We all know that social media is a vital part of modern marketing, but how do you make the most of it? With these 5 free social media tools, you'll ensure you're following the most influential people in your field - it might not be who you think! - and are using and sharing the best content there is. Which is your favourite? Tweet at us, @resourceit_ltd

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A Guide to
5 Free Tools for Increasing Your
Social Media Success
Imogen Wright|August 2014

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MARKETING WEEK LIVE 2014
From the outside of the Olympia Grand in Kensington, the
sheer scale of Marketing Week Live 2014 isn’t apparent.
But stepping through the entrance with my shiny new
badge, feeling a little like ‘the new girl’ on her first day, it
becomes obvious that this event is absolutely huge, and
everyone inside means business.
The buzz inside the venue is positively palpable and
everyone – attendees and exhibitors alike – are excited and
anticipating something truly tremendous. And they got it.
With over 350 stands, and almost 150 talks, seminars and
training sessions over two days, this is so much more than
just an exhibition.

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MARKETING WEEK LIVE 2014
Having just sourced all ResourceiT’s merchandise and
freebies ready for Microsoft’s WPC2014 in Washington DC,
I felt like I was well versed in the ways of branded
merchandise but there were some things at MWL14 that I
just wasn’t expecting; being handed a beautifully designed
reusable coffee cup filled with frothy cappuccino, a stick of
chocolate covered marshmallows and an origami puppy
within the first five minutes to name just a few!
Although the merchandise was fun and everyone loves a
freebie, I was really here to take advantage of all the
learning opportunities, and now I want to share my
knowledge with you lucky people. One training session that
was particularly useful was “15 Tools and Techniques to
Increase the Success of your Search & Content Marketing”
by Kelvin Newman (@Kelvinnewman) from Rough Agenda
(@roughagenda). But I know we’re all busy people so I’ve
tried and tested a few and compiled this shorter list of the 5
Best Tools for Increasing your Social Media Success.
Enjoy!

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1. BLUENOD
This Twitter tool is very intuitive and straightforward. The free version
analyses 300 tweets and is perfect for seeing who has the most social
media impact around a particular topic.
What’s the Benefit?
Bluenod allows you to ensure you’re following the most influential people in your sector.

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1.BLUENOD – HOW DOES IT WORK?
Start by searching for the particular hashtag you’re interested in – I used
#new2wpc in this case. Bluenod then displays the results like the screen
shot to the right.
The general rule for Bluenod is: the larger the circle, the more times that
particular user has used the hashtag you searched for. It is usually safe to
assume that if a user is using the hashtag a lot, they’re a ‘big fish’ in that
area. Bluenod also shows you how people are connect too – which really
makes use of the ‘networking’ side of social networking!

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1.BLUENOD – HOW DOES IT WORK?
Additionally, Bluenod displays the profiles who use the hashtag, as a list -
starting with the most frequent user and reading left to right. When you
click on any of the ‘People’ tiles, it shows you their Twitter bio, their
connections and their latest tweets. You can also follow them directly from
the tool which saves you having to search and add them on Twitter itself.
Another great feature of Bluenod is its ‘Lists’ option. This feature includes
the ‘People with 1000+ followers’ filter, which allows you to find those who
are most influential in the field of your search term.

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1.BLUENOD – HOW DOES IT WORK?
Bluenod also provides a timeline of when the hashtag you searched for is
used most frequently which is perfect for ensuring your tweets are going
out at the right time. This could be when many others are using the
hashtag, so you’re joining in the conversation.
One final great thing about Bluenod is the ability to share the visuals on
social media. This could be useful for providing useable content for your
followers, or you can use the link for sharing the visuals with your
colleagues.

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2. BUZZSUMO
This Twitter tool helps you find content around a particular topic or
domain.
What’s the Benefit?
Buzzsumo is great for finding existing content that people actually want to read. Whether you want to Tweet it, write
a Facebook post around it, or use other’s content to build a comprehensive piece of content of your own, Buzzsumo
will show you the crème de la crème of content.

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2. BUZZSUMO
Just like Bluenod, you start by using the search bar. I’ve searched for “Dynamics AX” for this example. As you can see, Buzzsumo shows a
breakdown of where things are shared: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+, with the content that has been share the most at
the top of the list.

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2. BUZZSUMO
One really useful feature of Buzzsumo is that you can filter by type and date.
This is particularly handy if you have a specific goal in mind.
Want to tweet something compelling? Infographics work really well on Twitter.
Need something for Facebook? Videos are well received.
When you have the results displayed, you can then view the sharers. This brings
up a list of all the users who shared that particular article, infographic or whatever
it may be.
Like Bluenod, you can sort these by number of followers, allowing you to find the
most influential user to share that piece of content. Unlike Bluenod, you can also
sort by average number of retweets for each sharer, which shows you yet
another layer of popularity.
You can also filter by type of sharer. Need an article with some industry welly?
Go for Journalists. Need a ‘man of the people’ feel to your post? Go for Regular
People.

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2. BUZZSUMO
As you can see from the above, like Bluenod, you can follow people directly from the tool, saving you time as you don’t have to go on to Twitter to
search and follow them.
One more great thing about Buzzsumo is, you don’t have to sign up to anything either; you can just use the tool without having anything clogging
up your email inbox. If you do sign up however, you can export the results to Excel which is handy. Signing up takes a matter of seconds and
remember - the whole tool is free. You can’t really argue with that!
The only drawback with this tool is that the results are updated throughout the day, as opposed to in real time, so they’re not always 100%
accurate. But this is a minor drawback, considering the benefits.

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3. ÜBERSUGGEST
While Übersuggest doesn’t look very pretty, it certainly is a very useful
tool. Like a kind of extension of Google suggestions, when you look up
your search term, it gives you an Excel scrape of everything that people
type into Google when looking for information around your search term.
What’s the Benefit?
Übersuggest is great for giving you ideas about content for your social media posts and enables you to give your
customers what they want to read. It can also be used to influence your keyword strategy,
boosting SEO rankings and to optimize your PPC campaign.

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3. ÜBERSUGGEST
To get started, enter your search term into the search bar. I think I am
beginning to see a pattern with these!
Your results are then displayed like this 

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3. ÜBERSUGGEST
There are hundreds of results, spanning across the alphabet. This
isn’t all of them though. Each term expands further, like so:
You can then select which results are most relevant to you by clicking
on the plus button, which adds them to your ‘list’.
Then all you have to do is select ‘Get’ and it appears for you ready to
copy, paste and keep.

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3. ÜBERSUGGEST
As I mentioned earlier, Übersuggest is great for giving you ideas about
what your customers want to read. You may know that you want to write
about Microsoft for example, and Übersuggest can tell you that people are
searching specifically for ‘Microsoft Family Safety’ and ‘Microsoft for Mac’,
allowing you to give your customers just what they’re looking for.
Imagine you’re writing a piece about Microsoft Lync to go on the Services
page of your website or Pinpoint profile. Übersuggest will give you plenty
of keywords to plug into your content, boosting your SEO score and
enabling prospects to find your page quicker.
The only drawback for this tool is that it would be useful to see a ‘Most
Searched’ list but as it is, it is all very simple and very very useful indeed.

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4. KLOUT
While many companies may already use Klout for ranking their efforts
against their peers, some underestimate the power of its ‘Create’ feature.
Similar to Buzzsumo, Klout enables you to find content. However, unlike
Buzzsumo, you can not input your own search term – WPC 2014 doesn’t
work – but instead, you search topics that are already within the tool.
Klout enables you to find content that’s ‘hot off the press’, so is great for
anything topical.
What’s the Benefit?
If you want to take part in some real time marketing, Klout allows you to find relevant, of the minute shareable content to share
or respond to, saving you time and effort. You’re also able to schedule posts for Facebook and Twitter and measure their
impact.

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4. KLOUT
Like the other tools we’ve looked at so far, you start using Klout by
searching for your topic in the ‘Overview’ tab. I used Microsoft in this case.
You hit ‘Get Started’ and away you go. You’re shown a list of people
known for being proficient in in the field of your search term, and then a list
of content about it.

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4. KLOUT
As you can see, again you can follow the people known for your search
term directly from the tool and can schedule Facebook and/or Twitter
posts straight away as well. You can also see the ‘Hot Off the Press’
articles in this view as well, which is a very useful attribute of Klout.
One of my favourite features of Klout – and it’s only very simple, not all
bells and whistles - is that if you hover over the schedule button of a ‘Hot
Off the Press’ article, it tells you down to the hour, how old an article is,
so you know just how up to date your sharing content is.
Switch to the ‘Create’ tab and you can add up to 20 topics, which form a
‘newsfeed’ of hundreds of articles to choose from, all based on the things
you want to talk about, meaning you’re never lost for words on your social
media platforms.

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5. FOLLOWERWONK
Followerwonk searches Twitter bios or profiles so you can find the
followers you really want.
What’s the Benefit?
By finding the people who are influential in your field, you can build yourself a relevant and ‘business-ready’ Twitter
following. Although there are other tools that show you influential Twitter users, Followerwonk has great visuals, and
you can filter by ‘social authority’ which is unique to Followerwonk.

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5. FOLLOWERWONK
So how do we start…you get one guess! I used ‘Microsoft partner’ for this example.
Your results are then displayed below, with the user with the highest number of followers at the top. They can also be sorted by number of
tweets, how many users they’re following, how many days old their profile is and their all important ‘Social Authority’ score.

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5. FOLLOWERWONK
Social authority is calculated using retweets. Followerwonk says,
For the rest of the features, you need to subscribe but they look very useful. There are a couple that are particularly noteworthy:
1) Social graph relationships - this feature shows you visuals of the relationships of users, and you can filter the results to show followers of
you, the users you follow, and bidirectional relationships.
2) Mutual followers/following venn diagram - this feature allows you to choose two or more influential users and shows you their mutual
followers or users they mutually follow. This allows you to build an even more comprehensive Twitter account.
While the search tab is free to use, the rest of the tabs are a paid for service. However, there’s a free trial for 30 days so I would go ahead and
take advantage of that!
We look beyond how many well-known followers people have – our immediate
concern is a user's retweet activity and others' affinity for what they share.

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Five Great Tools for
Increasing Your Social
Media Impact
So there you have it:
Personally, BlueNod and Übersuggest are my
favourites. What are yours?
Tweet at us and let me know!
@Resourceit_Ltd