Jan 3 2024
3 Tools to Use Instead of LinkedIn Elevate (Now That It’s Gone)

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LinkedIn Elevate shut down as a standalone tool back in December 2020. Ever since, some of its features have been integrated into LinkedIn Company Pages. Some — but not all.

Three years later, employee advocacy is as important as ever – both within LinkedIn and across other social platforms. LinkedIn’s advocacy options built into Company Pages are a great place to start, but they offer limited functionality compared to dedicated employee advocacy tools.

Here’s everything you need to know if your organization is looking for an alternative to LinkedIn Elevate to manage employee advocacy and extend the social reach of your brand.

Bonus: Download a free employee advocacy toolkit that shows you how to plan, launch, and grow a successful employee advocacy program for your organization.

What was LinkedIn Elevate?

LinkedIn Elevate was an employee advocacy product provided by LinkedIn. It was a paid product with robust content curation and analytics features. Page admins could use it to hand-pick content for employees to reshare and easily track the success of their employee advocacy programs with detailed analytics.

And it was working well for the companies that used it. LinkedIn reported that LinkedIn Elevate users shared 5x more content than previously. This allowed them to influence 3x more Company Page views, 2x more Page followers, and 4x more job views.

However, LinkedIn Elevate was sunsetted as a standalone product in 2020. Many of the features were migrated over to Company Pages, where they became free to use. That means many LinkedIn Company Pages now have some basic employee advocacy functionality available at no cost. But the truth is that this embedded free version is not a complete employee advocacy solution.


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What is employee advocacy?

Before we go any further, let’s define employee advocacy. In the social marketing context, employee advocacy means that employees share your social content with their own networks to extend the reach of your messaging.

It intuitively makes sense that you would want your employees to be brand evangelists. You want them to love the company they work for and share those positive feelings with their social contacts.

Why do you need employee advocacy?

There are hard numbers to back up the importance of employee advocacy.

First up is trust. Edelman’s annual Trust Barometer consistently finds that people are more likely to trust regular people than CEOs. In the 2023 edition, Edelman found that 63% of people trust their neighbors. And 61% trust people in their local community.

Compare that to the 48% who trust CEOs and the 47% who trust journalists. It’s clear that your message is much more likely to be taken at face value when it comes from a familiar face (or someone in your existing social network).

Institutional Leaders Dashboard Percentage Trust

Source: Edelman

Here’s an interesting twist on those stats. While only 48% of people trust CEOs in general, 64% trust “my CEO.” That is, people are much more likely to trust the CEO of the company where they work. A CEO message crafted for employees and then shared on to the broader public gets an extra layer of trust built in.

But the most important way that employee advocacy contributes to brand marketing is the sheer reach of your employees’ networks and the power of their social actions.

For example, Hootsuite’s benchmarking data shows that in December 2023, the average retail brand had:

  • 8K followers on Twitter
  • 17K followers on Instagram
  • 23K fans on Facebook, and
  • 3.3K followers on LinkedIn

Of course, there’s some overlap, since most people follow brands on multiple platforms. But you also know that organic content no longer reaches all of your followers. The number of people who actually see your content might be much larger than your number of followers. Then again, it might also be much lower. (It all depends on the algorithms.)

When your employees share your content with their personal networks, it increases the potential audience pool in two ways.

First, some of your employees’ followers will see their posts about your brand. This is the most obvious reach extender.

But second, the social action of sharing itself shows the algorithm a connection between your brand and your employee. Over time, this makes algorithms more likely to suggest your content to your employees’ extended networks. This can extend the reach of all your posts, even those your employees don’t share directly.

Think about the potential reach if each of your employees has only a couple hundred followers per platform.

The even better news? You can create content for employees to share on platforms where you don’t have much of a brand presence. Or even platforms where you have no brand account at all.

Lacking the time or budget to maintain a presence on multiple social platforms emerged as the top concern in Hootsuite’s 2024 Social Trends Report. Employee advocacy can get the message out without your social team having to be everywhere.

All of this leads to more brand awareness, more web visits, and more inbound leads. And, guess what? It also helps your employees advance in their careers. How? By helping to establish their own credibility and expertise.

Phew: That was a lot.

The TL;DR version is this. When employees share brand-approved content on their social networks, they exponentially extend the reach of your social content. For more on setting up an employee advocacy program, check out our six-step strategy guide.

Why do you need an employee advocacy platform?

If your employees love their jobs, they’ll likely talk about your company. That’s true whether or not you have an employee advocacy program in place.

But using the right tools has a couple of key advantages:

  1. First, you can create brand-approved social content for your employees to share. You ensure it aligns with your campaign messaging. Once you post it in your advocacy tool, it’s ready for employees to customize and share with just a couple of clicks.

    Consistent brand messaging is important for all brands. But this is particularly crucial for organizations working in regulated industries. An employee advocacy tool that integrates with your compliance process is a must!

  2. You can customize content for different employee groups. For example, your salespeople probably want to share different content than your developers — even if they’re talking about the same products.
  3. You can access analytics related to your employee advocacy program. That means you can test, track, plan, and understand what works. You can also create contests or leaderboards. These interactive tools encourage your employees to share more.

3 LinkedIn Elevate alternatives

Whether you’re a previous LinkedIn Elevate customer or you’re new to employee advocacy, here are the best tools for 2024.

1. Hootsuite Amplify

Hootsuite Amplify makes it extremely easy for employees to share pre-approved content. They can become simple brand advocates, or personalize content for thought leadership pieces. Amplify caters to all digital skill levels. It’s easy to onboard employees across the organization.

Hootsuite Amplify weekly share goals

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Hootsuite Amplify is available for both mobile and web users. It helps employees share your message on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Based on the settings you choose, they can even share to other platforms, like WhatsApp and SMS.

The easy-to-use admin tools allow you to customize permissions and tags. Employees can stay connected to the stories and news they care about most, resonating across different departments, divisions and regions.

Publish to Amplify Regular Post and select shareable social networks

Within Amplify, you can also create an internal communications feed. This can be used to:

  • reinforce your culture
  • highlight thought leadership
  • reward your most passionate employee advocates
  • share company announcements

You can also integrate Amplify with the internal communications tools you already use, like Microsoft Teams and Slack.

For organizations in regulated industries, Amplify removes barriers to social sharing by integrating with ProofPoint, a leading social compliance tool. When risk is mediated, employees feel empowered to share their work (and work life) on social.

Since it’s integrated into Hootsuite, Amplify also gives admins and employees access to Hootsuite’s built-in AI tools for generating content ideas and adapting captions. And, of course, Amplify includes expensive analytics, so you can monitor the top stories and content shared by your organization and track the ROI of your advocacy program.

Link Settings Owl.y shortener and Google Analytics tracking

2. LinkedIn’s My Company tab

Golden Phase My Company Tab and recommendations

Source: LinkedIn

The components of LinkedIn Elevate that were folded into Company Pages now live on your organization’s My Company tab. It’s an internal communications space for employees only.

Within the My Company tab, admins can post organic and curated content for employees to share with their own networks. This is two-way amplification: Employees can share recommended company content, and company admins can recommend employees’ content for others to share.

There’s also a section for trending coworker content, where employees can interact with content from all their coworkers, whether or not they are directly connected on LinkedIn.

However, there are no built-in advocacy tools here for Facebook or Instagram, so content can only be shared within LinkedIn or to X (formerly Twitter). This is a significant limitation, especially for B2C brands.

Note The My Company tab is only available for Pages with 200 employees or more, as listed under company size.

3. GaggleAMP

GaggleAMP Share on LinkedIn Employee Advocacy Tool

Source: GaggleAMP

GaggleAMP is a standalone employee advocacy tool. Your employees connect their social channels directly to GoogleAMP, rather than to your existing social media management platform.

When your company admin posts new content, employees can get a push notification on the mobile app, or they can get an email digest of new content. It has built-in leaderboards and content functionality to encourage sharing. Employees can also be rewarded for liking or otherwise engaging with brand content.

Tap into the power of employee advocacy with Hootsuite Amplify. Increase reach, keep employees engaged, and measure results—safely and securely. Learn how Amplify can help grow your organization today.

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Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Jan 2 2024
How to Build a Social Media Growth Strategy That Works [2024]

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Social media growth reached a new high in 2023, with 4.88 billion total active social media user identities, representing 60.6% of the world’s population.

How do brands grow their own social presence to reach that ever-increasing audience base? We’ve got 10 strategic tips (and 3 tools) for optimum social growth in 2024.

Bonus: Get a free social media strategy template to quickly and easily plan your own strategy. Also use it to track results and present the plan to your boss, teammates, and clients.

What is social media growth?

Social media growth is an umbrella term that includes many different types of social success. How you define social media growth depends on the most important goals and metrics for your particular organization. Some of the most common ways to measure social media growth include:

  • Social media follower growth: How many new followers you gain in a set period of time.
  • Engagement rate: How many people engage with your content vs. how many people see it.
  • Web traffic from social accounts: How many visits to your website are referred from social posts or your social profiles.
  • Conversions referred from social accounts: How many people who come to your website from a social link follow through to make a purchase, sign up for your newsletter, or any other conversion you want to measure.
  • Social commerce sales: How much revenue you bring in from social commerce activities across your social accounts.


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10 effective social media growth strategies

1. Be active on your target audience’s favorite platforms

You can create as many (or as few) social accounts as you like. But your audience will only connect with you on the social networks they’re already actively using. You need to put your brand where they can find you easily, rather than expecting them to seek you out.

There are two components to this strategy:

  1. Your target audience
  2. The most popular social media platforms within that user base

For effective organic social media growth, you need to understand both.

If you don’t already know exactly who your target audience is, this is where you need to start. Fortunately, we’ve got a whole blog post on finding your target market that can point you in the right direction.

Once you understand your target audience, you can get even more detailed by creating audience personas.

Now that you understand who you want to connect with on social, you can figure out where to find them. Our blog post on the demographics of the major social platforms is a good place to start your research. You should also do some testing to confirm any assumptions.

Keep in mind that different segments of your audience may be active on different social media sites. Or, people might follow you on multiple platforms but expect a different relationship on each. That means you need to optimize your content for each platform.

For example, look at how differently the Washington Post approached this news story on Twitter and TikTok:

2. Create a consistent posting schedule

Humans are creatures of habit. When you post social content on a consistent schedule, your audience knows what to expect. They understand how often to expect new content, and when to anticipate your posts in their social feeds.

This consistency makes it feel less burdensome for new people who find your content through a search or suggestion to click the follow button. Conversely, it encourages fans to seek out your new content on your profile if the algorithm doesn’t serve it up in their feed.

Just like deciding where to post based on your audience’s preferences, you need to let their social activity guide your plan for when to post too.

Posting when your audience is most likely to be on the platform increases your chances for early engagement, which is a key value signal to virtually all social algorithms.

Hootsuite can show you exactly when your audience is online with customized heatmaps for each platform. You can also find recommended times to post in Hootsuite Analytics based on your specific growth goals.

Hootsuite best times and days to publish heatmap

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3. Post short video

Short social video – think Reels and TikToks – has become a crucial component of social growth. Creating this type of content is the easiest way to achieve social media follower growth. Why? Because it’s the content that’s most likely to reach people who don’t already follow you.

Instagram specifically says that for Reels, “the majority of what you see is from accounts you don’t follow.” Likewise, Facebook describes Reels as, “content you may be interested in from creators you may not follow.” And TikTok is designed to surface content a user will find interesting, not just content from accounts they follow.

Your short video content needs to align with your overall social strategy and your brand voice. But, it’s a completely different kind of content than you’re creating for feed posts or even Stories.

To get started, check out our guide to making effective short-form videos.

For platform-specific strategies, take a look at :

4. Embrace social SEO

We’ve mentioned algorithms a few times already. But when you’re focused on social media follower growth, social search engine optimization may be even more important.

Social SEO is all about optimizing your content using SEO tactics like keyword research, captions, and effective alt text to help the search features built into each social platform understand what your content is about.

That means people who are actively searching for content like yours are more likely to find you

And there’s a bonus: TikTok search results are indexed by search engines, so you can drive new eyeballs to your social content from people who are starting their search outside of social social.

5. Engage with your audience

Remember that social media is not a simple broadcast platform. Your audience wants to see your content, sure. But they also want to interact with you, the brand (or creator) behind the content.

If you want to grow your social media presence, you need to be diligent about responding to comments, tags, messages and mentions. This isn’t optional, folks! Neglected audiences don’t stick around, so leaving your comments and messages unanswered works directly against your efforts for social media growth.

The easiest way to stay on top of your social engagement is to manage all your incoming messages and comments from a centralized social inbox, like the one built into Hootsuite.Hootsuite Inbox reply social engagement


Reduce response time (and your workload)

Manage all your messages stress-free with easy routing, saved replies, and friendly chatbots. Try Hootsuite’s Inbox today.

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6. Get inspired by established accounts in your niche

We talked about audience engagement above, but it’s also important to conduct industry research. In this case, you’re looking for accounts that are already performing well in your space.

They might be competitors. But they might also be potential collaborators. Either way, studying their accounts can give you a good sense of what’s already working in your niche.

Beyond strategy insights, you can also work on social media growth by engaging with popular accounts that already reach your target audience. If they’re not in direct competition with you, try liking and commenting on their posts in a genuine and supportive way. Catching their attention might lead to a return like or follow.

Connections between accounts are a powerful signal for the social media algorithms, so connecting with relevant accounts can help your chances of appearing as a suggested post for non-followers.

Keyword and hashtag searches are a good way to start your research here. And here’s a major timesaver: Search streams in Hootsuite allow you to monitor all your relevant searches across platforms from a single dashboard.

Hootsuite Streams fashion hashtag search on Instagram

7. Work with content creators

This is another important strategy to expand your audience. In this case, you develop a collaboration with relevant content creators to piggyback on their established audience.

When your focus is social media growth, it’s important to choose your creator collaborators carefully. Their audience needs to be a really good match to the audience you are trying to build. After all, a new influx of followers is only helpful to your overall growth strategy if they actually want to stick around.

Again, hashtag and keyword searches are a good starting point. It’s also a good idea to take a look at what other accounts your existing audience follows to look for a good fit. We’ve put together a whole guide on how to work with content creators to take you from there.

8. Maximize your profile and bio

Sure, creating content is the more exciting part of social media. But developing a strong bio and profile are critical to social media growth. Make sure you have these nailed down before you start putting too much effort into other growth strategies.

There are a couple of reasons for this. First up, your profile and bio tell potential new followers who you are, what you’re all about, and why they should follow you.

Second, your profile and bio are full of opportunities to guide people to your account in the first place. Most fields in social media profiles are searchable and may be indexed in regular search engines as well as in social search results.

Google Search results for Christina Newberry

That means a profile optimized for your target keywords can lead people to your social account before they even open that particular social platform.

And, finally, your profile offers chances to direct people to your profile through the connective tissues of social platforms, like hashtags and geotags. Address information helps the algorithms connect your content with people in your local area.

9. Develop a strong brand identity

Have we said enough times already that consistency is key in growing your social media presence? Well, we’ll say it again here, because that applies to your brand identity as much as your posting schedule.

We just talked about how your profile can bring in people from outside of the social platforms. If they scroll down and see consistent content in your grid, it’s much easier for them to understand what you’re all about and why they should care.

It’s also important that your content is easily identifiable when it lands in people’s feeds. It’s easier for followers to spot your posts among all the sponsored and suggested content when you deliver a consistent look and feel that supports your brand identity.

10. Experiment with social ads

While the strategies for organic social media growth covered so far are critical to growing a strong social media presence over time, social ads can be a way to get your content in front of a new audience quickly — and boost your growth rate.

Most social platforms allow you to choose growth-oriented goals for your social ads. Look for ads goals like awareness, engagement, and consideration to drive growth with your social ad campaign.

Planning a social ads campaign may seem daunting, but it’s easy to get started. The simplest method is to put some budget behind organic posts that are already performing well for your desired growth goals.

Within Hootsuite, you can set automatic boost triggers to convert your highest-performing posts into social ads without any additional intervention.

Engagement triggers option to automatically boost posts that meet minimum requirements

Top 3 social media growth tools for 2024

1. Hootsuite

Hootsuite dashboard page impressions and reach for different social platforms

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We’ve already mentioned Hootsuite several times in this post, and for good reason. It’s got plenty of built-in social media growth tools that should be in every social marketer’s toolbox.

First up, Hootsuite has built-in AI tools that generate social captions, come up with content ideas for your blog or podcast, and suggest the most relevant hashtags to get you noticed. OwlyWriter AI can also rework high-performing posts so you have a never-ending stream of growth-inducing content based off of strategies that have already been proven to work for your brand.

On the publishing side, Hootsuite serves your social media growth strategy by allowing you to build out an integrated multi-platform campaign that reaches followers on every platform at the ideal times for maximum engagement. You can create your content in batches so your themes and messaging are aligned and in tune with your brand voice.

Once your content goes live, Hootsuite helps you hack your social growth by revealing exactly what works and what doesn’t. You’ll also get insights into how your content stacks up against industry benchmarks and top competitors, so you can set realistic growth goals and look for opportunities to improve.

2. HubSpot

HubSpot edit new email with company logo

Source: HubSpot

HubSpot is a CRM platform that’s specifically designed to help your business grow by bringing in more customers. By integrating Hubspot with Hootsuite, you can use information from your CRM database to help grow your social presence while providing better social customer service.

3. SproutSocial

Sprout Social profile performance and graph of post engagement

Source: SproutSocial

SproutSocial is a social media management platform that can assist with social media growth. It includes automation tools and social analytics features that help you refine your social media growth strategy.

SproutSocial has an average per-user seat cost of $332 and offers 26 integrations. Take a look at how SproutSocial compares to Hootsuite.

Save time managing your social media presence with Hootsuite. Publish and schedule posts, find relevant conversations, engage your audience, measure results, and more — all from one simple dashboard. Try it free today.

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Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Dec 12 2023
The 2024 Guide to Social Media Strategy for Executives

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Whether you’re B2B or B2C, your customers want to engage with humans on social media. 56% of customers want more relatable, personable content from brands on social, but 48% of brands are still posting self-promotional content multiple times a week.

How can you — a CEO, CFO, CMO, or other executive — tip the scale in your favor? Easy: be active on social media.

You don’t necessarily need to film Instagram Reels or write long-form articles for LinkedIn. You also don’t need to be active on every social media platform, or have the most original thought leadership content.

Just be yourself and devote about 5-10 minutes a day, and you’ll be growing your executive social media presence in no time. Here’s exactly how to do it.

Bonus: Download a free employee advocacy toolkit that shows you how to plan, launch, and grow a successful employee advocacy program for your organization.

Why should execs be on social media?

Build a (human) personal brand

Being on social media benefits your company and also has big perks for you. As mentioned above, your customers want more personal content from businesses.

That doesn’t mean they want to know about your recent doctor’s appointment or your everyday morning routine. It means they want stuff that’s human-first, real, funny, engaging, heartfelt… Content that conveys emotions.

Talk about a hard lesson you learned as a leader. Talk about a personal hardship you’ve learned from that people can relate to. Or, share your genuine excitement about a new product or feature your company is launching and geek out alongside your customers.

Sharing = caring. As in, enabling others to care about you and your company because they see you as a real person leading other real people instead of a faceless mega-corporation.

Jason Hawkins Reusables.com brand partnership LinkedIn post

Source: Jason Hawkins on LinkedIn

Advocate for your business

All your regular marketing still has its place, but committing to thought leadership content — meaning, you posting your insights on social media as an executive — can add quite a boost to your company’s strategy.

61% of your customers say thought leadership content is “a lot more” effective at showcasing your company’s value than traditional marketing. And 55% of decision makers say content from thought leaders is especially important to win them over during economically bleak times (e.g. right now).

55% of decision makers say that during an economic downturn it is essential for suppliers to product high quality thought leadership

Source: Edelman

Share your expertise

You know a thing or two about some things, right? Sharing your knowledge is a powerful way to develop your personal network while also demonstrating the experience that’s behind your company or product.

It can be as simple as showing what you’re working on. If you used to be a developer, share the new features your team is currently working on and what the roadmap is.

Have a long management journey of starting on the front lines and working yourself up to head of HR? Share your best tips for employees to get the great performance reviews they want or land their dream job.

Whatever your area of expertise is, share it.

Boost your sentiment

Your brand sentiment is basically a “temperature check” of what people are saying about you online and what they think of you — or your company.

By putting yourself out there and creating human-centered content around your expertise, you’ll provide a massive boost to that sentiment.

But how do you know if your content is enhancing what people think about your company? By measuring your brand sentiment automagically with Hootsuite Insights, for example.

Track mentions, identify opportunities, and encourage brand loyalty by responding to comments and getting involved in conversations. You’ll know where you and your company stand with your audience, 24/7/365.

Insights Brandwatch dashboard

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Build relationships

Is it lonely at the top? Not for execs on social media.

Being active on social media can help build all sorts of relationships for you, from attracting top talent to hire, networking with industry peers, and even fostering deeper relationships with your employees and team.

People get to know more about you as both a person and a leader when they watch or read your content.

Promote your values

When your content focuses on the things mentioned above, like building a human brand and building relationships, it will naturally reflect your values.

It’s not about shouting your values from the rooftops like, “Hey! We care about people so much! Look, we offer five sick days per year!”

It’s about quietly communicating them through everything you share. Talk about your or your company’s charitable activities or share some relatable industry-specific humor. Your values can also shine through the stories you choose to share, like that story about how you overcame the anxiety of starting a new role or making a tough management decision.

Support recruiting

One of the most tangible benefits of posting on social media as an executive is how well it works to support recruiting efforts. Whether you have open roles to fill now or not, your public profile as a company leader helps job seekers understand your company’s culture and determine if it’s a good fit for them.

Besides boosting your brand sentiment and giving people a “behind the scenes” peek into your company culture, posting also gets your company more eyeballs. Content from employees gets twice as many clicks as official company content. And, people judge content posted by an employee as three times more authentic than if it would’ve been posted on the company’s social media profile.

This said, you can and should create a company-wide employee advocacy program that goes beyond just you and the other executives posting on social media. Research shows companies with formal employee advocacy programs are 58% more likely to attract top employees, and 20% more likely to retain them.

This is how Hootsuite Amplify makes setting up and managing an employee advocacy program easy:

Show transparency

It’s hard to build trust, both personally and professionally. But it’s the most important thing you can do to earn new business and loyal customers.

Edelman has been tracking trust statistics for 23 years, and 2023’s report reflects an ever-increasing distrust of society in general, government, and especially a lack of trust in social media.

Interestingly, 48% of respondents say CEOs, in general, are untrustworthy, but 64% say their CEO is trustworthy — more so than their neighbors!

Edelman graph percentage of institutional leaders distrusted by industry

Source: Edelman Trust Barometer Report

What’s with the cognitive dissonance there? My theory is the difference connection makes.

When we feel connected to someone — colleagues, even, or in a parasocial relationship facilitated by social media — we tend to have a more favorable opinion of them. Simply: we trust them more.

By using social media as an executive, you’re building trust through transparency with your team and encouraging leads, customers, and peers to trust you too.

How to build a social media strategy for executives

Set goals

You don’t need to list out a multi-page social media strategy document complete with quarterly KPIs, rigid topics, or a defined schedule of daily actions.

But you should at least have an outline of a strategy. What do you want to get out of posting on social media?

A few goal ideas are:

  • Grow your network with industry peers
  • Increase talent recruitment and fill open positions
  • Encourage your employees to share online and build their personal social media brands, too
  • Create a company culture of content development

Of course, there are many more possible goals. Yours may change as you start sharing online and discover new benefits to doing so, but have at least one or two goals to start.

Pick the right networks

Where will you post as an executive on social media? The obvious choice is LinkedIn — the world’s largest professional social network — and you should definitely be on there. For some executives, it may be the only social platform you need.

But don’t overlook other great options. Reddit could be a great place for you to host AMAs: “Ask Me Anything” threads popular on the platform.

Reddit Ask Me Anything CEO and CTO of Proton

Source: r/IAMA on Reddit

Depending on your desired audience and goals, you could even build a successful online presence on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube. Really, any platform as long as you know who you’re trying to reach and then choose the platform(s) those people regularly use.

As for how to reach them, that’s the next step…

Define your content strategy

Once you know where you’ll be posting, you need to decide what to post about and who’s going to post it.

The “what” depends on the platforms you identified in the previous step. For example, if you picked TikTok or YouTube, obviously, that means creating video content.

For LinkedIn, it’s likely most of your content will be text posts or the new way to do LinkedIn carousels.

A well-rounded content strategy is about more than just what format you’ll use.

It includes things like:

  • SMART goals
  • What content your audience enjoys and wants more of
  • An audit of your current social performance and profiles
  • Your posting frequency
  • Topics you’ll focus on
  • How you’ll measure success

If you need help crafting yours, check out our step-by-step guide to social media content strategy.

Finally, you need a game plan for publishing content. Are you going to write/record/edit/create all your own content and post it yourself? Or, will you enlist your marketing team for help in either producing the content, scheduling it, and/or replying to comments? Be clear on who’s doing what before you start.

Plan and schedule your posts

This one’s easy: Use Hootsuite. Done, next…

Okay, for real, you’ve heard it everywhere, but it’s true: a big part of succeeding on social media is staying consistent. That means posting roughly the same amount of times per week and replying to DMs and comments at least every other day.

You can always change your posting frequency to be more or less, depending what your audience is responding (or not responding) to. But you need to stay consistent with your chosen schedule until you decide to strategically change it, for good, data-informed reasons.

The easiest way to build a consistent posting schedule with the least time commitment is to use a social media post scheduler like Hootsuite. Plan and draft your content in a visual calendar and schedule posts to go live at your personalized best time to publish based on your audience data.

It’s auto-magical.

Best Time to Publish - LinkedIn Heatmap

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Answer comments and DMs

It’s no surprise that social media is all about engagement. One of the fastest ways to grow your follower count is by commenting on other people’s posts. But the way to build true community is by replying to comments and DMs that others leave on your posts.

Even if it’s only a quick “thank you,” taking a few seconds to acknowledge someone’s comment helps build that sense of community and form real connections on social media.

Set aside a few minutes a day to do these responses, or even every other day. You’ll boost your engagement rate which the algorithms love, and you could meet some amazing new people.

Hootsuite Inbox makes this super easy by organizing all your comments and DMs across all your social media accounts in one place where you can reply to everyone.

Hootsuite Inbox Replying to a Comment

Listen for mentions

Yes, you need to reply to comments and messages on your profiles, but you should also respond in the other places people are talking about you, like on their own pages or profiles.

But how do you find those mentions in the first place? Don’t worry, this is another thing technology can take off your plate. (Or ears.)

Social listening tools can track these mentions across the internet and alert you to mentions and conversations about topics you’re interested in so you can take part in them. This will save you so much time and allow you to use it in the most useful way: actually engaging with people.

Psst: Of course, Hootsuite’s got your back with built-in social listening features and deep integrations with third-party tools.

Track your success

You already know in business you need to track your results in order to see what’s working, what’s not, and when you may need to tweak your plans. The same applies to social media.

Set up a spreadsheet with each of your KPIs to measure the goals you outlined in your content strategy. Fill it out at least monthly in addition to running a quarterly social media audit.

Don’t want to spend hours each month gathering all your performance data, though? Understandable. Once again, Hootsuite is here to make your social media life easy with all-in-one analytics for all your platforms in one place.

6 inspiring CEOs on social media

Still need a bit more inspiration to get started? Peek in on what your peers are posting, or check out these executives making a splash on social media.

Irina Novoselsky

Irina Novoselsky CEO of Hootsuite LinkedIn social media manager post

Source: Irina Novoselsky on LinkedIn

Irina, CEO of Hootsuite, is understandably very active on social media and a huge champion of all Owls (Hootsuite employees), sharing their expertise online through the company’s employee advocacy program powered by Hootsuite Amplify.

Irina talks about leadership and the power of social media (obviously!), and shares personal insights about what makes Hootsuite great, both as a company and a product. She’s also known to advocate for social marketers, seeking to elevate their status among other CEOs and executives.

What you can learn from them:

  • Be genuine. Irina’s passion for teamwork and the power of social relationships shines through in every post she shares. Lesson for you? Share your authentic business beliefs.
  • Include a ‘footer’ in your posts. At the end of each post, Irina includes a section introducing herself. It tells potential new connections what to expect if they follow her, making it more likely that people who really vibe with that content will.
Irina Chief Owl at Hootsuite LinkedIn post footer with introduction

Source: Irina Novoselsky on LinkedIn

Christopher Young

Christopher Young Executive Vice President at Microsoft AI in Asia LinkedIn post

Source: Christopher Young on LinkedIn

Christopher is an Executive Vice President at Microsoft who speaks widely on topics surrounding how AI is impacting work today and how it will continue to change how we work in the future.

What you can learn from them:

  • Don’t be afraid to speak your mind. Nowadays, everyone has an opinion on AI, but Christopher believes AI is a positive tool for the good of the future and backs it up with his content. Whatever you believe about something, back up your opinion with case studies and data to add credibility to your words.

Alexis Ohanian Sr.

Alexis Ohanian Sr. The Grand World work life balance article

Source: Alexis Ohanian Sr. on LinkedIn

Best known as a former co-founder of Reddit, Alexis Ohanian now speaks publicly about work-life balance, making workplaces more family-friendly, and venture capital.

What you can learn from them:

  • Repurpose content intelligently. Just like Alexis does, you can cross-post content, like sharing a TikTok video on LinkedIn — but take the time to customize the caption with a personal note directed to the kind of people who follow you on LinkedIn.

Adam Mosseri

Adam Mosseri new photo editing filters on Instagram

Source: Adam Mosseri on Instagram

As the head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri has an almost cult following among social media professionals. He’s like our creator of creators, the Meta meta-creator, if you will.

Adam talks about all the latest changes on Instagram, social media in general, and what’s new with Threads.

What you can learn from them:

  • Don’t be afraid to be the face of your brand. Every time Adam Mosseri posts a new video, social media managers everywhere buy an emotional support iced coffee. Okay, no, but he’s known as the source to go to for the latest Instagram algorithm updates.
  • Show up how you do best. Adam mostly communicates key info via Reels. If you’re comfortable speaking to a camera, use video. If you prefer writing, put your value into captions.

Aaron Levie

Aaron Levie X post The Box file system design and product architecture

Source: Aaron Levie on X

Aaron is the CEO of Box, the popular cloud storage company. He talks about Box, but also about startup culture, lessons learned, and leadership tips.

What you can learn from them:

  • Speak your mind if you can take the heat. Aaron often shares his opinions on everything from software development to AI. Whenever you share a potentially controversial topic, some people are bound to agree and others disagree. If you can handle not being universally liked, don’t shy away from taking a stand.

Oprah

Oprah's favorite things the color purple Instagram post

Source: Oprah on Instagram

Oprah needs no introduction. On social media, she shares snippets of her life, her latest book club picks, news about her latest productions and projects, and of course, her famous “Oprah’s Favorite Things” recommendations.

What you can learn from them:

  • Be yourself. Oprah has been famous forever at this point, but she’s always remained true to her personality and values — and that shines through in how she interacts with others and what she chooses to share.
  • Use your profile to lift up others. You may not have 22 million followers like Oprah, but when you can, use your profile to feature others you believe in. Oprah regularly features aspiring performers, authors, and advocates she admires.

Ready to uplevel your career, expand your network and opportunities, and automate your social media success? Hire Hootsuite as your executive social assistant to easily plan, schedule, analyze, and amplify your content across all your social profiles in one easy-to-use dashboard.

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Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Dec 7 2023
How to Get on the FYP (For You Page) on TikTok: 15 Hacks

Table of Contents

In a way, this blog post is also a For You Page: it was carefully created just for you, and the more you scroll, the more you’ll find content that you’re likely to care about. Except it was written by a human with bones and blood, and not determined by a series of TikTok algorithms.

Getting on the TikTok FYP, or For You Page, is extremely important when it comes to success on the platform: the FYP is where a billion global active users find new content, new accounts to follow and new brands to care about.

Here’s everything you need to know about getting on the FYP, straight from the human’s mouth.

What is the FYP (For You page) on TikTok?

The Tiktok FYP (For You Page) is a feed of content created for a specific user based on an algorithm. The FYP shows a mix of videos from accounts that the user follows and other videos that the platform believes the user will enjoy—in other words, the FYP makes predictions about what content you’ll find most engaging.

According to TikTok, each individual’s For You Page stream of videos is decided according to three main rankings:

  • User interactions (this includes the TikToks you like, comment on, and share, including accounts you follow and content you make yourself).
  • Video information (details like sounds, hashtags and captions)
  • Device and account settings (for example, your language preference, location setting and type of device—but TikTok says this is the least important of the three)

How to get on the FYP: 15 tips

Use trending songs

Ever had a TikTok song stuck in your head? That’s because your FYP is often full of trending music—meaning that lots of creators are using the same songs in their videos. TikTok knows what music is trending and is more likely to put your video on the FYP if you hop on the trend.

Irish dance group Cairde often uses trending songs in their content—they’ve built an impressive follower base of 3.3 million, but their videos typically have engagement numbers that double, triple, or even 20x that number. That’s because their videos show up on FYP of users who don’t follow them, in part because they hop on (literally) music trends.

Many TikTok sounds also have their own built-in trends, which makes the content even easier to create. This chihuahua, for example, managed to edit this video in exactly the way that thousands of Gen Zers did. Old dog, new Tiks.

Use trending audio

Similar to the above — it’s not just songs that go viral on TikTok, it’s sounds. A sound byte from a TV show or movie or just the isolated audio from another TikTok can go viral, too. Put your own spin on trending audio clips to boost your wow factor and set you apart from other users with familar but unique content.

Then this dramatic audio began trending, and thousands of users found their own interpretations for the sound—time to work on your lip-synching skills.

Participate in trends

Sorry, one more reference to trends (hey, in the online world, trends are always tops): there’s an infinite opportunity for dance trends, prank trends, challenge trends and more on TikTok.

Not only will participating in trends make you more likely to get on the FYP… trends are also a no-brainer when it comes to content brainstorming. Rather than coming up with something that’s completely fresh, take a look at what others are doing (and do it better).

For example, when it felt like everyone (yes, chef, everyone) was binge-watching The Bear, many TikTok users decided to recreate the omelet featured on the show.

Potato chip brand Smith’s Chips posted their own how-to—appropriate, since the omelet in the television series has sour cream and onion chips sprinkled on top. This is an awesome example of using a trend to market your brand.

Be timely

The TikTok FYP is all about what is hot now… which often actually means predicting the future. When planning out your content calendar, think about holidays, occasions and seasons, and consider what you can do to make your TikToks matter at the time that they are posted.

Being timely might also mean that your TikTok is more useful (for example, no one wants pumpkin-carving tips on November 1).

Kelly Clarkson posted this TikTok at the perfect time—her cover of Olivia Rodrigo’s “Vampire” was relevant because the song is trending, plus the video went live right around Halloween. Freaky, festive and fabulous.

Post at the right time

Speaking of time: scheduling your TikToks to post at the optimal time will help more users take notice of your video, leading to more engagement, a higher ranking in the algorithm and making your video more likely to appear on TikTok For You Pages.

Hootsuite has experimented and drawn conclusions about the best time to post on TikTok in general (short answer? Thursday at 7:00 p.m.), but more accurate “best time” stats will change from user to user.

The good news is that Hootsuite also has built-in, personalized tech that will tell you when your best time to post on TikTok is. You can also use TikTok analytics to see when most of your followers are online, and pay attention to stats from videos you’ve already posted to find correlations between views and timing.

Encourage people to engage

Engagement is one of the biggest factors that leads to success on TikTok. There’s plenty of ways to boost your engagement rate on the platform (here are 5 ways to make yours higher), but there’s also a very simple engagement-boosting hack: just ask. Encourage viewers to comment, like, save and send your video to friends.

This speed reading challenge is an excellent example. The video challenges you from the very start, prompting you to pay attention and not scroll away. Viewers are encouraged to comment on the video if they can complete the reading challenge and to send it to a friend who might like a speed-reading test, too.

By asking folks to comment and share this video and by appealing to their sense of competition, the creator is getting more engagement — which leads to a higher ranking on the algorithm and a higher chance of ending up on a FYP.

Use the right hashtags

Trending hashtags are one element that helps TikTok figure out what your video is about — and we’re not talking about the ultra-basic #fyp. To figure out which TikTok hashtags to use, look to the experts: find your competitors (or, to use more positive language, other folks who are succeeding in your industry) and see which popular hashtags they are using.

It’s hard to go wrong creating #Swiftok content lately, and football social media managers have been working overtime on Taylor Swift-related videos. The delightful TikTok above tags #taylorswift, #erastour and #swifttok, so TikTok knows to share it on the For You Pages of her fans.

Tag your location

A user’s FYP will incorporate viral and not-so-viral videos from all over the world, but the TikTok algorithm also takes into account location when curating the For You Page. The platform assumes — usually correctly — that TikTok users will care about videos that were created in the same city, country or continent that they live in.

Take this invitation for a pop-up rave in Vancouver, for example. The creator tagged the location and used the hashtag #Vancouver in their description, indicating to the TikTok algorithm that users in Vancouver would likely care about the video.

The pop-up skytrain rave was apparently a success, likely in no small part due to the invite showing up on local user’s FYPs.

Collaborate with a creator

TikTok creators know all about how to get on the FYP. It’s how they gained their following: by creating engaging, entertaining content that users want more of. Collaborating with a successful creator on TikTok can expand your audience significantly, as you’ll automatically be more likely to be seen on the For You Pages of all the creator’s followers.

Hot tip: When collaborating with a creator, make sure that their niche aligns with yours in some way (in other words, the collaboration should “make sense,” for example, an athletic wear brand collaborating with an athlete or a kitchen retailer collaborating with a chef). The best partnership should be authentic and beneficial for both parties… actually, that’s good relationship advice, too.

Here’s a celeb example. Walmart collaborated with Mean Girls stars almost 20 years after the original release of the movie to create this viral advertisement (it has over two million views, hundreds of thousands of likes and tens of thousands of saves).

And on Lindsay Lohan’s account, the exact same video has over 20 million views, almost four million likes and 300,000 saves. Walmart significantly expanded its reach with this collaboration — get in losers, we’re posting TikTok collabs.

Collaborate with another brand

It’s not just creators that you can collaborate with: consider partnering with another brand to widen your reach and develop meaningful relationships with others in your industry. Just like a creator partnership, a brand partnership will expose you to the other brand’s followers (and their bank accounts) and vice versa.

And, also like a creator partnership, a brand partnership should be a genuine collaboration between two parties with similar values. Think a hot sauce brand partnering with a chicken wing restaurant, or a shoe company partnering with a sock company.

Post consistently

TikTok recommends posting 1 to 4 times per day… yes, per DAY. If that’s within reach for you as a social media manager, by all means, go absolutely buckwild with content. But for many, that’s not a realistic goal — and that’s totally okay.

At Hootsuite, we recommend posting 3 to 5 times per week. It’s a manageable goal to set, and also is consistent enough that you should be regularly appearing on your follower’s feeds. What’s most important is that you are repeatedly showing up on the app, and taking every opportunity you can get to get on the FYP.

(Plus, with Hootsuite, you can schedule your TikToks in advance — so 3-5 new videos a week might only mean a couple of hours of work one day a week.)

This TikTokker posts videos of dancing chickens— sometimes in costume — several times a day, and while all of them are eggcellent (sorry), they don’t all end up going viral.

Then again, there’a quite a few with millions of views. Sometimes, ending up on the FYP is a bit of a numbers game: you miss 100% of the Toks you don’t Tik.

Find your niche

This tip is true for every platform out there: when your content is geared towards a specific community, you’re more likely to find engaged followers who will stick with you. TikTok is unique in that niches can be almost unbelievably specific (I, for example, am consistently fed TikTok videos about ex-theatre kids working in corporate jobs) and that’s a great opportunity to narrow down your content and really focus on what matters.

The above video is just one of the hundreds of TikToks that performance artist Vita Kari has made. Their content almost always follows the same formula, and they’ve found a hyper-specific niche that is super engaging—their TikToks are like a guessing game, prompting viewers to comment and share.

Post before-and-after content

One of the metrics that the TikTok algorithm uses to rank videos is the time that viewers spend watching before they scroll away. And because TikTok is so rich with content, you’ll want to grab an audience’s attention in the first precious seconds: give them a reason to keep watching.

Sharing before-and-after content, behind-the-scenes or process videos is an excellent hack for grabbing attention—the instant gratification that a viewer gets from seeing results prompts them to pay attention. This photoshoot behind-the-scenes is an awesome example… once you see the first before-and-after, you’re tempted to watch the rest.

Stitch other videos

Stitching trending videos is another way to hop on a trend—often, videos asking a question or prompting a story will go viral because of their stitchability. Just like song trends and sound trends, stitch trends are favoured by TikTok’s algorithm.

This video proves that stitches lead to success: there are hundreds of stitches, some with millions of views.

Also: don’t forget to embrace serendipity. Okay, that advice sounds a little like something you’d read in a fortune cookie—but serendipitous coincidences and can’t-believe-it’s-true circumstances do super well on TikTok.

For example, when one TikTok user remarked “Y’all remember the days when going viral got you on Ellen?”, ex-child singer (and current adult singer) Greyson Chance took the opportunity to stitch it—after all, he went viral and got on Ellen in 2010.

Be yourself

In the end, trends and hacks can’t really top straight-up authenticity: it’s a quality that TikTok claims to champion, and often, the For You Page proves it.

The virality of this video proves it: who wouldn’t love seeing a daughter trying to save her family’s business on their feed? Being yourself and creating genuine, authentic content won’t just get you on the FYP, it will help convert some of those lucky views to real follows.

Grow your TikTok presence alongside your other social channels using Hootsuite. Schedule and publish posts for the best times, engage your audience, and measure performance — all from one easy-to-use dashboard. Try it free today.

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Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Dec 5 2023
4 TikTok Analytics Tools That Do the Math for You

Table of Contents

Ah, TikTok. What started as the domain of teenagers doing their teenager thing has become an important marketing channel – and not just for those marketing to teens. The platform now has more than a billion monthly users, and nearly a third of them are over 35. That means TikTok has become serious business for brands and organizations of all shapes and sizes.

TikTok analytics provide the information you need to take your TikTok strategy seriously, with insights into what works and what doesn’t for your business.

Before we jump into the details, here’s a quick overview of everything you need to know:

https://youtu.be/JMyRpoAOcAQ?si=p8KktDQCZP565Cks

What is TikTok analytics?

TikTok analytics are tools that allow you to track your performance on TikTok. They provide insights into which videos are seeing the most activity. On a deeper level, they help guide your TikTok marketing strategy, as you come to understand what resonates best with your audience.

Regularly reviewing the most important metrics for your TikTok account will allow you to grow strategically, rather than simply hoping for the best.

27 key metrics to track on TikTok

TikTok account metrics

  1. Video views. The total number of times your account’s videos were viewed over a given period.
  2. Profile views. The number of times your profile was viewed over the selected period. This TikTok metric is a good indication of brand interest. It measures the number of people who liked your video enough to check out your profile, or people who search for your brand on the platform.
  3. Likes. The number of likes your videos received in the selected date range.
  4. Comments. The number of comments your videos received in the selected date range.
  5. Shares. The number of shares your videos received in the selected date range.
  6. Content frequency. The number of videos you shared in the selected date range.

TikTok content metrics (for individual videos)

  1. Post views. The number of times a TikTok video has been viewed.
  2. Post likes. How many likes a post has received.
  3. Post comments. How many comments a post has received.
  4. Post shares. The number of times the post has been shared.
  5. Post engagement rate: Calculated as [(Number of likes + Number of comments + Number of shares + Number of content clicks in videos) / Number of viewers] * 100. Tip: Don’t like math? Hootsuite Analytics calculates engagement rate for you.
  6. Post average watch time. The average amount of time people spent watching this video.
  7. Video completion percentage. The number of times the video has been watched in full, as a percentage of viewers (identified in TikTok analytics as “watched full video”)
  8. Video reach. The total number of individual users who watched this video.
  9. Traffic sources. How people fi=ound your video. Traffic sources include the For You feed, your profile, the Following feed, sounds, searches, and hashtags.
  10. Video views by region. This section displays the top locations of viewers for the post. If you created a post or marketing campaign for a specific location, this is how to tell if it reached them.


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TikTok follower metrics (and demographics)

  1. Follower count: How many followers you have, total, at this moment in time.
  2. Net new followers: Total increase or decrease in your follower count during the selected time period.
  3. Gender distribution. A breakdown of the stated gender identities of your followers. While this isn’t necessarily critical information, any insight into your audience can help you build better audience personas.
  4. Country distribution. Where your followers are from, ranked by country. (Identified in TikTok Analytics as “Top Territories.”) Keep these places in mind if you’re looking to localize content and promotions.
  5. Follower activity. The times and days that your followers are active and scrolling on TikTok. Hootsuite uses this data to recommend best times to post based on your preferred goal.
Hootsuite best times and days to publish based on number of followers online in last 30 days

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TikTok Live metrics

  1. Total views. The total number of viewers present during your live videos in the selected date range.
  2. Total time. The total time you spent hosting live videos in the selected date range.
  3. New followers. The number of new followers gained while hosting a live video in the selected date range.
  4. Top viewer count. The peak number of users who viewed your live video at one time in the selected date range.
  5. Unique viewers. The number of users who viewed your live video at least once (in this stat, a viewer is only counted once, no matter how many times they replay the video).
  6. Diamonds. When you host a live video (and you’re 18+), viewers can send you virtual gifts, including “Diamonds.” You can exchange these diamonds for real money through TikTok—more info on that here. This stat shows how many diamonds you have earned in the selected date range.

4 TikTok analytics tools for 2024

First things first: Wondering how to turn on analytics on TikTok? To use a TikTok analytics tool, you’ll need to have a TikTok Business account. It’s free to switch. Just follow these steps:

  1. From your TikTok profile page, open the Settings and privacy tab (the three lines in the top right corner).
  2. Tap Manage account.
  3. Under Account control, choose Switch to Business Account.

1. Hootsuite

Hootsuite TikTok analytics reporting dashboard

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Hootsuite offers robust TikTok analytics reporting, with customizable reports and graphs that allow you to understand your current performance at a glance. If you want to dive into the details, you can do that too. Perhaps most importantly, Hootsuite allows you to analyze TikTok data for any timeframe you choose, whereas TikTok’s native tools are capped at 60 days.

The handy thing about Hootsuite’s highly customizable TikTok reports is that you can get as much or as little detail as you want. And you can create multiple reports for different shareholders with just a few clicks – so you can prove the success of your TikTok content strategy to senior stakeholders without having to walk them through every single stat.

You can also directly compare two time periods, so you can more easily identify trends.

Since most social marketers use TikTok as part of a multi-platform social strategy, it’s important to consider your TikTok insights in the context of your overall social performance. Hoostuite makes it easier to compare TikToks and Instagram Reels side-by-side, for example, so you can understand which is getting more traction.

Knowing where each platform fits into your social plan allows you to allocate resources more effectively and improve your entire social strategy, not just your TikTok results.

2. TikTok’s built-in tools

TikTok analytics mobile overview video views and followers

Source: TikTok

You can check your TikTok analytics for free using their native tools on your computer as well as within the mobile app. However, you can only download your data from the desktop dashboard. Here’s how to check TikTok analytics both ways:

  • On mobile: From your account page, tap the three dots icon and select Creator tools. Tap Analytics and you’re good to go!
  • On desktop: Navigate to tiktok.com and log in. Click your profile picture and choose Business Suite from the dropdown menu. This takes you directly to the Analytics page.

3. Sprout Social

Sprout Social video views graph report

Source: Sprout Social

Sprout Social offers a TikTok Analytics tool that provides access to many of the metrics above. It has graphical reports that make it easy to understand your TikTok activity. Like Hootsuite, it offers data beyond TikTok’s 60-day limit, but there are fewer customization options. It also offers recommendations on the best time to post, but they are not customizable by goal.

See how Sprout Social compares to Hootsuite.

4. Countik

Countik graph of average engagement rate for last 10 posts

Source: Countik

Countik is a free TikTok analytics tracker that lets you see insights for the most recent posts of any TikTok account. Just enter the Tik Tok handle in the search bar and click the magnifying glass.

You’ll get a lot of useful information, including average engagement rates, likes views, comments, and shares. You’ll also see the account’s most-used hashtags and mentions.

This is definitely a useful tool to research competitors and collaborators, but it does have significant limitations. The charts only include information on the last 10 posts, and the per-post analytics only include the most recent 20 posts.

How to use TikTok analytics tools for best results

Check in on a regular basis

While things move fast in general online, they move at light speed on TikTok. This is not a platform where you can afford to tune out of reporting for a few weeks.

Checking in regularly allows you to understand how TikTok user behavior is changing in near real time so you can adapt your strategy on the fly.

Hootsuite can keep you on track with your TikTok analytics tracking by automatically sending you (and other stakeholders) reports on a pre-set schedule, so the data comes right to your inbox.

Keep an eye on competitors – and potential collaborators

Within TikTok’s native analytics tool, there’s one stat in particular that can help you keep an eye on your competitors.

It’s called Videos your followers watched. It shows content your followers watched on TikTok when they were not watching your videos.

Videos your followers watched on TikTok last 7 days

Source: TikTok analytics

The creators of this content may very well be your competition. What are they up to?

Of course, these creators could also be potential collaborators. Is there anyone you might want to partner with to grow both of your audiences?

Look for patterns

Knowing whether each individual video flies or flops is a valuable exercise in itself. But if you really want to take your TikTok game to the next level, you need to look for the patterns and connections behind the data.

For example, if you notice your follower growth rate is significantly higher or lower than usual, narrow the date range of your new followers reporting to look for specific spikes or dips. What happened on that day? Make some notes about what you think might have led to the change.

You won’t necessarily be able to diagnose the situation in the first instance, but the next time you see a similar spike or dip, you might start to spot a pattern. In the meantime, you can test your theories to see if you can recreate success or correct a follower loss.

Over time, you’ll be able to tell what your audience wants to see from you. Give them more of that! Whether it’s how-to videos, product reviews, or stitches, you’ll soon get a sense of what kinds of videos get the most engagement and watch time.

Tip: If people watch a video more than once, they really, really like it (and so will the algorithm). To understand which videos get multiple views, subtract your reached audience from your view count. This gives you an estimate of how many times your video got multiple views.

Evaluate your hashtag and sounds strategies

Use the traffic sources analytics to get a sense of how many people are finding your videos through hashtags or sounds.

Sounds trends change lightning fast, but you can always see which sounds your audience has been listening to in the Followers tab of the native TikTok analytics tool. If you’re not seeing great results from your current sounds strategy, try one of these – but only if you can turn your video around almost right away.

Sounds your followers listened to on TikTok Daydream Acoustic and Blue Night

Source: TikTok

For hashtags, pay attention when you see a spike in traffic from hashtags and see if you can narrow it down to a particular hashtag that works well to bring in new viewers. Again, this might take a couple of tries, but over time you should be able to find some consistent winners.

Compare your results to industry benchmarks

The more context you have, the easier it is to understand your results. It’s incredibly helpful to know how the rest of your industry is doing on TikTok, especially during periods of change in activity on your account.

How to see TikTok analytics in the context of your industry as a whole? Hootsuite Analytics has a built-in industry benchmarking report that provides an analysis of how well you’re performing compared to others like you. You can choose the metrics that matter most to you, and select whether to display your data as a chart of a table for ease of use.

Hootsuite Analytics industry benchmarking profile impressions

Source: Hootsuite Analytics

Don’t forget to have fun

Merriam-Webster’s word of the year for 2023 is “authentic.”

https://twitter.com/MerriamWebster/status/1729155477777559694

It’s an important reminder for brands that social media – and TikTok in particular – is a place for connection. TikTok is not a billboard, and it’s not even really like other social platforms. It’s a place where authenticity trumps all.

So, use the information from TikTok analytics to hone your strategy, spark content ideas, and understand your audience. But don’t let the numbers be the only thing that guides you. Allow room to experiment authentically and have fun. Just be sure to check your analytics reporting after you do so.

Grow your TikTok presence alongside your other social channels using Hootsuite. Schedule and publish posts for the best times, engage your audience, and measure performance — all from one easy-to-use dashboard. Try it free today.

Get Started

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Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Nov 30 2023
10 Content Marketing Tools That Will Make Your Job Easier

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Good salespeople know that it’s not a great idea to try the hard sell on prospects the very first time you connect. First, you need to build a relationship and establish your credibility.

Marketers need to take the same approach. That’s where content marketing comes in. By creating valuable resources, information, tools, and other forms of content for your audience, you make sure you’re top of mind when it comes time to make a purchase.

Content marketing is a big job. Content marketing tools make that job significantly easier. They also allow for better collaboration, tracking, analysis, and communication. All of this can help bridge the sometimes difficult gap between marketing and sales, making both teams more effective.

Bonus: Download our free, customizable social media calendar template to easily plan and schedule all your content in advance.

What is a content marketing tool?

A content marketing tool is any tool that allows content teams to improve, simplify, or better manage their marketing work. This includes a wide assortment of tool categories to help with the many aspects of marketing content creation.

From spurring ideas to implementing designs to automating social media posts, there are many great content marketing tools to make a content marketer’s day more productive and less stressful.

Let’s take a look at some of the best.

10 best content marketing tools for 2024

1. Hootsuite

Hootsuite Planner social calendar overview

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Rather than a single content marketing tool, Hootsuite is actually a suite of content marketing tools built with the unique needs of social marketers in mind. It can benefit content marketers at every stage of the content creation and management process.

So, let’s start at the beginning – with the spark of an idea. Or maybe you don’t have one? Either way, OwlyWriter AI can help. This AI tool that’s built into the Hootsuite dashboard just needs a simple prompt to create captions and post ideas that are appropriate for your brand.

Whether your content comes from AI or from the sharp minds of your team, you can then use Hootsuite’s composer to set up your social media posts. Add existing image and video assets, or choose royalty-free images from the built-in image library. There are built-in workflows and approval processes, too. These keep your team working collaboratively during this process.

You can create new custom visuals within Hootsuite through the integration with Canva. Or, fine-tune your text directly in the composer through the integration with Grammarly.

Canva in Hootsuite Planner LinkedIn post

Once your post is ready to go, it’s time to schedule it with the Hootsuite calendar, a drag-and-drop tool that allows you to plan out your social content across multiple platforms. It even includes recommended times to post for maximum engagement.

If you want to dive deeper into the best times to post for each platform, check out the heat maps in Hootsuite Analytics to see a detailed chart of when your audience is online for each platform.

Of course, reviewing your analytics is also an important part of your content marketing work, since understanding what works well (and what doesn’t) helps you improve your efforts over time.

Finally, to make sure you effectively drive traffic to your longer content pieces from platforms that don’t allow links (*ahem* Instagram *ahem*), you can create an easy-to-manage link in bio page using Hootbio.

2. Canva

CanvaSource: Canva

Canva is an incredibly useful design tool for content marketers. From social media posts to email newsletters to videos and websites, Canva has more than 600,000 templates in their premium collection as well as thousands that are free to use.

It’s an intuitive and easy-to-use tool that allows even non-designers to create visually appealing content marketing assets.

Hootsuite users can access Canva directly through the Hootsuite Composer, so you can use their templates to enhance your content creation without having to switch between content marketing tools.

3. Google Workspace

Google Workspace My Drive and Shared Drives

Source: Google Workspace

Formerly known as G Suite, Google Workspace is the business-oriented version of Google’s suite of tools. The tools are particularly useful for distributed teams, as the cloud-based tools ensure team members can collaborate effectively online. They’re also useful for ensuring multiple stakeholders can provide feedback without creating version control issues.

Google Docs is the primary tool for getting your content into a file and sharing it among colleagues, while Google Keep is an effective notes tool for jotting down content ideas. Google Meet, Google Calendar, and Google Chat allow teams to communicate both in real time and asynchronously.

4. Lumen5

Lumen video library grow your brand and drive demand

Source: Lumen5

Lumen5 is a drag-and-drop tool for creating video content. One important feature for content marketers: It uses AI to create videos directly from a blog post. You can then fine-tune the video using the detailed editing tools.

The built-in media library includes valuable content marketing resources like licensed photos, stock videos, and music to make your video content creation easier.

5. WordPress

WordPress dashboard with themes

Source: WordPress

WordPress is an especially useful content marketing tool for small businesses. It’s a content management system (CMS) that makes it easy to create, update, and manage content for your blog or website, even with no design skills.

WordPress architecture is SEO-friendly, and plug-ins can help you maximize the SEO impact of your content. WordPress sites look great on both desktop and mobile, too.

6. Brafton Content Marketing Platform

Brafton platform with dashboard overview

Source: Brafton

This content marketing platform is designed to track and manage your content from ideation through to publication. All your content projects are in one place so the relevant team members and stakeholders can find them and see where they are at in the creation process at any time.

Project dashboards include timelines, image assets, content briefs, deliverables, and messaging, so you never have to go digging through your email for project details.

7. Vidyard

Vidyard create a record new video

Source: Vidyard

Vidyard is a video creation and hosting platform that allows content marketers to integrate videos into email as well as web and social content. The interactive playback features mean you can incorporate video calls-to-action as well as in-video forms.

When developing your video content, you can record your screen or use your webcam to record yourself. Or, you can record both at the same time. The built-in analytics and SEO optimization help ensure your videos make the most impact on your content marketing strategy.

8. Ahrefs

Ahrefs healthy juices keyword search volume

Source: Ahrefs

Ahrefs is a content marketing tool that helps you build content addressing topics your customers are already looking for online. The keywords explorer helps you find new keyword ideas, then analyzes each option to determine how hard it will be to rank for that term. You can also use the tool to track and analyze existing keyword sets.

For video content marketers, take note that Ahrefs allows you to measure the popularity of search queries in YouTube as well as the major search engines.

There’s also a content search engine to help you analyze content that’s already working in your niche, especially on low-competition topics.

9. SEMRush

SEMRush topic research and SEO writing assistant

Source: SEMRush

SEMRush is another keyword and SEO tool to help ensure your content marketing assets connect with your audience. In addition to extensive keyword discovery and analysis tools, SEMRush helps you find popular topics and questions to address in your content marketing.

Once you get started creating, there’s an SEO content template to help you rank and an SEO writing assistant to check your SEO score and improve readability.

10. Hemingway App

Hemingway App highlighted text and readability score

Source: Hemingway App

The Hemingway App is a powerful free content marketing tool. You can just copy and paste your content into the Hemingway Editor, and you’ll get a reading level score. (Hint: aim for a grade 8 reading level to get the most impact from your content.)

You’ll also get tips on how to improve the readability score, with problem areas highlighted for your attention. The reading level updates in real time, so you can keep going until you reach your target level.

Free content marketing tools

Looking for some free content marketing tools you can use right now, without even having to create an account? We’ve got you. You can use all of these content tools directly from your web browser, no credit card or sign-in required.

AI caption generator

This is one of Hootsuite’s free content creation tools for social media. Need to create content for Instagram, Facebook, X (Twitter), TikTok, Instagram, or Pinterest? You can do it here with just a few quick inputs. Choose your network, select a style and language, and enter a short description and keywords. This tool will create the caption you need for your social post.

The style options range from cheeky to grumpy, from casual to formal, and even include specific tone options like makeup influencer or true crime podcast host.

Since I’ve got the Yule Log playing on my TV as I write this and I’m sipping a cup of tea, I thought I’d ask the tool to create a relevant caption in the voice of an 18th-century poet. And did it ever deliver.

Hootsuite AI caption generator warmth and wonder cozy fireside

If you need content creation tools for other social media platforms, check out our Instagram Threads generator as well as our generators for YouTube video descriptions and titles.

AI blog ideas generator

For longer content pieces, this blog ideas generator is incredibly helpful. Choose your language, then enter up to five nouns and your primary keyword. The tool will suggest a few blog titles along with subtitles or short content descriptions.

After once again using prompts about writing by the fire, I like this blog suggestion best:Igniting Inspiration How Fire Can Fuel Your Writing Passion post

AI content ideas generator

Need ideas for a content platform other than a blog or social media? This is your tool. Using the same process as above, you can generate content ideas for white papers, videos, podcasts, infographics, and more.

Let’s say I’m so motivated by this fireside writing thing that I want to start a podcast:

Podcast overview Fireside Chats Igniting Your Writing Passion

Keep in mind that while all of these content tools are powered by the same chatbot AI behind OwlywriterAI, they are essentially “lite” versions of the tool. For instance, OwlyWriterAI allows content marketers to choose from post types such as “problem, agitate, solution” and “attention, interest, desire, action” posts.

Social media dictionary

Here’s one last free content marketing tool for you. This one’s not powered by AI, but it is powered by the social media experts at Hootsuite.

It’s technically called a social media dictionary, but really it’s a good place to look up any term that’s entered the zeitgeist but may not yet be fully understood in corporate environments. Use it to explain to your boss why that reply guy gives you the ick.


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6 tips for making the most of your content marketing tool

1. Develop a strategy

Less than half of B2B or B2C marketers have a documented content marketing strategy. Thinking strategically about your content marketing plan gives you an automatic head start. Digging into how your content marketing tools can support that strategy and open up new possibilities gives you even more advantage.

Strategic planning should be involved in every aspect of your content marketing, and the tools listed above are all designed to help.

2. Focus on relationships

Content marketing gives you the opportunity to connect with your audience so you can gain their trust and loyalty over time, rather than jumping in and trying to make a sale right off the bat.

The best content marketing tools offer detailed insights into your audience that help you understand how best to connect. Social media content marketing dashboards with advanced analytics tools (like Hootsuite) can help you understand the demographics of your audience, as well as where and when they spend their time online.

You can also learn what subject areas they’re most interested in, and what content types are most effective for sharing the content you create.

This all feeds back into the strategic planning we talked about in the tip above. When you have tools that help you understand your audience, you can better hone your strategy for effective content marketing.

3. Plan ahead

Once you have a strategy and your audience research in place, it becomes much easier to plan ahead.

Sure, every content person is always thinking about marketing campaigns for the big annual events like back to school and the winter holidays. But what about all the smaller events throughout the year that could spark content creation ideas? Planning in advance gives you the opportunity to peg your content to events that resonate with your audience, increasing the chances they’ll be reshared.

Hootsuite’s calendar has holidays and events built in, so you’ll never miss an event like International Tea Day. And if you have no idea what on earth to say about an event like International Tea Day, you can just click on the name of the holiday and OwlyWriterAI will create appropriate social media posts for you. The posts might even spark ideas for larger content pieces.

Planning ahead also ensures your content marketing strategy is aligned across platforms, from email to your blog to your social channels.

4. Work in batches

Creating your content in batches allows you to stay focussed on one task at a time, then move on to the next. This is much more effective than constantly worrying in the back of your mind about the TikTok you absolutely must create at 12:05 p.m.

Working in batches also allows you to make the most of keyword research and content themes. As you uncover interesting new information relative to your next content marketing project, you can weave it into blog posts, email newsletters, and social media posts.

A content marketing tool allows you to frontload your effort by creating multiple pieces of content in one work session, then loading into the appropriate time slots on your content calendar. Social media content management tools will post the social content at the pre-set times without any further input from you, so you can focus on getting out your blogs and drip campaigns.

5. Set up team processes

When you’ve got multiple people creating content, things can get … complicated. Great content creation tools have built-in workflows that allow your team to create and collaborate more effectively.

Workflows that include appropriate approval systems mean that even the most junior team members can create content directly in the tool from which it will eventually be posted. Senior team members can review, provide feedback, and sign off when the post is ready. Everyone gets to do their best work without any copy-and-pasting, version control issues, or concerns about content going live before it’s approved.

This makes life easier for all content marketing teams, but it’s especially important for teams working in the regulated industries. Content marketing tools like Hootsuite (which is FedRAMP-certified) allow you to build specific compliance requirements and principal approval into your workflow so everything is always done by the books.

6. Centralize your brand assets

Content marketing tools can help ensure your team is always using the latest brand assets. For example, Hootsuite’s content library is a good repository for approved product and editorial images, logos, templates, and videos.

Once your content goes live, you can give employees access to the full approved posts through Hootsuite Amplify so they can share with their own networks in just a couple of clicks. This ensures that your content marketing efforts have an extended reach and your team is always on brand when they share about the brand on social.

Save time managing your social media presence with Hootsuite. From a single dashboard, you can publish and schedule posts, find relevant conversions, engage the audience, measure results, and more. Try it free today.

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