13 Tools That Will Not Break The Bank Of Small Businesses

Are you a Small Business owner, Startup or Solopreneur? Are you spending about $200 per month on your marketing efforts, including Social Media? — You are not alone. A survey from 2015 from Infusionsoft showed that 40% of Solopreneurs and 25% of Small Businesses spend only $200 or less per month on marketing: “… Just over half of respondents with websites are spending $500 or less per month on marketing activities. 25% spend less than $200 per month, and 5% spend nothing at all. 78% of the solopreneurs in our study spend $500 or less, and 40% are spending less than $200 per month.“ [Source: 2015 Infusionsoft Small Business Market Research Sales & Marketing Report] The fraction spent on Social Media Marketing and Social Media tools is obviously even lower. [A survey from end 2012 showed that 57.5% paid $26 or more per month on Social Media tools. Corresponding Infographic from VerticalResponse click here] The survey from Infusionsoft also reveals, that time and money are the biggest hurdles for Small Businesses. And that the most significant barrier to marketing technology adoption is the cost (63%). Do you ever wonder how your business will still be able to compete with other businesses that have a larger marketing budget available and how will you be able to grow with this limited budget? What can be the way forward? There is only one definite answer: to provide these Small Businesses with tools that are affordable but still powerful — an all-embracing toolkit to allow professional Social Media Marketing! HERE IS A LIST OF 13 TOOLS THAT ARE FREE OR LESS THAN $10/MO This list covers all important aspects of Social Media content marketing: Content Creation/Curation incl. Visual Content — Productivity Enhancement — Management — Analytics Before diving into the individual tools, it is important to understand, that a Small Business will not have a dozen of Social Media accounts to manage. Some of the hereafter listed tools offer free versions covering up to a certain number of accounts. Small Businesses need tools that are affordable but still powerful. CONTENT AND PRODUCTIVITY #1 POCKET Pocket is a read-later tool to save content at any given time when you stumble upon a good article. You can read it when your time allows. It also includes share options to your Social Media platforms. Pocket helps you to curate content but also to find ideas for your own content. The tagging possibility makes it easy to sort articles. There is a premium version available (better tagging options, permanent library, etc.). However, the free version is awesome. [Website click here] Price: free — Premium $5/mo #2 FEEDLY Maybe the best known RSS feed reader. Subscribe to RSS feeds you are interested in and receive the latest articles to your feed reader. Feedly is great for content curation and to stay on top of the news within your industry. The tool offers a free basic version that allows you to share articles with your social networks such as Twitter, Pinterest and Facebook. Creation of different folders helps to organize your content. The upgrade, to the next higher version, adds features such as power search, push content to other services, such as IFTTT [IF This Then That] and to share with Evernote and Pocket. [Website click here] Price: free basic version — next higher version ‘Pro’ $5,50/mo #3 BUFFER Buffer is a post scheduling tool, allowing you to schedule your content for publishing at desired times (e.g. peak of audience presence) and allows you to be present on Social Media without being online 24/7. The handling of the tool is straightforward, and a browser extension makes it easy to buffer content from any website. The free version includes buffering up to 10 posts per account. 4 Social Media accounts are included. Some statistics of your posts for an analytical purpose are available. The drawback of the free version is that it does not work in parallel on mobile and desktop. The next higher version, the ‘Awesome Plan‘, includes 10 accounts and scheduling option for up to 100 posts. However, you still cannot add team members. [Website click here] Price: free basic version — next higher version ‘Awesome Plan’ $102/yr My Tip: Substitute the two above-mentioned paid versions by Post Planner [see below]. #4 POST PLANNER Post Planner is a content curation [and creation] tool with scheduling features. The concept is to choose streams [Facebook pages, @, #, RSS feeds] and instantly see their most promising contents which you can then read and share. Post Planner claims to have a scientifically proven approach to providing you with the best articles, text and images, sorted by recent, week, month or all. The sharing is straightforward. You can also add your own content and schedule it repetitively. There is no limit to the posts, and you can create tailored schedules for each of your accounts [up to 10 accounts]. Bulk upload is also possible. Unfortunately, there is no app nor browser extension available. [Website click here] Price: $7/mo [there is no free version available] Note: I work with a combination of Post Planner and the basic version of Buffer for post scheduling. Post Planner for a some-days-in-advance-scheduling, including my own content, and Buffer for daily engagement on Twitter or via the browser extension. #5 COSCHEDULE HEADLINE ANALYZER The headline analyzer from CoSchedule is an easy to use but powerful tool to analyze the quality of your headlines. Rated by various aspects, it gives an overall score and proposes areas for improvement. As headlines define whether your potential reader turns into an actual reader or not, you need to have a bullet proven headline to stand out of the mass. [Website click here] Price: free #6 EVERNOTE Evernote is an excellent tool for note taking, organizing and archiving. For example, to draft your posts and to create an information hub for yourself or your team. You can share folders and articles within your team to enhance productivity. Articles/Notes can be tagged and organized into different folders. Evernote offers a free version. The Premium version, for about $4/mo, includes more storage, which, depending on your articles collection, will be a necessity. [Website click here] Price: free — Premium version $4/mo #7 TWEETDECK If you use Twitter as part of your marketing strategy, then you should also use Tweetdeck. It helps you to organize your Twitter streams. It is entirely free, and you can connect various Twitter profiles. By creating different newsfeeds, Tweetdeck helps you to monitor all relevant communications [Twitter lists, @mentions, #, etc.] It eases engagement with your followers and to stay on top of specific hashtag-tweets relevant to your niche. You can also easily share articles to Buffer for a scheduled retweet. [Website click here] Price: free VISUAL CONTENT #8 BEFUNKY BeFunky is an awesome, free graphic/design program. It gives you all design features necessary to pimp your images including cool filters to create unique images to represent your brand. I could write endlessly about the different features, but I only want to say: Try it! There is a great mobile app available [Android and iOS] which allows creating great images on the go for immediate share to your Social Networks. For $2,90/mo the ‘Plus’ subscription offers an almost endless number of additional design features. [Website click here] Price: free — Plus version $2,90/mo #9 CANVA Canva is a fantastic graphic/design program which comes with a free version that offers a wide range of features. It is an excellent tool to prepare your images for all different social media platforms. Even if you are not a graphic designer, the images will have a professional look. You can also choose from tons of free templates and images, headlines, graphic objects, etc.. If you prefer, you can also generate a tailored image size and upload own pictures. The Canva stock also includes a large number of paid items, which are $1 each. There is ‘Canva for Work’ available for about $10 per month. This version allows you to create a brand kit, and has a ‘magic resizes’ option which quickly optimizes your images for all different Social Media platforms. [Website click here] Price: free — Canva for Work $10/mo My Tip: Use Canva and BeFunky together with free image stock websites, such as Pixabay. Also, use Adobe CC [free tool] to find a matching and unique color scheme to brand your Social Media presence. MANAGEMENT #10 HOOTSUITE This one is probably one of the best-known tools. Hootsuite is a Social Media dashboard which allows you to manage your Social Media accounts. By creating different streams, you can easily monitor all relevant activities on your various profiles. The free version includes three Social Media accounts, and provides some basic statistics. [Note: Pinterest is not included in the free version.] The next pricing plan ‘Pro’ is $8 per month. 50 Social Media Profiles, a detailed Analytical Report and some other features are part of this version. The basic version is already pretty good to start with, but once your business grows, you might want to upgrade to the ‘Pro’ plan. [Website click here] Price: free basic version — Pro Version $8/mo Note: I add a dashboard tool only for completeness. In many cases, it will not be necessary to have a paid version of a management tool right from the beginning. Hootsuite is one of many, but the cheapest one. #11 TODO OR TRELLO For project management and productivity enhancement within your team [or also only for yourself], such as task assignment or keeping track of deadlines, there are two useful tools available. One is ToDo, and the other one is Trello. Both offer a free version, which already includes quite a nice list of features. ToDo is one of the best To-Do and Task list apps I know. Great organizing features include e.g. color coding, the creation of subtasks to a project and projects to be dedicated to a certain topic. To synchronize your lists with all devices, you need the next higher version ‘Cloud’. [Website click here] Trello is a more advanced program to organize your projects by ‘cards’ to which you can add images, tables, etc.. Cards can be moved to different lists to track the project status. Tasks can be assigned to team members, and a chat function increases communication within the team. The paid version offers e.g. more upload volume and more security options. [Website click here] Price: free — ToDo Cloud $1,70/mo / Trello Business Class $8,30/mo ANALYTICS #12 FOLLOWERWONK Once you have a Social Media presence and a strategy set-up, it is important to identify the influencers in your niche. Unfortunately, it is not easy to find really good tools for free [or