Just about every marketer in the world has heard about Hootsuite by now. It is the premier social media management system for brand management online complete with a cheerful owl. It is organized into a dashboard and integrated into just about every social network you can think of. The great thing about Hootsuite is its one stop shop for practically anything we could ever need, including a lot of apps that can be found here. Don’t let the happy owl through you off, these apps can really make a big improvement in your marketing plans.

TrendSpottr

TrendSpottr lives up to its name and finds the hottest trends on social network streams in real time. This allows users to exploit these trends before they become too popular and you look like someone late to the party. This is very important for marketers because online trends with viral potential can affect markets. Imagine if your brand shows up in a viral video trend that is associated with cocaine, maybe this is good for your brand but if it isn’t, Trendspottr will allow you to have forewarning to do damage control. If it is a good trent, then a savvy marketer can cash in on these trends early, they will be able to be the forerunners and create a viral following through blogging, videos, or ad campaigns before the competition. This allows them to make their content relevant longer and to gain more shares before the web becomes overrun. Trendspottr includes:

Trend search- with the app, users can search for trends by language, including chinese and other quickly emerging markets. Users can also search for trends straight from the dashboard by hashtags, keywords, phrases or even sources.

Sharing- Once a user has found some content that is worth sharing or expanding on, it is easy to share to just about every social networking account straight from the app.

Price- at $4.99 per month, it is really a bargain, as the full suite of Trendspottr goes for $99 a month which includes helpful features, but also many ones which you probably would never use.

LikeHack

LikeHack brings content curation to a new level. While there are a lot of content curation tools available, LikeHack doesn’t solely rely on an algorithm, it uses people as well. Once a user gets the app, LikeHack will comb through all of the user’s social streams and RSS feeds and learn what the user and his/her friends are most interested in. LikeHack then identifies opinion leaders in these topics, or topics the user chooses, and curates content from them as well. This is a very useful tool for marketers because it curates content that has an average 20% clickrate, it knows what your audience wants. LikeHacks new addition to Hootsuite:

Sift through clutter- finding only the content that is relevant so the user can save a hgue amount of time.

Share- the best stories a user chooses can be easily shared through the app and as a marketer, you can expand on the articles for interesting content to be posted on your blog.

Don’t lose anything- LikeHack offers full text search to find what users need, including anything they have shared or liked in the past. This makes it easy to go back through important content and pull out the parts you need.

Intelligent Curation- Artificial intelligence is helpful, but it is a long way from being perfect. LikeHack developed a way to use algorithms in concert with real people to analyze subjects and articles that are most important to your audience and find these articles among your social accounts and RSS feeds.

Price- Free!

Zyncro

Zyncro is a platform for private communication and socialization within a company. This is important for marketers because keeping on top of company news and networking with other departments and marketers is vital. This app lets everyone stay on the same page and develop strategies together. The app is full of important features that go beyond simple messaging:

Activity stream and Microblog- it records a company’s activity, including: personal and corporate news, private messages, other users’ activity, personal activity and events.

Document Management- users can share files and access them any time on any device, microblogs are attached to each file, full editing with permission.

Task Management- from the app users can view and interact with assigned tasks and projects

Price- Free!

ContentGems

This powerhouse of a content finder may have a logo suspiciously like the forgotten Zune, but is really a helpful tool. The technology monitors over 200,000 sources and pulls the most important content out that corresponds to preferences you set up at the beginning. You can also connect your social accounts, including twitter handles you follow to make sure you don’t miss out on content. It cuts down on time that content marketers usually spend searching all over for content that is valuable for their audience. ContentGems allows marketers to:

Curate more content- the amount of sources is much more than any one can sift through in a day, this allows marketers to have a leg up when finding great articles.

Establish Yourself- With the best content, comes your great articles which cement your name as an authority on your particular topics. This helps to increase SEO for your site and gets you recognition.

Share Insights- The more content you have at your finger tips, the more great content you can post. This can turn your site into the first stop your audience visits when they need answers.

Price- Free!

Statigram

Probably the most comprehensive Instragram analyzer available is Statigram. This app allows users to get detailed insights on their corporate or department Instagram account. It goes beyond just showing your best selfie, and lets you understand the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns on Instagram and allows you to see your most active audience members which can come in handy when reaching out to influencers. Statigram’s allows users to:

Do the Usual- Like, view, comment and more but through the Statigram account which makes the experience more comfortable.

Contests and Events- Set up events and contests or your audience through Statigram, such as a photo contest with your brand’s image. This engages your community and their friends. Users can use this contest to engage on social media sites, moderate the photos, display the photos, analyze them, and reward your winner.

Manage Conversations- Track lead conversations with Statigram and send private messages to your most important influencers to build brand recognition and reach a broader audience.

Analytics- view and track your engagment through a rolling month analyss, post history over any period, social history of likes and comments, follower growth, and the best time to post a photo.

Price- Free!

Conclusion

These apps go a long way to improving the quality of your work and the efficiency in which you complete it. The owl at Hootsuite really knows what he is doing, when he decides to add an app to his dashboard.

By Idea Parcel Inc. Technology Business Development.