8 new(ish) social media tools that give your business the edge in 2016

As we get midway into 2016, social media marketing techniques are making progress at breakneck speed. What that means is that if you are not keeping up with the breakneck speed, and keeping abreast of the latest tools and apps that help your social game, you may be left in the dust.

What makes the social media scene even more intriguing is that the rules for success are not linear. What works for you may not work for anyone else and vice versa, in what is a supremely competitive environment.

You must be prepared to stick your neck out a little further in order for your social media marketing strategies to be noticed and consumed by a society that has become almost too jaded for ordinary social media tactics.

Although the rules for success are not linear for social media marketing, there are still key metrics that you can look for to measure your success. The most obvious and still the most important is your return on investment (ROI). Essentially, the question everyone is asking is, 'what social media strategy is going to give you the most bang for your buck'?

With this thought at the forefront of our thinking we have compiled 8 social media tools and apps that will help you get that ROI and also keep you one step ahead of your competition.

1. Crate

Crate is a really exciting new tool that helps you find content that is constantly achieving at a high level.

All you have to do is enter what type of content you are after and almost instantly Crate will churn out the best and most relatable content for you.

From here you have a few options. You can either share the content directly or utilize it to re-write your own blog that you can specifically cater to your target audience.

2. Sprout Social

Sprout Social is a social media management tool that helps you streamline your engagement across social media networks. It helps you identify opportunities to enter into conversations to increase your social influence.

Furthermore, Sprout also has advanced scheduling tools that work across social media platforms and with that advanced analytic tracking to ensure that you understand what social content is performing for you at a high level.

What sets Sprout apart is that it also includes team collaboration tools allow your team to work together and achieve your social media strategy goals.

3. Notifier

The phrase 'social media influencer' has grown in notoriety and importance in social media marketing. Notifier is a tool that can help you advance your social media influence.

It does this by helping you link with influencers by alerting them that you have mentioned them in your content. Notifier creates tweets that you can send and mechanizes the process that can take you a long time searching out each individual twitter handle.

Notify is an easy way to get into the game of social media influence.

4. Social Oomph

Social Oomph uses simplicity to help you boost your social media productivity. Even though the site is not overly complicated and looks like it belongs in the early 2000s, do not underestimate its ability as a scheduling tool.

Social Oomph allows you to connect all your social media accounts and organise all your content and turn it out according to a schedule that fits your needs. It also provides decent analytics that help you track your social media performance.

5. Real Geeks - Facebook Marketing Tool for Real Estate & Realtors

As noted in the title, this tool is designed for real estate agents and those in the real estate niche, but it is also handy for all online businesses that have uncertainties as to the effectiveness of their Facebook Ad campaigns.

This Real Geeks tool inks your campaign to your website and creates for you the type of Facebook Ads that are likely to produce the most effective performance for you.

The power is then in your hands to tweak these ads or use them to boost your Facebook performance.

As we alluded to earlier the importance of ROI for social media marketing cannot be understated. This Real Geeks tool helps you realize this ROI and churn out Facebook ads that are effective.

6. Canva

The importance of effective imaging has become a necessity for excellent social media content creation.

If you are not an expert at graphic design, infographics for your content, or you are short on time, Canva have a large selection of fantastic templates that you can use that are not going to break the bank.

Canva is design made simple.

7. Nuzzel

Nuzzel is available both as an iOS app and on the web. This tool is another organizer that helps you understand what content is being shared and consumed by your own network on both Facebook and Twitter.

Importantly, Nuzzel also has the ability to retrieve the content that is being shared by your second-degree connections. This is invaluable information as it is often those elusive second-degree connections that you are trying to attract to your site. By knowing what content this group are sharing and consuming you can spend time tailoring your content to draw them in.

8. Adobe Post

Everybody loves a free app and this is part of the reason why Adobe Post makes our list of social media tools to help give your business the edge.

Adobe post has hundreds of thousands of images that you can choose from that you can add to your blog, presentation or social articles.

It is as simple as identifying the images that you want and let Adobe Post put them together to help you wow your audience.


It is important to use social media tools and automation as just part of your overall social media performance. If you rely on automation too heavily you may lose your originality. What social media tools and apps do you use to get ahead of the game in 2016?