If you run a business, you are probably always looking for ways to save time. You need that time to do things like build your savings account or work on the house or chase your 12 kids around the yard after school.
This brings us to LinkedIn: One of the best ways you can market and grow your business. Every minute spent learning how to use LinkedIn is well worth it, but unfortunately, there’s a lot of clutter and noise in most people’s LinkedIn feeds. Wouldn’t it be great if you could “outsource” some of this activity – and focus more on your professional development?
The good news is that there are several great tools out there to help you do exactly that. These three, in particular, can save you time – and help your business grow:
- LinkShare
LinkShare is a social media marketing tool that allows you to schedule your LinkedIn messages and manage your other social media platforms. LinkShare also lets you create rich media content to help generate more shares, views, or likes for your LinkedIn posts.
You can download the free app for iOS devices through this link. Alternatively, by visiting LinkShare’s website and adding a new account, then setting up an app, you will be able to access the interface easily from any device with an Internet connection.
- Publish on LinkedIn
With Publish on LinkedIn, it’s easier than ever to post from anywhere – including scheduling updates ahead of time, so they’re posted when you want them to go out. This highly intuitive platform enables you to share your content effectively with a mere click of your mouse. Publish lets you preview what your post will look like before it goes live and offers the option to track its performance afterward.
- Reposting Pro
Reposting Pro is designed to help you manage and schedule posts on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest at once. With Reposting Pro, you can effortlessly cross-post on all four major social media platforms simultaneously.
You have the option of scheduling messages for future publication or sending them out immediately. The app works online and offline, allowing you to view upcoming posts even when there’s no Internet connection available. When using this tool, you also get access to pre-made templates, making it easier than ever to share your content with your followers.
- Article Marketing Tool
Article Marketing Tool is software that helps you create professional-looking articles for LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. This powerful app offers an intuitive writing tool, which means you can easily edit the text in different fonts.
Article Marketing Tool also includes a library of over 50 templates from which you can select when posting on social media platforms. You get to choose the topic of your post from among five options (Business & Finance, Life & Lifestyle, Technology & Science, Travel & Leisure, and World News). A PDF version of the article will be automatically generated, too.
- Social Oomph Pro
With Social Oomph, it’s easy to schedule posts using either RSS feeds or a calendar. You can also use this tool to schedule messages on multiple social media platforms, including LinkedIn.
Social Oomph lets you create lists and choose from a large number of customizable themes. This app offers some basic analytics about your posts, such as how many impressions they got, the total reach, or their engagement rate.
- Spredfast
With Spredfast, you will get access to an easy-to-use platform that allows you to create content for Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn profiles at once. You can edit any post with the mouse click and schedule it for future publication time if preferred.
With Spredfast, you have the option of commenting on other people’s LinkedIn posts, too – so if there’s something you think needs further attention, you can tag it to encourage other people to discuss the topic further.
- HubSpot CRM for Sales & Marketing
This app allows you to monitor your LinkedIn contacts and also helps you find new prospects. You can keep track of all your messages sent via email or even get reminders when someone is about to reply back – allowing you to return their messages faster.
By setting up a dedicated page for each contact, the CRM will help you build leads into potential customers automatically. Alternatively, if you already have a lead list built up, then HubSpot can easily integrate with an existing CRM system like Salesforce.com or SugarCRM.
- Social Report Card
With Social Report Card, there’s no need to create new email accounts or use complicated workarounds to join and connect with your contacts on LinkedIn. This tool enables you to find the information you need about your email addresses, phone numbers, and company websites.
Social Report Card will also help you keep track of your LinkedIn messages for each contact, as well as display contact history within one convenient location. The app is straightforward to use and comes with advanced search features which enable you to only show the results relevant to what you are looking for at any given time.
- Hootsuite Publisher
With Hootsuite, it’s possible to schedule social media posts on multiple platforms from a single computer dashboard. You can post updates, follow hashtags, view analytics, and access a library of pre-made images from Hootsuite’s search engine. Each image has been optimized using advanced algorithms to best help your posts stand out on the social media platform you are using them for.
- Social Mention
Social Mention helps you track over 30 different types of content across the web, such as tweets, blog posts, or news. The app provides detailed insights into what people are saying about your brand and industry – so if anything is being said online which is harmful, this tool gives you a chance to address any issues quickly before they get blown out of proportion.
You can also use Social Mention to monitor keywords and find mentions on Twitter and LinkedIn by location. By using the app’s alerts function, you can receive notifications when specific keywords are mentioned online.
- Social Pilot Pro
With Social Pilot, a calendar is available to plan ahead your social media content and publish it on various channels. You can combine up to three different social media platforms into one posting schedule so that everything gets published at once.
This tool also offers some basic analytics about your posts, such as how many impressions they got, the total reach, or their engagement rate. There is also a scheduling option for Twitter if needed and an auto-responder feature that lets you automatically send messages via email after someone has contacted you via LinkedIn.
- Buffer
This tool lets you quickly schedule updates across multiple social media accounts without needing to check numerous websites as they are all in one place.
You can add new updates to your queue or check what has already been scheduled. Auto-scheduling means that you have more time to concentrate on other tasks – such as responding to comments from your followers.
- Sprout Social
This app simplifies content management for up to 400 social media profiles by enabling you to schedule posts via a drag and drop interface. It’s quick, easy-to-use, and even provides analytics so that you can see how well each update performed.
Once you’ve got the hang of it, Sprout makes it possible to keep track of everything while still saving plenty of time due to its intuitive design. Using this tool, there’s no longer any need for you to use more than one application to interact with your followers.
- Shared Count
The free version of this tool enables you to see how many people have viewed your LinkedIn posts. The paid-for option provides its users with detailed analytics about their posts (and their Klout score ) and tells them where they are being read most frequently.
In addition, these reports can be tailored so that you can receive information on the best time of day for posting along with any trends which may emerge within your industry – such as a spike in traffic during the mornings or afternoons.
- Kred
Just like it sounds, Kred is basically a “social reputation” tracker. You need to input both social media accounts and you will be awarded points for positive interactions such as likes, shares, and comments.
The free version supplies you with a daily Kred Score to help you gauge how popular your posts are. However, the premium options provide much more detailed analytics in relation to your activity on various social media platforms.
Opinions expressed by AsianBlurb contributors are their own.
Maham Qasim is an English Literature and Economics student at Forman Christian College University with an interest in writing. Maham was born in Pakistan and raised in Saudi Arabia and is now pursuing her education.