Everyone’s scrolling through their social media feeds right now, so it’s a good time to take a look at your social media presence and make sure you’re connecting with customers at as many touch points as possible. If you’re new to social media, getting started can feel daunting, especially for small business owners with plenty of other things competing for their time.
We’ve put together a simple rundown of free tools you can use to plan and publish your social media content, and why each one is a useful step towards a fresh new media plan.
The Planning: Trello
Every good social media strategy starts with a plan, so don’t jump straight into creating images. Give yourself and your team a solid tool for planning and managing all your upcoming content and posts. It’s also a handy way to run approval processes and make edits when more than one person is working on the strategy.
Trello is a collaboration tool you can use to sort your posts into boards and lists. It has plenty of plugins too, so you can tailor it to what you need. Free boards are limited to one plugin (or power-up, as Trello calls them) per board, so choose wisely!
For social media planning, we recommend the Calendar Power-Up. It turns your lists into an easy-to-read calendar of upcoming posts, based on the due dates you give your cards. At a glance, you can see what’s ready to go, what needs work and what’s still in progress.
You can also assign cards or posts to specific team members, so there’s a record of who’s responsible for each post and who’s been pulled in to help. Got your plan organised in Trello? Great, now let’s make the images match your posts!
The Content: Canva
If you’re new to image editing and don’t have the experience or the budget for Photoshop or other paid options, Canva is made for you. Canva is a graphic design platform for people who aren’t graphic designers. It’s easy to use, works on both desktop and mobile for editing on the go, and has millions of designer-made templates you can adapt for your own content.
Once you know which image you want to go with a planned post, take it into Canva to add some flair, adjust the colours or crop it. It pays to plan your colour filters ahead of time, especially for Instagram, so your profile looks uniform and like it was put together on purpose.
Trying new filters and looks is fun, but too many different edits can make your page look haphazard and undo all your hard work on your strategy.
If you don’t need Canva’s extra features and templates and just want a photo filter and cropping app, VSCO is another option. About 80% of its filters need a paid membership, but the basic filters and editing tools are plenty to get anyone started.
The Posting: HootSuite
By now, you should have your social media plan set up and your images ready to go. It’s time to schedule your content and start posting! Hootsuite is a widely used social media scheduling app and a great place to start if you’re new to scheduling posts.
Like the other apps here, it has a premium plan, but the free version should be enough to get you going if you’re just starting out. There’s also a 30-day free trial of its paid plans if you end up needing more options or users. Another option is Later, an Instagram scheduler. Later’s interface is a bit more intuitive than Hootsuite’s, but they do similar things.
In either tool, you can schedule and arrange your posts and add images to go with them. You can also add hashtags and locations to boost reach, along with other tactics to widen your audience. There are countless ways to build your presence on social media, so get started today!
Finding it hard to build a following on your channels? Short on time to put together a proper social media strategy? OMDIGI Group offers a wide range of digital services to get your channels up to scratch, and our designers can handle all the creative work if you’re not sure where to start!
Get in touch with us today and let our social media experts do the heavy lifting for you.
