Imagine yourself at a party.

You’re standing in the middle of the room, having a conversation with a friend or family member. As you’re chatting about the weather, current events or the latest hilarious thing your toddler did this morning, someone you don’t know steps in.

“Click here for an awesome deal!” they yell in your face.

You’re not quite sure what they want from you, but you try to be polite. You turn your back and continue the conversation you were having before. However, no matter how much you try to ignore them, they just yell louder.

“But wait, there’s more! Only $19.99! Click here!” 

You’re not quite sure who this person is, what they’re trying to offer you or what they expect you to do. Surely there’s no way you’re going to buy whatever they’re offering! All you know is that they’re pushy, a bit sleazy, and you want to get away as quickly as possible.

If you heard of a company trying to sell products this way, you’d probably laugh. As a respectable business owner or content marketer, you know this is no way to close a sale!

Unfortunately, this isn’t too abnormal. In fact, this is exactly what many companies sound like when they get on social media.

Social media can be one of the best tools for promoting products, pushing sales and making long-lasting connections with customers. However, in order for social media to be effective for businesses, marketers need to consider the personality they’re creating.

The Importance of Personality on Social Media

Social media is easily one of the most popular marketing tools around today. As a direct line of communication between businesses and their target audiences, social media provides easy access to shoppers. However, many businesses fail to realize that most social media users aren’t logging onto their profiles to buy—they’re logging on to engage.

Many businesses forget that social media needs to be a two-way street. They jump onto their Twitter or Facebook accounts and begin spitting out links to product pages or items for sale, hoping that someone, somewhere is going to click through. Unfortunately for them, this kind of behavior only pushes their target audience away.

If you’re simply posting links or promoting your products, you’re making it difficult for a customer to connect in a human way. When they don’t have any information to respond to, content to engage with or an idea of who you are on the other side of the computer, they won’t feel compelled to learn more about you. They won’t trust you. They won’t value your opinions and recommendations.

Instead, they’ll head off to purchase from one of your more personable competitors.

A brand personality helps you stand out from the crowd. When you’re competing with dozens of other businesses just like yours, your personality gives your target audience a reason to connect with you instead of your competitors. When they select your brand for your personality, they’re investing in more than just your products or services—they’re investing in you.

Your Social Media Marketing Tool Kit: 5 Tools for Brilliant Brand Personality

When trying to make your brand personality shine through on social media, apps and tools can make the process a bit easier.

We’ve put together a kit of five social media marketing tools that are designed to help you shine.

1. Buffer

Buffer is one of the biggest names in the social media marketing game.

It acts as an all-in-one tool for getting your profiles under control. At its core, Buffer is a tool that allows you to plan, manage, post and track across various social media platforms.

Not only does it allow you to manage multiple accounts, but it also gives you built-in analytics to measure how well each of your posts is performing.

Many businesses use Buffer to establish a consistent posting schedule for their content. Since you can easily schedule posts in advance, Buffer allows you to consistently post throughout the day or week without needing to really be active online all the time.

You can simply set up the posts you’d like to share, establish the date and time and allow the automation to take control.

Consistent posting allows you to stay relevant in your customer’s mind. When you become a reliable part of their timeline, they become familiar with your name, your content and your personality. When they can rely on your posts, they can get to know you and establish a deeper connection with your brand.

Is Buffer Right for You?

Buffer is an excellent tool for any entrepreneur or small business owner looking to grow their presence online.

It offers a free plan, so it can be a great addition to your social media marketing strategy regardless of your budget. However, Buffer also offers paid plans for larger businesses looking to expand their social media presence even further.

Buffer Plans and Pricing

Buffer’s free version offers one social account per platform, allowing users to post on popular social networks like Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook and Google+.

Free users are able to schedule 10 posts per profile and are also able to use the link shortening and tracking features. However, the free version does not provide a social media calendar or access to Buffer’s analytics.

For $10/month, users can gain access to the social calendar and Pinterest scheduling, as well as the ability to link 10 accounts per network.

Need more than that? There are additional packages offered beyond the Awesome plan for small, medium, large and enterprise teams, which are shown below:

2. BuzzSumo

Just like a good party guest, you want to be sure you’re able to talk about topics your target audience will find interesting and relevant on social media.

However, trying to scan through the massive amount of content online can be time-consuming and overwhelming.

BuzzSumo, an app that allows you to search trending topics, can help you stay on top of news and current events.

With BuzzSumo, you can search for different topics, keywords or phrases to see what content surrounding that idea is popular with your target audience. You can even filter your results by date, content type and country to further pinpoint content your audience may be interested in.

When you put the time into understanding exactly what topics your audience may be interested in during that moment, you can establish a deeper connection. Using these conversation starters can grab your audience’s attention, get a dialogue going and allow you to introduce your products or services in a natural, non-aggressive way.

Is BuzzSumo Right for You?

With trending topics constantly changing, BuzzSumo provides a one-stop-shop that allows you to clearly see what’s popular among your target audience.

You can read our complete review of BuzzSumo here!

However, access to unlimited searches on BuzzSumo does not come cheap. While the site does offer a few free searches each month, users can quickly breeze through them just after a few minutes of research.

For smaller businesses who are limited in the amount they spend, BuzzSumo may be a bit out of reach as a topic research tool.

BuzzSumo Plans and Pricing

If you need more than the free option, the cheapest BuzzSumo package begins at $99/month. At this price point, users will have unlimited access to searches, as well as 5 alerts and 5,000 mentions.

The next tier jumps to $179/month for 10 alerts and 10,000 mentions, as well as access to the Question Analyzer.

At the Large level, users can pay $299/month to receive 30 alerts and 20,000 mentions, plus the ability to use BuzzSumo’s Facebook Analyzer.

BuzzSumo also provides an Enterprise plan, allowing large corporations to tailor-fit their account to meet their unique needs. However, with a $499+/month price tag, this is typically reserved for agencies and businesses with large budgets.

With any of the above prices, keep in mind that you’ll get an awesome discount for paying annually instead of monthly.

3. Canva

Part of creating a strong personality on social media is showing off awesome images that can grab attention and strengthen your brand.

However, if you’re not a graphic designer, it can be difficult to come up with images that accurately represent who you are.

Luckily, Canva is an easy-to-use tool that allows you to create high-quality images you can share on social media.

Canva provides users with templates, examples and guidelines to create high-quality images they can share across social media. By providing access to everything from logos to infographics, Canva allows users to create unique content without needing to hire an expensive graphic designer.

Using Canva can give smaller businesses or entrepreneurs the ability to develop consistent branding across their social media profiles. After saving past graphics and images, Canva users can simply update social media images to reflect new blog posts, content or information.

This consistency allows target audience members to better understand and recognize a business’s social media brand, encouraging them to connect and engage.

Is Canva Right for You?

As one of the best image-editing tools available online, Canva is a great addition to any business’s social media strategy.

The easy-to-use dashboard allows users to select a pre-made template, add their own images and input their own text to create a completely unique image they can share on social.

Although Canva makes it easy for users to create high-quality images without a graphic design degree, it does still take some skill.

The good news is that it has some affordable plan options—including a free plan.

Canva Plans and Pricing

Canva offers a Free Forever plan, allowing teams of up to 10 people to access over 8,000 templates. Free Forever users can purchase stock photos through Canva for just $1 per piece or they may upload images of their own.

For $12.95/month, Canva users can add up to 30 team members and may access over 300,000 images, templates and illustrations.

For teams looking for more, Canva offers an Enterprise version with custom features.

4. Giphy

Images and infographics aren’t the only way to add some visual media to your social media strategy. In order to attract attention and infuse some personality into your social media posts, you can include gifs with Giphy.

As a type of image file that supports animated images, gifs allow you to use short moving pictures, typically from popular TV shows or the media, to help you show some character.

Giphy is an online database that provides access to thousands of gifs. Not only can users get free use of the gifs and stickers within Giphy, but they can also upload and create their own. However, Giphy is also integrated within many social media platforms, allowing you to quickly add a gif to better portray an emotion, an idea or just a visual that will grab attention.

Since gifs are moving images, adding them to your Tweets or posts can allow you to stand out in a busy timeline. The right gif can also establish a stronger connection with your audience member, allowing them to laugh along with the humor, feel an emotion or just better understand the message you’re trying to portray with your post.

Is Giphy Right for You?

The Giphy database is free to access for all users and it’s already installed on social media platforms like Twitter.

By simply searching within the Giphy search bar, users can easily pull up gifs relevant to their post, topic or idea. However, many gifs are from pop culture. If your target audience is more professional or would not find this content entertaining, you may want to stick to creating gifs of your own.

Giphy can get a bit more complicated to use if you’re looking to create or upload your own gifs.

The gif maker allows you to easily upload a video or a series of images to create your own unique image. You can also create a gif by uploading a link from Vimeo or YouTube.

While adding a gif of your own can be a great way to show off your brand’s personality, you’ll just need to be sure you’re using the right kind of image.

5. Keyhole

In order to create a social media strategy that’s relevant, timely and engaging to your target audience, you need to understand the conversations that are already happening online.

However, browsing each and every social media platform can become time-consuming and annoying. Luckily, Keyhole allows you to easily search hashtags to monitor conversations relevant to your brand, business and industry, and to improve your organic traffic.

On Keyhole, you can easily track hashtags that you want to remain active in. Within the Keyhole platform, you’re able to see the number of posts, users and the reach associated with a certain keyword or hashtag. It also provides you with a word cloud of related topics, influential posters and location.

Keyhole also allows users to track their brand and online accounts. This can be great for managing your online reputation and staying active within your own community. Through monitoring posts about your business or brand, you can stay engaged with users and individuals even when they don’t post directly to you on social media. This allows you to make connections with individuals who may have gotten by under the radar.

Is Keyhole Right for You?

Like the other tools on this list, Keyhole offers different pricing plans depending on the size of your business and what you’re looking for. However, Keyhole is one of the more expensive tools we’ve talked about today.

Keyhole Plans and Pricing

For smaller business, the Professional package allows users to track three different hashtags and keywords, as well as three different accounts. The price for a Professional package is $165/month. To track 5 hashtags and keywords and 5 accounts, Teams will need to pay $349/month.

Keyhole also offers more expensive options, aimed at corporations and agencies. For $599/month, Corporations can track 10 hashtags and keywords with 10 different accounts.

Agencies gain access to 25 hashtags and keywords with 25 account trackers for $999/month.

If users are still looking for additional features, they can create their own Enterprise plan for a custom quote. And, by the way, all of the above plan prices are significantly discounted if you pay annually rather than monthly!

 

When looking to create a community online, social media can be one of the best places to turn. However, if you’re trying to hold a one-way conversation, you’ll quickly find that you’re not making any progress.

Don’t waste your time, energy or breath posting on social media if you’re not going to put some personality behind your content.

In order to truly see success on a social media platform, you need to give your target audience something worth engaging with.

Creating strong social media strategies is important for businesses of every size and in every industry.

When you’re able to fully understand the way your audience browses, interacts and engages on social media, you can develop a stronger personality that keeps shoppers coming back for more.

If you’re looking for ways to improve your social media personality, give these five tools a shot!