Must Have Digital Tools in 2017

Image created by one of my favorite free social share image tools, Pablo by Buffer

Hi,

Happy New Year!

In my last newsletter of 2016 I talked about how small organizations can use technology to compete against the largest and most successful organizations in the world.   To start the new year I’ll spend a few weeks on my favorite digital marketing tools and how they can help you win.

Summary:

1. TL;DR (Too long; Didn’t read):  Compared to 30 years ago, marketing tools are available to every organization that were only available to Fortune 500 companies or massive non-profits.    Here are some of the tools that we use at Dakin Associates to ensure our clients win.
2. Articles I’ve shared:
   • To read:   How DailyKos grows its email list;  How Wendy’s is roasting haters on twitter.
   • Videos:  Bad Lip Reading.  Love it!
   • Resources:  Facebook automates captions on video!; Live video future and help; Google marketing on questions you should ask this year.

Big Idea:  With the right digital marketing tools, small organizations can “punch above their weight” and look much larger and more powerful than they are.

Every organization needs to feed the content beast.   If you are Disney, content is your core competency.   It is what you do, and you do it better than almost anyone on earth.

For the rest of us, we need to do two things:

1. Create:  Create amazing content.
2. Curate:   Curate other people’s amazing content (OPAC) and share it with your audience.

Tools that help you do this on the cheap (not free)

CrowdTangle:  (Link here)   CT is an incredible tool that allows you to understand what content is “going viral” RIGHT NOW on Facebook (or other social platforms) specifically in an area that only you care about.    For example, we use it for our clients in the environmental movement to understand what viral content is popular now.  We use that to A)  re-share appropriate content to their Facebook pages B)  Help for editorial direction (Ideas for new content we can produce).

BuzzSumo: (Link here)  BS is a must have tool to understand what content is “going viral” RIGHT NOW on the various content platforms.   BS is like CT, but for the New York Times, Washington Post, Blogs, etc.    This is where you surface content for your audiences.  It is also where you do research into who is writing about your content area and who is sharing that content (you can see who is tweeting specific articles).

ActionSprout:  (Link here)  AS is primarily a fantastic tool for creating Social Actions (petitions) on facebook.   It is also an amazing content curation tool.   Much like CT above.   So, if you can only afford one tool, I would recommend AS.  AS allows you to create incredible online petitions BUT it also has some of the same content curation capabilities that CT has (not all, but enough to be helpful).

Dakin Associates Capability:   We use all these tools to help our clients routinely win on social media.  Winning on social media means having your posts receive massive engagement (likes, comments, shares, ReTweets, etc) so that your message is shared on the “newsfeed” of your customers/members /prospects.

Thank you,

Shaun Dakin – Dakin Associates