5 tools in my social media toolbox

Sofarbeyond asked Jennifer Reid – a long time London-based former Vancouverite who specialises in content marketing and social media strategy, what is in her social media toolbox.

#1 in my social tookit: Buffer
Buffer, coined “the smarter way to share on social media” is an online tool that allows you to populate a stream with content that Buffer shares across your social networks at specified times throughout the day (or night).

Why I like it: Because Buffer toolbar enables me to easily share content from different social media platforms and to have it be released according to schedules that I dictate. This way I am seen to be sharing a steady stream of content that gets picked up in more than one time zone. I *especially* love the fact that I can share to Twitter, my LinkedIn newsfeed, LinkedIn Company pages, Google+ pages and Facebook. Buffer saves me a lot of time.

#2 in my social tookit: Bitly
I started using Bitly in 2010 for the sole purpose of shortening long links when tweeting to stay within Twitter’s 140 character limit.

Why I like it: The shortened links, called “Bitmarks” are listed on my Bitly homepage. Like Buffer, Bitly will tell me how many people clicked on the link I shared. But I can also see which sites I’m getting a high click through rate from, and which countries my clicks are originating from. I can also group common Bitmarks and then share them as bundles or email the bundles to people. For example, I could bundle up all the Bitmarks from previously shared blog posts and then send one tweet that points to the whole bundle on my Bitly homepage. Or I could simply email someone the bundle.

#3 in my social toolkit: Storify

Why I like it: I attend a lot of industry events where people are using various social media to comment. Storify enables me to pull together these threads to tell a story and it’s quicker than writing a blog post. Usually my stories consist of tweets from various people. But often the more formal LinkedIn event posts are a great way to begin stories, and if someone takes a video and shares it then you’ve *really* struck gold.

#4 in my social toolkit: StumbleUpon
StumbleUpon is a discovery engine that finds and recommends web content to its users.

Why I like it: Tools like Buffer, Bitly and Storify are distribution and tracking time savers and help stick to my main focus, which is generating content. In the world of social media, you have to stay on top of what’s new and to do that, I find StumbleUpon invaluable. I get weekly customised reading recommendations from the Web.

#5 in my social toolkit: Pocket
Pocket is a way of gathering content from the Web so that I can read it later.

Why I like it: I’d never get my day job done if I just read all my StumbleUpon recommendations, never mind if I followed the vast volume of interesting links I see on social media platforms! Pocket allows me to bookmark everything so that when I am on the train home, I can access all my saved articles from in a beautifully laid out web page.

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