Do you know what the best social media and marketing tools are? Are you using the right social media tools and services to build your online presence?

There are so many easily available online services and tools. It can be hard for you to unearth the right ones.

When I started out, the best tools and services to build my online presence were not in my tool box.  I was cautious back then, and I had a tight budget.

That being the case, I made the mistake of using the cheapest of the cheapest tools I could find.  as I had no one to guide me the right way. This affected my results. I wish I knew the right tools to use. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t go with the cheapest or that you should go with the most expensive tools. You should go with the ones that best suit your business and needs.

To make it easy for you to find the best tools and services I have created a list of resources that I highly recommend to help build your social media and online presence. Many of these tools have been instrumental in helping me construct my websites, blogs and social media presence.

Note: The links to some of the products and services below are affiliate links. So when you make a purchase, I will receive a commission at no additional cost to you. You will only find information and links to products I believe in as I want my readers to get the best experience and results. This is one of the reasons why I keep the blog ad free.

The Essentials          

Hostgator: A good hosting service is essential in helping you build a powerful blog. When I created my first blog and website, the biggest mistake I made was to choose the cheapest hosting option available. This cost me dearly as it slowed down the loading time.

When people visit your website, they don’t wait long for it to load. They want it done in seconds so that they can view what they would like to quickly. If it doesn’t they will just leave and find another site. So you should choose a good host like Hostgator. I have been using HostGator for more than 2 years and I am really happy with their service. When I switched to them I realized that my site loaded a lot faster. This made it easier for me to retain visitors.

Hootsuite: With over 9 million users Hootsuite is probably the most popular social media management tool. Using Hootsuite you can manage your Facebook, Google+, Linkedin and Twitter accounts and pages in one place itself. You will be able to schedule posts, interact with fans and followers and analyse performance with this one tool. They have several other features and they keep introducing more. You will also be able to create several streams which will help you see all your feeds in one place.

 

Aweber: Email should definitely be a part of your business. Social media has played a key role in helping me grow my website and blog, but what has been more important is email. Email helps me drive traffic and build close relationships with my blog readers.

Many bloggers find that email converts a lot better than social media. A study by McKinsey shows that email is 40 times better than Facebook and Twitter combined in helping you acquire customers. I have only used one tool for email marketing since the beginning and that is Aweber. It only costs $1 for the first month. Using it you can create attractive sign up forms, automated emails and track how well they perform. You also have various templates and designs which can beautify the emails you send.

 

GoDaddy: GoDaddy is the service I use to purchase new domains. They provide a really helpful and secure service. Use this link to get a 28% discount when you purchase new products on GoDaddy. They offer other services like web hosting too.

 

 

StudioPress: You will find thousands of free WordPress templates to use for your new WordPress blog. But if you have a little money to invest in your blog, I would ask you to go for a paid one with a trusted service like StudioPress. StudioPress and their experienced group of designers create highly effectively templates along with their Genesis framework. These templates/themes are SEO optimized and very beautiful and can make your blog into a powerful machine. If you are willing to go for a paid one use a StudioPress template along with their Genesis framework. You also get to use some free premium plugins along with these themes/templates. The blog you are reading right now runs on StudioPress.

 

Social Media Tools and Services

Hootsuite: As I mentioned above Hootsuite is probably the best social media management tool. It makes it easy for you to schedule messages and updates and to engage back with your fans to build a powerful social presence. They have got several features that make managing your social presence on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Linkedin a piece of cake.

 

Buffer: Buffer is a social media management tool that helps you schedule updates on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Linkedin. Even though Hootsuite offers scheduling on these networks, I find Buffer a lot easier to use as you can preset timings on each of these networks for everyday of the week and then automatically add your posts to these timings. This tool also makes it easy to add images to your updates. Hootsuite and Buffer are the social media management tools every business requires. They work great together.

 

ShortStack: Facebook is the most powerful social network at the moment with over 1 billion users. If you want to make full use of it and generate leads, you need to take advantage of their tabs feature by placing apps in them. Shorstack can help you with this. UsingShortStack you can create landing pages which can be used to get the email address of your page visitors, you can create a welcome page, a contact page and you can also run contests. Here’s a list of 5 things you can do with ShortStack.

 

Agora Pulse: Only a small percentage of your Facebook fans can see your social media updates. It used to be about 16%, but in November 2013 Facebook made a change that caused this reach to decrease a lot more. For some this decrease was as high as 88%. This makes Facebook analytics very important. Businesses need to take it very seriously, so that they can analyse and figure out things like the best time and day to share, what to share, key influencers, etc. These features will help page owners cope with the changes and reach their audiences. A tool that can help you with its advanced analytics (and several other) features is Agora Pulse.

 

Curalate: It’s not just your Facebook page that needs a special analytics tool, your Pinterest and Instagram pages do too. Curalate is a fantastic tool that can help you with this. Using this tool, you can measure analytics on instagram and Pinterest, schedule updates (pins), run contests, crowdsource images and perform various other things. Overall this is a very advanced tool.

 

ManageFlitter: ManageFlitter is a powerful Twitter tool with many features. But one feature that stands out is the not following back feature. As you use Twitter you will realize that many people follow you and then unfollow you in order to look good with a huge followers to unfollowers ratio. A tool that can help you easily weed out people who have unfollowed you is ManageFlitter. Use it to only build Twitter relationships with people who care.

Blogging

Hostgator: As I mentioned at the beginning this is one of the best web hosting services. It is also very affordable. Hostgator will get your site to load a lot faster which can play a key role in visitor retention. I use it for all my blogs.

 

StudioPress: As I mentioned at the top, StudioPress with its Genesis framework and its collection of beautiful, well designed and seo optimized WordPress themes/templates is very effective. Use it to get the best out of your WordPress blog.

 

GoDaddy: GoDaddy is a great service for purchasing domain names and keeping them secure. I use them to buy my domains. If you visit GoDaddy with this link you will get a 28% discount when you purchase products from their website.

 

Email Tools and Services

Aweber: Aweber is my favourite email tool, I use it for all my blogs to obtain email addresses through sign up forms to build newsletters and drive traffic to my site. They have a collection of sign up forms, email templates, etc. which can help you get the best. You can also track the performance of your emails with the analytics feature Aweber offers. This can help you create emails that will reach your audience and convert better.

 

OptinMonster: Aweber is great to manage your list and reach them, but they haven’t got the best popover forms to help you obtain more email addresses. Popover forms are forms that pop up on a website asking people to sign up with their email address when you visit. They can help increase your blog subscription rate by 300%. OptinMonster can be used to create beautiful popover forms that convert better. Unlike most popup forms, OptinMonster has many advanced features that can boost your results. You have different design templates, ability to add images, page and post targeting and several other features. Try them out and you won’t be disappointed. OptinMonster can be integrated with many email services like Aweber, Constant Contact, Mail Chimp, etc.

 

Plugmatter: Another sign up form that you need to install on your blog is the feature box. This is the sign up form that is placed right at the top of your home page. Daily signups can be increased by 50% after installing this form. You can add it to your blog with ease in about 10 minutes by using the PlugmatterWordPress plugin. You have a series of modifiable templates that will also ensure that your blog looks good with the form on top. You can choose whether you would like the form to only be placed at the top of the home page or on all pages and posts. Plugmatter can be integrated with several other email services like Aweber, ConstantContact and MailChimp. For a list of all the email services it can be integrated with and tips on how to use it read this post.

 

SEO Tools

Scribe: SEO should be an important component of your blog if you would like to drive more search engine traffic. One of the building blocks of SEO is well optimized content with keywords in the right places. A tool that can help ensure that your content is well optimized is Scribe.

Scribe will analyse your content and inform you know if your content is perfect for SEO or is lacking in certain aspects. It will show you the right places to add targeted keywords so that your posts will appear higher in search results. Scribe can also help you with keyword research and suggest blog topics to write on. It can be integrated with Microsoft Word to make the writing part easier.