Maintaining a stellar social media presence is no small task. Between creating content, posting images, and growing your following, you’re going to need some help along the way. Chairish’s Social Media Manager, Skylar Frederick, relies on a trusty arsenal of programs and mobile apps to keep our accounts in tip top shape, which she discussed in our recent webinar. From photo editing to Instagram stories, to analytics and more, these are the social media tools you should be using to help your business stand out online. Get a sneak peek at some of the tips below, and watch the full webinar HERE!
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Photo Editing
Visuals are the driving force behind every social media platform. Whether you’re posting on Instagram, Pinterest, or even Twitter, great photography matters. But beyond taking great photos, you’re going to want to make some edits to them as well. These apps make it easy to edit on-the-go and in just a matter of minutes!
Snapseed
If you don’t want to toggle between multiple apps when editing photos, Snapseed is your one-stop-shop. It’s easy to use and can do everything from basic editing to adding fun effects. It’s best for things like adding brightness or contrast, removing shadows, and adjusting saturation and warmth. The healing tool is our favorite for removing unwanted spots in your images (like dirty walls or pesky cords), while the selective tool makes it easy to apply edits to select areas of your image.
VSCO
Having a consistent theme or aesthetic on your feed is a great way to make your profile really stand out. To take your photos one step further, use VSCO, which offers a variety of filters. We recommend sticking to one filter family (they’re categorized by letter) or even just one or two filters for all of your photos to keep your look uniform. Depending on what look you’re going for, VSCO has a large library of filters to choose from.
Adobe Photoshop Express
We regularly use Photoshop when we’re editing on a desktop, but Photoshop Express is quickly becoming our new favorite mobile app. At its core, it’s fairly similar to Snapseed, but it has a few additional features that really make it stand out. Trying to make a graphic or edit a photo for multiple social platforms? Photoshop Express offers templates to crop your images to the exact aspect ratios of everything from your Facebook Cover photo to a stand-out pin and even YouTube thumbnails. You can also easily create collages, and add text, graphics, and frames to images. Better yet, if you’re already using Photoshop on your desktop, you can connect it to the mobile app to unlock even more features on your phone, and even send your final versions as PSD files to your desktop.
Scheduling
Sometimes, posting on social media is the last thing you have room for in your busy schedule. But thanks to some recent platform and technology updates, you can now schedule your content ahead of time, making posting so much easier. There are a variety of different management platforms depending on your needs and budget, but these are our favorite free programs! It’s important to note that these scheduling tools will only work if you’re setup as a business account on Instagram.
Hootsuite
Hootsuite makes it super easy to schedule content for a variety of social platforms. They also offer social media monitoring tools which help you to see what other users are talking about, follow key conversations in real-time and respond in a timely manner. With their free plan, you can schedule up to 30 posts per month on up to 3 social profiles.
Later
Not only does Later allow you to easily schedule your Instagram posts, but you can also visually plan out your feed with their easy-to-use content calendar and drag and drop feature. With the free plan, you can schedule up to 30 posts per month.
Instagram Stories
Want to take your Instagram Stories to the next level? These apps will have you posting creative, eye-catching stories in no time. No graphic design experience needed!
Unfold
Unfold provides you with a variety of templates to turn regular photos into stunning, elevated visuals. Add borders, frames, text, make collages and even combine photos and videos in one slide with this incredibly easy-to-use app. The bonus? All of the templates are pre-sized to fit on Instagram stories.
Inshot
As video becomes increasingly important, Inshot is the editing app you need for movie-making magic. You can easily change the canvas size of your video to fit the needs of a variety of different platforms, trim and string together multiple clips, change the speed, add backgrounds and music, and so much more. You can also do the same with your photos, though we use this app almost exclusively for video. The app is free, but if you want to remove the watermark on your content you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Linking and Driving Traffic
Instagram only allows you to have one website link in your profile, and you can only add links to Stories if you have over 10k followers. If you’re sharing a blog post, press hit, or just want to link to your portfolio, these tools help you turn your one website link into multiple links by creating beautiful landing pages for your content.
Linktree
Linktree creates a custom bio link to house all of the content you want to drive traffic to. Easily paste in new URLs and drag and drop your links to reorder them. Bonus, Linktree provides insights into how many clicks each of your URLs are getting. While the landing page doesn’t allow you to add images (other than your profile photo), it’s the best free option available.
Link In Profile
If you find that you want to add links to the majority of your Instagram posts, Link In Profile is an easy to use and manage solution. It provides you with a dedicated landing page full of your Instagram images so it’s not only user-friendly but also visually pleasing. Unfortunately this program requires a little investment, you can try it out for 30 days to see if it’s right for your business.
Analytics
Analytics are one of the most important parts of any content strategy, and a tool you likely already have access to through the social platforms you’re using. Instagram and Facebook do all of the hard work for you and present you with detailed insights about your audience, posts, and activity on your account. To access these metrics, you’ll need a Facebook Page and a Business account on Instagram. Once you’re all set up you can easily determine who exactly your current audience is, how many people are watching and engaging with your stories, what types of content your followers like and comment on the most, how many people your content is reaching, and so much more. All of this information will help you determine what’s working and more importantly, what isn’t, so that you can focus your time and energy effectively.
For more tips and tricks to making your social channels really sing, view the full webinar HERE!
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Lead Photo: Design by Taylor Jacobson, Photo by David Tsay