I’m often asked what tools I use to manage digital marketing campaigns. Well, the wait is over! Let’s dive right in.
Airtable
I love Airtable so much that I’ve devoted an entire post about what makes it so awesome. I use it exclusively to manage campaigns and content calendars. I won’t rehash it all here — just go read the post.
Buffer
For Facebook, I always recommend using their native post scheduling functionality. However, Twitter and Instagram don’t have that feature. That’s where Buffer comes in. Buffer lets you schedule posts for multiple social media platforms but the only ones that I find it truly works well for are Twitter and Instagram. The best part is that it is FREE if you are managing only those two accounts.
Note: I know that many of you may use HootSuite. I prefer Buffer because it is lightweight, super simple to use, and free if you are just managing profiles for one organization. HootSuite has other features, but I find that most organizations don’t use/need them if the goal is just to be able to schedule posts.
Landscape
Landscape is by far the easiest way to crop and resize photos for social media. I rarely use Photoshop for this purpose anymore because Landscape is so fast and easy (and FREE). You upload your image, choose which social media platforms you want to use it on, it sizes it appropriately, and you download it back to your computer.
Google Analytics
You absolutely cannot run any sort of digital campaign without keeping a close eye on your Google Analytics data. GA is the way you will be able to determine the efficacy of the campaign. There are a ton of posts about GA here on Arts Hacker so, if you’re feeling like you need to brush up on your skills, you should definitely take a look.
Google URL Builder
Now that you’re looking at your Google Analytics, you’ll want to be able to track traffic from all of these digital channels. Using the Google Campaign URL Builder is the easiest way to do that — especially for social media. The next time you make a Facebook post, head over to the URL builder and create a custom URL and put that in the post. When you look at your GA data, you’ll see the traffic coming through from that exact post (which otherwise would be lumped into “direct” or “social media” or “Facebook” traffic).
DashThis
Campaign reporting can be quite time-consuming if you are manually pulling data from multiple channels and creating a comprehensive report. This is why I love DashThis. It is super quick and easy to create a report and the data automatically updates each time it loads. You can also share the reports with a link or as a downloadable PDF so you can keep your colleagues up-to-date. DashThis isn’t free, but they do offer a discount for nonprofits and even the regular price is reasonable at $39/month. I guarantee it will make your reporting life whole lot easier.
I’d love to know what tools you use to keep your campaigns running smoothly. Share them in the comments.
