Social media has grown a lot over the past few years and is still exploding like never before. And that exactly is the reason why marketers are allocating more budget for search engine and social media marketing campaigns.
Social media marketing is the process of gaining website traffic or attention through social networks.
If you already have a strong SEO strategy then integrating social media with your existing campaigns will yield the best results.
101+ Social Media Resources, Tips, Strategies & Tools
The purpose of this social media handbook is to curate some of the best social media marketing resources for you. And if you are also looking for more internet marketing resources then check out my other marketing handbooks.
So, here is a list of some of the best social media resources — for bloggers, marketers, and everyone else — that I have collected over the past several months.
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Social Media Guides
Social Media Stats
Social Media Strategy
Social Media Posts
Social Media Tips
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Google+
Instagram
Everything Else
Social Media Case Studies
Social Media Blogs
Social Media Tools
Browser Extensions
First things first. Why social media?
According to Business Insider, social media is the top activity on the web. Americans are spending over 37 minutes a day on various social networks and it’s higher than any other internet activity (including email).
“Engage, enlighten, encourage and especially… just be yourself! Social media is a community effort, everyone is an asset.” — Susan Cooper (@BuzzEdition)
Social Media Guides
If you are looking for a complete social media guide in an easy-to-consume way then check out the following resources. They cover almost all aspects of social media in a systematic way.
Absolute Beginner’s Guide To Social Media Marketing
The Beginner’s Guide To Social Media
The Simplified Guide To Social Media For Small Businesses
How To Create A Social Media Marketing Plan From Scratch
A Beginner’s Guide To Social Media Advertising
Search Engine Journal’s Social Media Strategy
Read: Over 101 Social Media Tools (Free & Premium) You’ll Ever Need
Social Media Stats
If you want to take advantage of social media’s full potential then it’s important to know its numbers. For instance, Facebook now has over 1 billion users and is attracting 7 times more engagement that any other network.
10 Surprising And Important Social Media Stats You Need To Know
Building Brand Awareness On Social Media [Infographic]
A Social Media Etiquette Guide You Might Find Useful [Infographic]
Which Social Media Platforms Are Suited For Your Business? [Infographic]
Social Media Marketing Industry Report [PDF]
Social Media Strategy
“These days, social media waits for no one. If you’re LATE for the party, you’ll probably be covered by all the noise and you might not be able to get your voice across. It could only mean that if you want to be heard by the crowd, you have to be fast; and on social media, that means you have to be REALLY fast.” — Aaron Lee (@AskAaronLee)
Creating a profile on each and every social network out there won’t magically grow your business overnight. You need a strategy!
If you don’t have a social media strategy then it’s more likely that your campaigns will go unnoticed and be worthless. And I must admit that I don’t have a social media strategy… yet.
How To Conduct A Social Media Audit
How To Build A Content Strategy Using A Social Media Audit
Social Media Strategy: How Much Time Does A Good Strategy Really Take?
The 15-Minute Social Media Audit Everyone Can Do
The 5 Keys To Building A Social Media Strategy For Your Personal Brand
10 New Social Media Strategies To Experiment With Today
7 Strategies That’ll Actually Drive You More Social Media Traffic
Social Media Strategy In 8 Steps
Growing A Social Following From Nothing: My Social Media Strategy
The Social Media Advertising Guide For Twitter, Facebook & LinkedIn
Social Media Posts
“Social media is not just an activity; it is an investment of valuable time and resources. Surround yourself with people who not just support you and stay with you, but inform your thinking about ways to WOW your online presence.” — Sean Gardner (@2morrowknight)
If you want to learn how to format your posts or want to know when to post an update on your social media channel. Then look no further!
What Are The Best Times To Post On Social Media
The Optimal Length For Every Social Media Update [Infographic]
How To Create The Perfect Social Media Post [Infographic]
How Often To Post To Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn And More
26 Creative Ways To Publish Social Media Updates
71 Ways To Write A Social Media Update: Tips To Engage Your Followers
Social Media Tips
“Social media will help you build up loyalty of your current customers to the point that they will willingly, and for free, tell others about you.” — Bonnie Sainsbury (@bsainsbury)
If you do it right then social media can be the most lucrative marketing tool for your business. Here, I have curated some of the best resources to help you streamline your social media marketing campaigns.
How To Write A Professional Bio For Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook & Google+
17 Quick Wins To Boost Your Social Media Marketing Right Away
7 Obsolete Social Media Tactics You’re Wasting Your Time On
How To Build Brand Advocates Through Social Media Marketing
How To Use Your Blog To Leverage Social Proof And Increase Your Authority
6 Research-Backed Ways To Get More Followers On Social Media
Make Your Content More Shareable With These 5 Tricks, Backed By Research
How To Build An Outreach Strategy To Earn More Social Shares
How to Calculate the ROI of Your Social Media Campaigns [Infographic]
Facebook
Essential Facebook Marketing Resources: A Complete Guide
The Best Facebook Marketing Advice, Tried-and-Tested
Why Copyblogger Is Killing Its Facebook Page
Groove Deleted Their Facebook Page. Here’s Why.
20 Examples Of Great Facebook Fan Pages
105 Facebook Advertising Case Studies
Twitter
The Beginner’s Guide To Twitter
Essential Twitter Marketing Resources: A Complete Guide
How To Get Your First 100 Twitter Followers [Infographic]
15 Twitter Hacks That Will Turn You Into A Twitter Ninja
7 Counterintuitive Twitter Tips To Get More Out of Twitter
LinkedIn
Essential LinkedIn Marketing Resources: A Complete Guide
How To Structure A Perfect LinkedIn Profile [Infographic]
Your Guide To Unleashing Killer Content Marketing On LinkedIn
How To Increase Your LinkedIn Engagement by 386% [Infographic]
Google+
Essential Google+ Marketing Resource: A Complete Guide
How To Get At Least 500 More Google+ Followers By Next Week
How To Set Up A Google+ Page For Your Business
Instagram
Instagram Marketing: How To Get Started With Instagram
What Spending $57,000 on Instagram Taught Me
How to Increase Your Instagram Engagement by 182% [Infographic]
Everything Else
30 Little-Known Features Of The Social Media Sites You Use Every Day
How To Get Your First 1,000 Followers on Every Major Social Network
The Marketing Guide To Vine, Instagram, Vimeo, YouTube & Hangouts
6 Ways To Grow YouTube Subscribers And Your Exposure
56 Ways To Market Your Business On Pinterest
Tumblr Numbers: The Rapid Rise of Social Blogging [Infographic]
The Lifecycle Of A Web Page On StumbleUpon [Infographic]
Read: Over 60 Web 2.0 Sites To Get Instant Backlinks To Your Blog
Social Media Marketing Case Studies
“Going viral is not an outcome; it’s a happening. Sometimes it happens; sometimes it doesn’t. Just remember, fans are vanity and sales are sanity.” — Lori Taylor (@lorirtaylor)
You don’t have to “reinvent the wheel,” instead learn from the competitors and their success stories. Also, it’s a good idea to take advantage of the best practices followed by different brands.
10 Unforgettable Customer Service Stories
5 Outstanding Social Media Campaigns
7 Creative Social Media Marketing Mini Case Studies
40 Expert Social Media Strategies
50 Social Media Case Studies You Should Bookmark
How Coke, Cadbury, McDonald’s, Nike, Walmart & Microsoft Uses Social Media
Social Media Blogs
Hand-picking social media blogs and tools was the biggest challenge when I was writing this blog post. Here’s a list of must-follow blogs to stay up-to-date with the latest social media trends and happenings.
Social Media Examiner
Social Media Today
Buffer
RazorSocial
Boom Social
SocialMouths
Social Fresh
Sprout Social
Moz
Mashable
Read: Top 30 Social Networking Sites To Drive Traffic To Your Blog
Social Media Tools
Here is a list of over twenty essential social media tools (they are either free or freemium!) to streamline your social media marketing campaigns. And if you are looking for a comprehensive list of tools — organized by category — then check out Social Media Tools 101.
Hootsuite — is perhaps the most popular social media dashboard to manage all your social networks. Also try, TweetDeck (an official app by Twitter to manage all your Twitter accounts).
SocialOomph — is another social app that supports multiple social networks, RSS feeds, post scheduling, URL shortening, etc.
Postific — helps businesses find new customers and analyze their social engagement. You are allowed to connect unlimited social accounts and it features post scheduling, RSS feeds, engagement and leads tracking, etc.
SumAll — is an all-in-one social media analytics and business dashboard that shows a comprehensive view of your social media and e-commerce data.
BuzzSumo — to find out the best performing content of your competitors.
Social Crawlytics — to identify the influencers in your niche and to discover your competitor’s most shared content.
Mention — allows you to create custom alerts based on keywords (it can be your name, brand, or competitors) so that you will be be informed in real-time of any mention on the web (including social networks).
Social Mention — is a social media search engine that searches user-generated content on web 2.0 sites.
Sniply — attach a call-to-action to every link that you share.
IFTTT — to connect all your web 2.0 apps (including social networks and productivity apps) to automate actions. Also try, Zapier.
KnowEm — to reserve your brand name on all popular social networks. It checks your desired username on over 500 popular social networks. Also try, NameChk.
ShareGrab — to find the most shareable content from any Facebook page.
Canva — is a free image creation tool for beginners and professionals.
Awesome Screenshot — is the best screen capture tool for Google Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. Also try, Page2Images, Jing, Evernote Skitch.
PicMonkey — is my favorite web-based photo editor.
Meme Generator — is a free meme generator that you can use to create your own meme or to browse the most popular Internet memes.
Topsy — is a social search, monitoring, and analytics tool that’s maintaining a comprehensive index of all Tweets since 2006.
Friend or Follow — to unfollow people who are not following you back.
Commun.it — is a Twitter management software that helps you manage your Twitter relationships, followers, lists with free analytics and social insights. Also try, ManageFlitter.
Don’t Miss:
101 Content Marketing Tools
37 Content Discovery Tools
21 Content Curation Tools
101 Productivity Tools
101 Internet Marketing Tools
Read: Over 101 Social Media Tools (Free & Premium) You’ll Ever Need
Browser Extensions
You can’t live without your favorite browser extensions, right? It really saves a lot of time and makes us smarter. I have cherry-picked over ten browser extensions that are related to social media in one way or the other.
If you are looking for a comprehensive list then check out Productivity Extensions and SEO Extensions for Google Chrome.
Evernote — lets you capture anything — from full web pages to bookmarks to screenshots.
Pocket — save web pages in just one-click and access it from any of your devices — even when you are offline.
Feedly — is the best RSS reader to organize, read and share your daily news.
Diigo — is a powerful research tool.
Awesome Screenshot — lets you capture the whole page or any portion, annotate it with rectangles, circles, arrows, lines and text, etc. in few clicks.
Facebook for Chrome — is the most popular (but unofficial) Facebook extension for Google Chrome. Also try, Twitter for Chrome, Instagram for Chrome.
Pin It Button — is the official Pinterest extension that lets you pin things that you find on the web. Also try, Facebook Like Button.
Bitly — is the most popular URL shortening tool that is also good for updating your Twitter or Facebook account.
Buffer — is the best app to schedule your social media posts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+
Open SEO Stats — is one of my favorite Google Chrome extension as it shows a ton of marketing stats in one-click.
Rapportive — shows everything about your contact — right inside your Gmail inbox. Also try, Vibe (is the Rapportive for the web).
Riffle — is a smart Twitter dashboard for the power-users.
Read: Top 25 Google Chrome Extensions I Can’t Live Without
Conclusion
“Social media is here. It’s not going away; not a passing fad. Be where your customers are: in social media.” — Lori Ruff (@loriruff)
If you want to leverage the power of social media then you have to listen to your audience. Remember, whatever you share on your social networks must be relevant and useful.
Have I missed your favorite social media marketing resource? If so, let me know as a comment below and I will be happy to list it.
Happy Networking & Marketing! 
Image Credit: Sean MacEntee
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