of the main advantages of Bitly is the ability to track and monitor your shares.

How to Use Bitly?

• Sign-up for a free account
• Use the URL shortener to shorten your links
• Use Bitmarks to organize and share your links
• Integrate bitly with other social media dashboards such as Hootsuite to use the service directly from the dashboard

Benefits of Using Bitly?

Shortening URL gives you more space in your status updates that you can use to get your message across. This is particularly effective on sites like Twitter that offer a 140 character limit.

Shortening your URL’s with Bitly also allows you to use Bitly’s tracking system to monitor your shares. You can track the engagement your shares receive across all social networks including the number of times the links are clicked and shared by other users. has expanded access to its data archive, improved discovery and introduced an entire redesign, so that you may more easily monitor your shortlink shares.

4. IFTTT

IFTTT is a free web based service that lets you create powerful connections that automate various aspects of your online presence. You can use it to automate repetitive tasks like:

• Sending new blog posts automatically to several social networks
• Fetching and sharing content on specific topics from other sites and blogs
• Automatically posting your Instagram photos to your Dropbox
• Sharing your content as well as others content on other sites used by your business like Tumblr, WordPress, and more
• Creating email or SMS notifications when specific topics are covered on supported sources
• Automating dozens of other tasks on over 50 supported channels

IFTTT works on the concept of Channels and recipes which are two key elements of the service. Channels refer to the sites IFTTT can connect to. Recipes are a combination of Triggers and an Actions that can be performed automatically.

How to Use IFTTT:

• Create a free account
• Connect various channels your business uses e.g. Instagram, Blog, Facebook, Twitter and dozens more
• Create recipes to automate your actions

Benefits Of Using IFTTT:

IFTTT by far supports the most number of channels when compared to other tools and services. While other leading tools like Buffer and Hootsuite support 4 to 8 channels, IFTTT supports over 50 channels.

It is by far the most powerful way to automate your online marketing tasks. It goes beyond social media. It also connects with email, phone, Google talk, SMS, dropbox, and more.

5. Klout

Klout was founded in 2008 to empower everyone to unlock their influence. It has become the global standard for measuring online influence. It measures your combined online influence by aggregating activity across several leading social networks including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Plus.

How to Use Klout:

Full step by step instructions for Klout were covered previously on this site. A summary is included below.

• Sign-up for a free account or login using your Facebook or Twitter account
• Connect your accounts
• Use it monitor influence as well as identify other users that influence you so you can form relationships and connect with them

Conclusion:

Although studies have identified the best time to post on respective social networks, this can vary from business to business depending on factors such as your targeted audience. It is this better to look at your stats to determine the time that works best for your business rather than and drives most engagement.

Many studies have been conducted in this area. It is however important to note that the best time to post may vary from user to user and site to site depending on your targeted audience and other factors.