Social media presents an incredible opportunity.

Never before have you had such access to customers in real-time. The possibilities are endless.

Unfortunately, that’s also the problem. How are you supposed to keep up with this mess?

Smarter people than myself have solved that problem.

There are a variety of social media tools that help solve a specific problem.

They do the heavy lifting, freeing you up to focus on what’s really important (like actual work!).

It’s time to set up the 7 essential social media tools to help do the work for you.

1. Hootsuite

You’re going to use Hootsuite for listening, monitoring and responding.

That’s a start, but you need to cut through the noise. We’ll do that by creating streams.

• Create searches for brands, keywords, company and competition.
• Now create lists of specific people or influencers you want to follow, interact and connect with.

This helps you keep up with what people are saying. It provides competitive intelligence, but also set you up to interact with other important people. You can also explore other apps like Hootsuite that would help you with this.

2. Google Alerts

Google Alerts gives you the ability to monitor the entire web.

Everytime a new story comes out or blog post is written, you’ll know about it.

You’re going to create the same keyword searches as before (brands, keywords, company and competition).

Make sure you set the results to RSS and that they update in real-time. A great social media scheduler allows using Google Alert and RSS feeds while scheduling posts. RecurPost is one tool that provides these features and is the best of Sprout Social alternatives.

3. Google Reader

Your keyphrase search results will update automatically in Google Reader as new information is found.

Monitoring these keyphrases gives you incredible insight. You’ll be able to keep track of current industry news, but also stay abreast of future developments.

It will also set you up for curating content and sharing interesting information to others.

This is a large part of social media, and will help estbalish you as an industry expert.

4. Timely

Timely allows you to easily schedule posts to update your networks.

The best part is that it does the work for you. It will figure out the time of day your posts perform best, and automatically send them.

Another great alternative for scheduling updates is Buffer.

5. Bit.ly

Create a Bit.ly Pro account (it’s free), and use a branded URL shortener.

Try to find a short URL that either abbreviates or splits up your brand name. (For example, this site’s is FixCour.se.

You can also connect the Bit.ly account to Timely, so everything you share will be properly branded.

Bit.ly tracks click data. It has a link tracking system that tells you how many times a link was clicked and gives you more background information on the source and users.

This “top of funnel” data is critical to social media optimization.

Another alternative (for more advanced users) is Awe.sm, which provides more analyics and detailed information.

6. SocialBee

SocialBee will help you with creating, scheduling, posting, and tracking content. You will also be able to monitor your inbox to make sure you leave no comment or mention unanswered. What makes SocialBee stand out as a social media aggregator is the fact that every feature is designed to ease the management of your social media accounts. You’ll be able to create content in no time with the AI-powered caption generator and Canva integration and add it to your category-based content library. And to save even more time, you’ll have the option to recycle evergreen content and reuse successful posts.

7. Meltwater

Meltwater is a social media tool that specialises in social media monitoring alongside few other services. It will help you track and analyse mentions of your brand, hashtags, and trends on platforms like Twitter, Facebook and many more to understand what people are saying about you, your industry and your competitors. This makes Meltwater a very valuable tool. On top of that, Meltwater can also function as a social media publishing and content planning platform, helping you to publish various content across multiple platforms and interact with your audience.

These 7 social media tools will help you finally take control of social media.