Facebook Ad Types: When to Use Each Objective

Facebook Ads can be confusing.  There are so many different options when you go beyond just Boosting Posts – which I really recommend to optimize your ads correctly.

Not only are they confusing when you first start with the Facebook Ads Manager, they are changing almost daily.

And different people see different things when you get to the Ad Objectives.  Some people might see this simpler set of choices such as this:

 

 

Others might see a more complex set of choices like this:

 

 

You can see some similarity in the language of the choices but in some cases the language is different.  For example, “Reach people near your business” is also known as “Local awareness”.

Here is a brief explanation of each type of ad

• Boost Your Posts – Optimized for Likes, Comments, and Shares on that post. This type of ad is NOT recommended when you really would rather get traffic to your website.  Choose the “Traffic” option or “Send people to your website”.


• Promote Your Page – Optimized for Page Likes (this option is under the “Engagement” selection for those that have that selection).


• Reach People Near Your Business aka Local Awareness Ads – Your ads are shown to Local people you select based on zip code or city.  This also includes people who are traveling through that area based on their mobile phone location.  You also have different calls to action buttons such as “Get Directions” or “Call Now”.


• Increase your Reach – Optimized for maximum impressions.


• Brand Awareness Ads – Optimized for “Awareness”.  This is shown to people who are more likely to recall your brand after seeing an ad.


• Send People to Your Website (or Traffic) – Optimized for clicks to the website.


• Get Installs of Your App – Use only for Facebook Apps.


• Raise Attendance at Your Event – Promoting a Facebook Event.


• Get Video Views – Optimizes for higher views (can have videos in other types of ads).


• Collect Leads For Your Business – Lead Generation Ads (leads are collected within Facebook).  Two taps optins that are geared for mobile users.


• Increase Conversions on Your Website aka Conversions – The ad is shown to people who are more likely to purchase or opt in to your free offer on your website – You MUST use the Facebook Pixel to choose this option.


• Increase Engagement in your App – Use only if you have a true Facebook App (such as a game played on Facebook).


• Get People to Claim Your Offer – Create a Facebook Offer where the call to action is Claim the Offer (you do not get a list of who claims them).


• Promote a Product Catalog – recommended for larger Ecommerce sites only – you must have uploaded a product catalog in the Business Manager.


• Get people to visit your stores – If you have multiple stores and have set up a multi-location Page, you can use this objective.


• Engagement – This is in the “simpler” selections but combines Page Likes, Boosted Posts, Offer Claims, and Event Responses into one selection – you then make a secondary selection to choose which objective you have.

Newer Engagement Ads have some secondary choices as shown:

So after all of that explanation, you may still feel like your choice is as clear as mud.  Here are a few tips to help you make your choice:

Tip #1 – Your ad is optimized around the Facebook Ad Objective you select

When you select the fact that you want Video Views, your ad will be shown to people who like to watch videos on Facebook.  Remember that Facebook is tracking everything we do and they know who likes to click on links, Like Pages, opt in to Facebook Offers, etc.

The targeting you select for you ad also is in effect as well as the optimization.  So your ad is shown to your target audience but it's really a “subset” of that audience based on the objective.

Always focus on what your true objective is – if you really want to get people over to your website, but you have a video as the creative, then make sure you select “Traffic” or the “Send people to a destination off Facebook” option (depending on which one is available to you).  You can then use a Video in the creative part of the ad.

 

Tip #2 – Sending people to your website  or using website Conversions allows for Retargeting later

I typically advise people to choose the Traffic or Conversions option as must as possible because when you have the Facebook Pixel installed, you can then retarget your ads to people who were interested enough to click over but may not have opted in or purchased.

In order to make that strategy work, you do need to have the Facebook Pixel installed on your website.  And you do need to have a good landing page to send them to – one where they are going to opt in to your offer or purchase something on your site.

Once you have the Pixel installed, you do also need to have a Custom Audience created for retargeting.  And one caveat also is that you have to have enough traffic built up to that site to retarget – at least 1000 visitors.  So the strategy takes time.

Tip #3 – Choosing between Lead Generation, Facebook Offers, and Conversions

These three options can be confusing so let me break them down a little:

Lead Generation:

Benefits: Allows for a quick opt in to your offer with 2 clicks where the user never has to leave Facebook.  You don't have to create a “landing page” for someone to opt in to but that also means you have to describe the benefits of what you are offering within a short amount of text.  People opt in using their Facebook information so you know that you are getting good data.

Drawbacks:  You get access to the leads in the back end of your Facebook Page and you have to manually download the names and emails or pay for a service that will connect it to your email system.

Learn more about Lead Generation Ads

Facebook Offers:

Benefits:  People “Claim” an offer and get an email notification about how to claim it.  You can also automatically direct people to your website after clicking the “Get offer” button.  They will also get a reminder notification.  You can set up time limits and quantity limits on the offer.

Drawbacks:  You don't get any information on who has claimed your offer.  They are not automatically opted in if it's something free, they still have to complete the 2nd step to actually optin.  If it's something for sale, they may or may not complete the purchase.

Conversions:

This is the type of ad I would recommend most often between these 3 options.  I've tested them all and I most often get the best cost per conversion.  You do have to set up either a Standard Event pixel on the Thank You page or a Custom Conversion (see my post on Facebook Pixels) in order to use this type of ad but you can then track what the cost is to opt in or purchase your product.

 

So I hope that helped clear a few things up about Facebook Ad Objectives. Facebook Ads are a fantastic place to reach your ideal customer, but if you aren't optimizing them correctly, you could waste a lot of money!  And that's why I created my course, Facebook Advertising Secrets.  And it's on a special CYBER Monday sale today only!

CYBER Monday Special:  Facebook Advertising Secrets $100 OFF

I could spend a lot of time telling you about all the fantastic training, the 4 modules, lifetime access, the bonuses you get.  But the biggest benefit you get with the course is access to the Facebook Group where you can get all your Facebook Ad questions answered.  We give feedback on ads, troubleshoot reports, and give advice on how to make your Facebook ads shine!

If you really want to grow your business quickly, Facebook Ads is the best vehicle to do that on the internet right now.  Today only, Monday November 28th, the course is $100 off and you get everything for the crazy-good price of $197.  Join me at http://ift.tt/2bW4iCD

 

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5 Crucial Values for Global Brand CMOs

The opening line to the Executive Summary of recently released research by The CMO Club, in partnership with Oracle Marketing Cloud, says it all:

“There used to be a time when a given brand that was based in a given country only had to deal with the challenges of marketing their brand in that country. Of course those days are long since gone, for essentially every company today is global in one way or another.” (highlight to tweet)

In today's world, there is no difference between marketing a global brand and marketing a brand, globally. Think about it.

The research, which brought together six of the brightest minds in marketing today, focused on these six key elements that CMOs need to focus on.

1. Positive Culture and Teamwork

Global brand leaders have to infuse their team with a cohesive culture that connects and transcends geographic differences. It's this culture that is the driving force for so many potential successes the organization can achieve. While many people talk about culture as if it is some fluffy concept, it is, in fact, a necessary ingredient for a global organization. Great Places to Work noted that it helps attract the necessary talent that can propel the organization forward on both the local level and on a global scale.

2. Go to Market Compliance

When you want to go to market with your product or service and begin to share content on your website, as well as collect information from your audience, your business immediately becomes responsible for adhering to the privacy laws related to the personal information of those in your audience. However, most companies do not necessarily put much thought into the legal ramifications of vague legal notices, like terms of service and privacy policies, listed on their site. It may not seem like it really matters, but it actually really does, no matter the size of your business.

3. Local and Global Resources

A 1999 (yes, 1999) Harvard Business Review article entitled “The Lure of the Global Brand” described numerous challenges related to creating and sourcing a global brand. It noted that economies of scale might prove to be elusive, and that it could be cheaper to just provide resources on a local level to create ads and messaging for the branding efforts.

Another challenge was forming a global brand team, which would require a significant amount of resources in order to collect and understand all the information on each market and then execute on the specific needs of these markets. In order to overcome these challenges, it's imperative to use a model that has a person or group in charge of the brand and brand strategy plan. This person or group must create a clear plan for execution and management of that brand on a global and local basis.

4. Technology

According to Branding Business, “Globalization, technology, increasing product parity, and communication overload have put increasing focus and attention on the power of global brands to transcend national borders and languages in their universal appeal and recognition.”

At the same time, these global brands must maintain three pillars of success, including:

• A high degree of brand consistency in terms of what they promise and actually deliver.


• A meaningful difference that sets them apart and offers the type of value that customer can relate to.


• Consistent brand equity measurement that establishes return on investment for its ability to deliver top-of-mind awareness, an overall opinion, attractive brand image attributes, and perceptions of product/service performance.

5. Branding

Some of today's biggest global brands have used a wide range of tactics to create their own global brand image. For example, Hubertus Devroye, Head of Marketing and Commercial at Dow Chemical, says, “One consistent, uniform global brand message is incredibly important, not only for what we stand for as a company from a corporate point of view, but at the same time also our brand message is product reliability wherever you are in the globe.”

Despite having excellent strategies for developing a global brand, great challenges still exist for these companies. However, they have been able to recognize those challenges and fight through them to build a transparent global brand image.

Needless to say, there are a great number of aspects that a CMO must deal with when it comes to marketing a brand globally. As previously stated, there is no difference between marketing a global brand and marketing a brand, globally. Every brand is truly global now, thanks to the internet. That's why there is an enormous amount of complexity to marketing that a CMO needs to address.

This post is part of a paid sponsorship between Oracle Marketing Cloud and Convince & Convert.

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This One Habit Transformed My Life

Financial security can be paid for two ways. Get a job or become an entrepreneur.

Starting a business is often seen as a big bang approach. High risk and a big financial commitment. Find a bricks and mortar premises, commit to an expensive lease, hire staff and start marketing and selling your products and services.

Today all you need is a laptop, an Internet connection and just one idea.

Which one do I prefer?

I have done both. One trapped me and the other gave me the financial and mental freedom I had been seeking for decades.

It came out of one habit that I committed to every day.

False security

Finding “that” job often provides a false sense of security.

“That” craved for career can be destroyed by a corporate takeover or the cruel game of office politics. A job for life is being replaced by a 12 month contract or the freelancer.

But in a world that is in the majority a knowledge economy, the opportunities to reach the world that is thirsting for your experience and expertise and get paid for it is now needed. Becoming a freelancer or entrepreneur is becoming a solution.

Now I can hear you saying……“I have a day job and don't have the time”. A day job is just 8 hours…..the raw reality? There are another sixteen hours available.

Arnold Bennett highlighted this in a small 33-page book “How to Live on 24 Hours a Day” (written over a hundred years ago). He encouraged us to live a day within a day that can take us from ordinary to extraordinary.

Many of us go to work and come home and engage in trivial activities. This includes television, reading a glossy magazine, sending text messages or even playing with Snapchat.

Investing in your own creation and production and distribution of your experience, expertise and passion while holding down a day job can transform your life.

Work that makes a difference

In his book “Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World” Cal Newport dives into the difference between deep work and shallow work. Any of us that are trapped in the never-ending cycles of responding to emails and attending meetings know the feeling.

At the end of the day you are asking that question. “What have I done or created today that is of any consequence.”

But there is a solution to that nagging question.

It doesn't matter if you are a knowledge worker within the corporate machine, an entrepreneur or a creative.

An approach

According to Cal Newport there are several options to doing “Deep Work”. It is not one size fits all. It depends on how you like working and living and also depends on your particular life circumstance.

Monastic Approach: Cutting yourself off from the world to focus and remove distraction

Bi-Modal Approach: This is where you may work and perform the day-to-day work in one location and do your deep work at another. You then dive in and out of each space.

Journalist Approach: This is an approach that you seize the opportunity at random as time and your schedule allows.

Rhythmic Approach: This where you set apart a certain time of day to do your deep work and block it out every day and commit to that ritual.

These are not the only approaches but they provide some ideas for a habit that could change your life.

The habit

In 2009 I started my blog and my approach was more like a journalist. I often created late at night but also on weekends. But as the journey continued the ritual changed to a rhythmic habit.

I rose early at 4.30am for 5 days a week and turned off all email, social networks and other distractions. The ritual included making a coffee, a mug of lemon and ginger tea and sitting down and strapping myself in.

I researched, wrote and published. The last step was pushing that content out to the waiting world.

When you do that one day at a time for years then things start to happen. A passion project became a serious business. Done part time before most people were awake.

That habit was an investment in me. But when I started I didn't understand it's far reaching consequences.

The power of validation

In 1998 a journalist David Isay decided to capture the stories of ordinary people. He visited the flop houses of New York and sat down with men that had been living and surviving for decades in run down buildings.

After publishing their interviews he went back and showed them their one page stories in print. One man on seeing his name in black and white, seized the book out of David's hand and ran down the corridor and shouted “I exist…..I exist……I exist!”

These men had to wait for someone else to discover them……to share their story with the world. The visibility had also provided a validation. It is something we as humans crave.

To be acknowledged is a powerful thing.

Choose to be discovered

But on today's social and mobile web we don't have to wait for discovery or for permission.

We can create, publish and showcase our own existence without waiting for permission or to be “discovered”

We can choose to start something of consequence. We can choose to create.  When you start sharing that with the planet, the magic of that distillation of your thoughts and genius is a place to grow and to be validated.

The social web with its platforms and networks is a feedback loop that will give you the feedback you need to evolve and grow.

I pose a new mantra. “I create, I publish, I exist”

Block out your time for “your” creation

So plan your day for making sure you have focused creative space. Block out time for “deep work”. Don't make success an accident. Design your life, share your expertise, experience and passion.

We all have the opportunity to be craftsmen. To be creators and producers of content and media that belongs to you and not the corporation.

The habit of doing the “deep work” is not just about productivity. It goes much deeper than that.

It is a place where your learning goes to a new level one day at a time. Blocking out some hours for you. For your work. But……don't keep your creation hidden from the world. Share it. That is where the magic happens.

It will fill the hole that gnaws at you every day if the opportunity to create in concentration is ignored.

Soul food

You will feel a sense of accomplishment as a work that started as raw and rough becomes a piece of art that is yours. It will feed your soul.

That's  your life, your work and your creation.

You will look back in a year and wonder why you didn't start the habit earlier.

But you must commit to making it happen and to investing in yourself. Responding to other people's emails and attending meetings is not investing in your work.

It is just busyness.

One of the biggest challenges can be the habits that trap us in mediocrity or stop us growing and moving forward. It's your choice.

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10 Social Media Marketing Tools That Will Make Your Competitors Weep

What is the best social media marketing tool on the market?

This is a question that has sparked many heated debates among marketers. With so many different social media management tools available and their importance to any social media marketer, it can be very difficult to find the right tool for you.

Ian Anderson Gray of the Seriously Social blog has partnered up with G2Crowd to find out which tool amongst the top 5 rated social media management tools on the market is the best.

The resulting infographic provides some very interesting results:

Infographic brought to you by Seriously Social and G2 Crowd

In this post, I will be looking at all of these tools and five others to find out which one is the best.

The importance of social media management tools 

First, let's look at what makes social media management tools so important to those who use social media for promotional purposes, as well as what features and results most of us need to get out of them.

The main things to look for in a social media management tool is if it makes you more productive and efficient.

Does it take you less time to manage all of your social accounts? Are you creating better social media campaigns and generally getting better results by using the tool? Is it making the process of managing multiple accounts easier?

With those end goals in mind, you'll want to examine the following features in social media management dashboards:

• Multiple accounts: Can you manage multiple social media accounts across all major platforms?


• Team collaborations features: Can multiple team members work on the same accounts? Can you assign tasks to team-members?


• Analytics: Do you get detailed analytics reports on your social media activity?


• Monitoring: Can you monitor keywords, other accounts, hashtags, etc.?


• Scheduling: Can you schedule posts for when you can't go online?

The infographic also looks at some interesting criteria for rating each of the tools:

• Overall user satisfaction


• Product direction: Are the tools keeping up with all the latest trends and changes in social media?


• Easy-to-learn


• Customer support


• Usability: does it improve your productivity?


• Ability to meet business needs

Now, let's look into each individual tool to see how they fare against each other.

1. Agorapulse

According to the infographic's results, Agorapulse is the best social media marketing tool on the market. I've been using it myself for a few years now and I have to say, I agree with the reviews that made up the results from the infographic. So let's examine this tool first.

The Agorapulse dashboard is very straightforward. Switching through all your accounts is easy, as they are all clearly listed on the left hand side of the dashboard. All of its features, such as the social media inbox, monitoring and publishing, are all at the top of the dashboard and easily accessible.

One of Agorapulse's best features in my opinion is the social media inbox, because it makes it very easy to check all of the social media updates that require your attention. It works very much like an email account would – as you go through your inbox and read your notifications and respond to them, the queue grows smaller. You can create automated moderation rules, meaning that Agorapulse will then tag, flag, hide or assign content so that you get all the most relevant messages in your inbox.

If you find an update or comment as you go along that you want to save for later review, you can easily add custom tags and categorize them.

Another big feature is publishing and scheduling. You can publish posts to any of your networks, as well as schedule them, but the best part is the editorial calendar. Basically, you can schedule all of the updates that you want and see them in a beautiful calendar that makes it so much easier to stay organized and plan your social media updates.

Next comes the monitoring tool. You can use it to monitor all of your shares and mentions on social media, find out when someone mentions your Facebook Page, create searches for certain keywords on Twitter and monitor hashtags and places on Instagram.

When it comes to reporting, Agorapulse has created some of the most beautiful and detailed analytics reports among social media marketing tools. The reports focus on your audience, engagement and brand awareness – some of the most important metrics, especially to clients. Another really cool thing is that you can see how many posts and comments you've reviewed and what your response time and rate are.

I think that the feature that sets Agorapulse apart from most other dashboards is the CRM function. This feature makes it very easy to keep track of all of your followers and friends and find out whom your most engaged users are. You can also use Agorapulse to find out who your influencers and brand ambassadors are and who among your followers has the most followers themselves.

The more followers and friends you have, the more difficult it is to keep track of them, but with Agorapulse you can add custom tags so that you know who is a prospect, who is an influencer and so on. You also can see exactly what you've talked about with each user so that you're never out of the loop.

Something else that's worth mentioning is that the guys and gals of Agorapulse are very quick to respond to new features and changes coming out on various social networks.

Conclusion: Overall, Agorapulse is a truly great dashboard and I honestly can't think of anything that I don't like about it. The interface is easy to use and all of the features that we're all usually looking for in a social media marketing tool are all there.

2. PostPlanner

Postplanner used to be the tool for scheduling Facebook updates. Now, this is a much more widespread feature, so Postplanner has evolved quite a lot to include more cool features. Its main focus is now on helping marketers increase their engagement on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

With Postplanner, you can easily identify the top performing content for any hashtag, topic or social media account, ranked by their virality. With this information, you can more easily come up with updates that will increase your engagement, reach and ultimately your traffic.

It's also a pretty good content curation tool; all you need to do is add your favourite social accounts, blogs, hashtags and keywords to have a list of awesome content that you can easily share, as well as use for inspiration for your future posts.

Postplanner helps you decide what the best content is with their star rating, so that whenever you see a post with 4 or 5 stars, you'll know it stands a better chance of getting you more engagement. The content is also categorized by Photos, Articles and Statuses so you can easily diversify your updates and keep your audience more interested and engaged.

In fact, PostPlanner claim that their features have helped marketers and other users get 650% more engagement than any other of the top social media marketing tools.

Scheduling content is also very easy. Their Plan feature lets you quickly schedule posts for Facebook and Twitter and arranges them in an easy to use calendar. You can also schedule reoccurring updates and use their cool Re-Cycle feature to revive all of your top updates so that you can make the most out of them.

Conclusion: PostPlanner is the perfect tool for those who want to increase their engagement and publish more targeted, engaging content, all from one place. That said, those who want more monitoring and reporting, might have to look elsewhere.

3. Hootsuite

Hootsuite is probably the best-known social media marketing tool on the market, but also one of the most criticized. In the beginning, Hootsuite was the answer to all marketers' prayers; now, though, more and more are sharing their grievances with the popular dashboard, from its add-on analytics to the price of its Pro and business plans as you add more team members.

Personally, my least favourite thing about Hootsuite is its interface. Although it's not complicated per se, it is at times confusing and since there are so many other tools that are much easier to use out there, this is a real problem for me.

Another thing that I'm not a big fan of is the Hootsuite Ow.ly link shortener, which you can only track from within Hoosuite.

When it comes to some of its features though, Hootsuite are definitely back at the top of the list. You can connect your account to over 35 different social networks, which is definitely not something you'll see with many other dashboards.

Another good feature is monitoring, as you can easily set up streams for monitoring keywords, hashtags, mentions, etc. That said, I've sometimes found that it doesn't get all of the results you'd get if you searched directly on the social network.

When it comes to scheduling updates, you can set the date and time yourself or use the AutoSchedule feature that publishes your post at the best time for increased impact.

Its reporting feature works with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google and Ow.ly. The reports aren't always that great and you could probably get more information by simply going to your Facebook Insights or Twitter analytics.

With the Contacts feature, you can see who is following you and whom you are following. From there, you can follow and unfollow, as well as organize everyone in customizable lists.

The Hootsuite Campaigns feature, which is now in Beta, allows you to create contests, sweepstakes and Instagram and Twitter galleries easily.

Conclusion: While Hootsuite is still definitely one of the top social media marketing tools, its high prices and its bland, sometimes confusing interface are definitely worth considering before deciding on the perfect tool for you.

4. Sendible

Sendible is a full feature social media marketing tool that allows you to engage with your audience, schedule updates, monitor social activity and measure your results. It works with Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest and blogs/publishing websites.

You can post updates to any network or multiple networks from the same 'compose message' box, similar to Hootsuite's. Another similar feature to Hootsuite is how you can select to have your updates published automatically at the times they consider best for boosting engagement and reach.

Sendible also has a RSS Auto Posting feature that posts relevant content at regular intervals throughout the day so you're always providing awesome content for your audience to engage with. If you have a blog, Sendible will automatically share any new posts to your social networks.

There is also a cool calendar where you can oversee all of your team's publishing activity on social media that you can also easily re-arrange by dragging and dropping updates.

Its monitoring feature allows you to keep track of any mentions of your brand, while also creating an automatic sentiment analysis that highlights any messages that need your attention immediately. What's cool about this is that Sendible doesn't just find Twitter mentions, but mentions from all around the social web, so that you know everything being said about you online, and the overall sentiment behind it.

When it comes to CRM, Sendible strives to find you prospects and opportunities. In fact, if you want it to, it can look for prospects and leads constantly and even start conversations for you with the Twitter welcome messages and Twitter auto replies.

Another cool feature (just like Agorapulse) is that you can see all past conversations you've had with different users that is great for finding new leads and improving connections. You can even import your email lists or create new ones so that you can reach the prospect you've found via more traditional marketing channels like e-mail and SMS.

Sendible also provide pretty good analytics that you can customize. It also integrates with Google Analytics so that you can easily see how your social media and email campaigns are helping you improve your website traffic.

Conclusion: Sendible is a pretty good tool that has all the main features you can look for in a social media management tool. The interface is easy to use and it has some cool extra features such as the email and SMS marketing integration.

5. SproutSocial

SproutSocial has a very clean, easy-to-use interface. It connects with all of the major social networks: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook and Google+.

When it comes to engagement, SproutSocial has a feature very similar to one of Agorapulse's: the Smart Inbox. Just like with the aforementioned tool, SproutSocial's Smart Inbox gathers all of your social messages in one place that's easy to manage and make sure you've responded to everything that needs your attention.

You can schedule posts for all of your accounts from one box (similar to several other tools), which are then placed in a shared content calendar where you and your team can review and edit all of the upcoming updates.

You can also get pretty good analytics reports for Twitter, Facebook and Instagram but one of the features that makes it stand out is that you can also review each of your team member's activity and engagement.

Conclusion: SproutSocial is definitely worth a try; the interface is beautiful and intuitive and it has good tools for engaging and scheduling updates.

6. Buffer

Buffer is a social media management tool designed to help you post more easily to your social networks. It works for both individuals as well as teams that want to collaborate.

Buffer is first and foremost a publishing tool that aims to help you increase engagement, reach, clicks and ultimately traffic to your website. It works with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+ and LinkedIn.

You can use Buffer to publish and schedule content, curate your favourite websites and blogs to easily share new content with your followers, see quick analytics for each of your posts and get more detailed analysis with the Business plan.

One of Buffer's best features in my opinion is its integration with Pablo by Buffer. With Pablo, you can more easily create images to share with your audience. This is really useful, as images help increase engagement and traffic.

Conclusion: Buffer is a great tool, but mostly for those who are looking to increase their engagement, as it doesn't have the full suite of features other tools like Agorapulse, Hootsuite or Sendible. As you upgrade to Business or Enterprise plans there are more features, but the prices are also much higher.

7. MavSocial

MavSocial is a social media management tool that allows you to connect your Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Youtube and LinkedIn accounts into one central dashboard.

On the main dashboard, you can monitor all of your social networks and the engagement and brand mentions so that you can quickly respond. You can also use it to create and manage social media campaigns and publish and schedule social media posts.

MavSocial has its own social inbox where you get all of your mentions, comments and replies from all connected social networks.

Similar to Buffer in a way, MavSocial aims to help you post better visual content to your social networks. MavSocial allows you access to a library of over 70 million royalty-free images from sources like Getty Images, Pixabay and more, and you can even edit your photos from within the tool.

Conclusion: MavSocial has everything you need from a social media management tool with the added feature of finding and adding images to your posts directly from within the tool.

8. Oktopost

Oktopost stand among all of the other social media marketing tools as it's dedicated to B2B marketing. That said, its features are similar to most other dashboards.

With the menu on the left hand side of the screen and its different streams, Oktopost looks quite similar to the popular Hootsuite. The design is a bit cleaner and sleeker than Hootsuite in my opinion, making for a better browsing experience.

You can use Oktopost to easily monitor keywords, mentions of your brand, company pages and more, in a similar way to Hootsuite. It also has a Social Inbox where you can see every comment from all of your social accounts in one place.

Oktopost helps you post better content to your audiences with their content curation feature.

Social Amplification is probably my favourite feature from Oktopost. You can basically make use of your employees in an entirely new way, by helping them become thought leaders and brand advocates for your business.

Oktopost also provides detailed analytics and beautiful reports, and helps you track any conversions you make on social media.

Conclusion: Overall, Oktopost is a great tool for B2B companies and marketers, as it has most, if not all of the features you need for a complete social media strategy.

9. Tailwind

Tailwind is a social media marketing tool for the visual marketer who uses Instagram and Pinterest.

If you're an avid Pinterest user, this is definitely the perfect tool for you. You can use it to pin content to multiple boards, monitor mentions and conversations, easily drag and drop content in your calendar and create multiple pins from any website with their browser extension.

Tailwind also helps post pins better, by automatically optimizing your pinning schedule based on your audience. You also get detailed analytics so you know which content works best and which doesn't.

The Instagram features will be coming soon and Tailwind promise similar features to the Pinterest ones – remains to be seen how well it will work.

Conclusion: Tailwind is perfect for Pinterest marketers. However, if you're using more social networks and your Pinterest strategy isn't too complex, you can probably do just as well with one of the more full-featured social media marketing tools.

10. Social Quant

Twitter is arguably the best “universal” platform for social media marketing, customer service, increased reach and visibility and for getting more traffic to your website. Social Quant aims to help you get better results from Twitter: more engagement, more targeted followers and increased brand awareness.

The way it works is it finds more targeted followers based on the keywords you set so that your following grows with users that are interested in your business and what you have to say. This in turn leads to more engagement, increased brand awareness and more traffic.

Conclusion: Social Quant is the perfect tool for those who want more out of their Twitter. It's especially useful to those who are struggling to get followers or not getting enough engagement, as well as for beginners who want to grow their audience quickly, yet still make sure they are followed by the right people.

Conclusion

The G2Crowd and Ian Anderson Gray's infographic on the top social media marketing tools has found, through detailed customer reviews, that Agorapulse is the best dashboard of 2016.

I have to say that I agree, because while there might be other similar tools with the same features, Agorapulse is incredibly intuitive and easy to use and it has a beautiful interface.

That said, marketers have different needs and each tool has its pros and cons, so it's up to you to figure out which one suits your needs best.

What do you think is the best social media marketing tool?

Guest Author: Highly regarded on the world speaker circuit, Lilach Bullock has graced Forbes and Number 10 Downing Street with her presence! She's a hugely connected and highly influential serial entrepreneur.

Listed in Forbes as one of the top 20 women social media power influencers and likewise as one of the top social media power influencers, she is one of the most dynamic personalities in the social media market and was crowned the Social Influencer of Europe by Oracle. A recipient for a Global Women Champions Award (by the Global Connections for Women Foundation) for her outstanding contribution and leadership in business.

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10 Social Media Marketing Tools That Will Make Your Competitors Weep