SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS
for BUSINESS BUYERS
Guide
By Neal Schaffer
Version 1.0 (Winter 2015)

As co-founder of the
Social Tools Summit, the
first social media industry
conference focused on tools
and best practices in utilizing
them to scale ROI, I've had
the pleasure to engage with
tens, if not hundreds, of
social media tools vendors.

I wanted to create a
resource for you to
help you with your
social media tools audit
by focusing on those
tools that I recommend
you take a look at.

I've tried to create a
comprehensive list of the
leading social media tools
while highlighting those
vendors who sponsored
Social Tools Summit
as well as those tools that I
personally use and
recommend.

If you don't see a tool
here that you think
should be added, or if
your tool is in the wrong
category, comment
below or ping me: I plan
on updating this
resource regularly.

Simply click on each
company's logo to jump
directly to their website.

Employee advocacy was a
topic that permeated almost
every session at the recent
Social Tools Summit 2015 in
San Francisco and is currently
the hottest trend in
corporate social business.
Employee Advocacy
1

Use an advocacy platform to
help exponentially leverage
the voice of those that are
already supporting you:
your employees.
Employee Advocacy
1

Read my
GaggleAMP Review
Engage your employees to amplify your
online marketing campaigns. GaggleAMP
allows you to transform your employees
into an online marketing engine.

PostBeyond enables employees to post
approved brand content to their
personal networks in an efficient,
consistent, and measurable way.

SocialChorus is the daily news app for
work. The app delivers relevant news to
employees to keep them informed and
engaged, while unlocking advocacy.

SoCXO helps drive word-of-mouth
publicity allowing marketers to reach a
wider audience through influencer
network and impact purchase decisions
and boost bottom lines.

Other Tools

Influencer marketing continues to
be a hot trend as more and more
brands realize that it is a powerful
way to tap into communities
and extend the reach of brands
through help of those with
powerful social media presences.
Influencer Marketing
2

Tools can help as part of the
process of identifying,
engaging, recruiting, and
analyzing the ROI of your
influencer marketing program.
Influencer Marketing
2

Grytics is a Facebook Groups Analytics
tools designed to help group admins
manage their communities.

Little Bird is the
only influencer
marketing
platform that can
help businesses
segment social
data on demand
to find
influencers
shaping market
intent on Twitter.

Traackr is a global, end-to-end
influencer management solution
including influencer identification,
relationship management, and success
measurement.

Other Tools
Read my
Klout Review

Other Tools

Every social media program
relies on content, but how do
you crowdsource, source, curate,
organize, publish, repurpose,
analyze, and measure your
content marketing efforts?
Content Marketing
3

Use content marketing tools
to leverage content platforms
to ensure you spend less time
and publish higher quality
and engaging content for
your brand.
Content Marketing
3

BuzzSumo helps content marketers
create better content through research,
amplification and monitoring. Find top
content and key influencers for any topic.

Edgar is a social media scheduling tool
that saves every post users upload &
shares them again and again over time,
so they can deliver their content to a
wider audience in less time.

Read my
LikeableLocal Review
Likeable Hub is
the first social
media
automation tool
for small
businesses.
Boosting your
presence on
social media has
never been
easier.

Other Tools
Read my
Blappsta Review
Read my
Curata Review

Other Tools

The next generation of
social media is visual social
media marketing, with the
growth of purely visual social
networks such as Instagram,
Snapchat, and Pinterest.
Visual Social
4

Very few companies are
leveraging the immense
potential that visual marketing
have for them because
traditional social media
dashboards offer you little help.
Visual Social
4

Fortunately, a new
generation of social tools
purely focused on visual
marketing have emerged that
can help generate ROI-- visually.
Visual Social
4

Content is king, and live video is the king
of content. Livestreams have the power
to propel a good content marketing
strategy to greatness—let us help!
Read my
AbbsonLive Review

Ditto is image recognition technology
that lets marketers detect consumer
affinities in the billions of public photos
shared on social media.

PostCreator gives
you the power to
create branded
social media
visuals with ease.
Just upload an
image, overlay a
message, add
your logo and post
directly to your
social accounts.

Tailwind, the leading visual marketing
platform, makes it easier to create,
publish, track and promote your visual
content on Pinterest and Instagram.
Read my
Tailwind Review

Other Tools
Read my
Visme Review
Read my
Onlypult Review

If you're not maximizing the use
of social media contests
to engage your communities
and expand your following,
you're missing out on a plethora
of opportunities for your brand.
Engagement Marketing
5

Social media contests apps
have come a long way over the
last few years and now offer
multi-platform support,
CRM functionality, and
more.
Engagement Marketing
5

Thought leadership platform with
shareable curated content. Create
your social media enabled AhaBookTM
in hours & have your AhaMessagesTM
shared for years!

Easily manage social workflows, identify
content and influencers that matter,
and monitor reactions as they occur
with Cision Social Edition.

TINT helps organizations beautifully
display any of their or their audiences’
social media content onto any website,
TV screen, projector, digital display, and
jumbotron in minutes.

Other Tools
Read my
PromoSimple Review
Read my
EasyPromos Review
Read my
TabSite Review

Other Tools

A social media analytics and
intelligence tool is your best
friend at helping you find
deeper insights into your
presence, your customers, your
competition, your content, and
ultimately your ROI.
Analytics
6

These tools of social business
intelligence can help you
measure, integrate, and
analyze.
Analytics
6

Brandwatch
Analytics is a
leading social
intelligence
platform, gathering
millions of online
conversations daily
and empowering
users to make
insightful business
decisions.

Read my
SimplyMeasured
Review
Simply Measured is the industry’s
leading social analytics solution, helping
marketers prove the value of social
while enabling them do their best work,
simply.

An advanced social media analytics
platform that helps businesses make
better decisions using accurate social
data.

Other Tools
Read my
Komfo Review

Other Tools

Some of the first social media tools
were focused on monitoring, and
those tools have vastly evolved to
transform your listening
and monitoring efforts
into providing its users an
invaluable source of analytics
and business data.
Listening
7

Data and intelligence derived
from listening can be utilized
throughout the enterprise.
Listening
7

Synthesio provides enterprise Social
Listening, analytics and social ROI in
one simple tool. Social Intelligence.

Other Tools

Social media dashboards are the
workhorses for social media
marketing as they provide a
one-stop platform for all of
your social media needs, from
monitoring and posting to
analytics and in some cases
compliance.
8 Social Media Dashboard

However, no two dashboards are
created equally, and
optimizing workflows
around the various social media
dashboards can lead to a
significant increase in your social
media marketing efficiency.
8 Social Media Dashboard

Read my
AgoraPulse Review
This dashboard for Facebook, Twitter,
and Instagram helps you easily manage
conversations, schedule posts, find
influencers, and download stats.

Other Tools
Read my
Hoostsuite Review
Read my
Oktopost Review
Read my
PostPlanner Review

Other Tools

Multiple data points already
suggest that sales people that
use social media as part of
their sales process
outperform those that don't.
9 Social Selling

Social selling tools will help
maximize the use of your
sales team's time and make
it easy for them to
incorporate social selling
into their sales toolbox.
9 Social Selling

rFactr SocialPort™ is the only Enterprise
Social Communication Platform
technology that can manage digital
selling and advocacy initiatives.

Socedo discovers relevant prospects
based on Twitter activity, qualifies them
through automated engagement, and
provides access to valuable lead data.

Know your fans
and market
smarter with
one all-inclusive
platform for
engagement
campaigns,
user-generated
content
aggregation,
social login and
CRM.

Other Tools

Servicing your customer in
social media where they
spend their time is no
longer an option for many
companies.
10 Social Media for
Customer Service

Social tools developed
specifically for social media
customer service can bring a
variety of benefits to your
support team.
10 Social Media for
Customer Service

Other Tools

Tools are an
Important Way
for Companies
to Scale Their
Social Media
1

Meet the social
media tools
vendors and learn
best practices in
using them from
corporate social
media
professionals.
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