Using Mobile Apps for Social Media Marketing

Using Mobile Apps for Social Media Marketing

The convenience and ubiquity of smartphones can make managing your social media marketing easier but only if you have the right mobile apps to do the job. Luckily, most apps you’ll need to handle your social media on your phone come in both iOS and Android versions. Some social media apps are free, while others require a paid subscription, however you may already be paying for them if you use their web or desktop versions.

Social media mobile apps generally fall into a few categories:

1. Native apps for mobile-specific social networks (TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram) that offer limited functionality on their websites.
2. Social media management apps to handle planning, scheduling, monitoring, and measuring.
3. Creative apps for designing and optimizing visuals which can include graphics, photographs, animation, and video.
4. File storage and collaboration to share files and work on them with others.

While some mobile apps appear on the scene but eventually go out of business, the following apps have been around for several years and can help you perform key social media tasks.

Social Media Management

A social media management app typically provides a dashboard where you can view and manage multiple social networks. Popular apps that perform multiple functions for managing your social media accounts include Sprout Social and Hootsuite. These types of apps include all or most of the following features:

• A calendar tool to plan and schedule your posts across multiple platforms
• Social listening tools to monitor online conversations using keywords
• A way to review and respond to comments and direct messages
• The ability to assign tasks and communicate internally with your team
• Tracking for metrics with analytics and reporting

If you access a social media management tool on your desktop computer and it has a mobile app, once you log into your account the system will sync from desktop to smartphone and vice versa for a streamlined workflow.

While you can manage Facebook and Instagram from the popular social media management tools, Meta also offers their Meta Business Suite in mobile app form. If you are only using Facebook and Instagram, you can review and respond to comments and direct messages as well as schedule posts through the Suite without needing another app.

Planning and Scheduling

If you are using a social media management tool and app, planning and scheduling features are usually built into it. There are other apps you can use if you aren’t paying for the higher-end solutions. Apps like Buffer and Later provide some of the management tools, particularly scheduling, so you can plan out and queue up your upcoming posts.

Because the visual appearance of your Instagram account page is based on a grid of images and videos, a tool that helps you visualize the grid layout can make a difference for your page’s appearance. Sprout Social has an Instagram Grid Planner specifically for this purpose with a drag and drop feature to move planned posts around until you achieve the optimal look. The Planoly app is another tool you can use to plan out Instagram with the same drag and drop feature and also use it to manage some of your other social networks.

Designing and Optimizing Visuals

There are so many design-related apps to choose from these days, some free and some that are fee-based. Canva is a popular app that has built in templates for the various sizes and orientations for images and video and many image and video editing features. Other design apps include Adobe Express and PicMonkey.

For video editing on your smartphone, Adobe Premiere Rush and CapCut offer an array of features. Some social networks, such as YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, also provide some video editing tools within their mobile apps.

Other apps that focus on specific capabilities that are either free or have a free level include Adobe PhotoShop, Camera+, VSCO, and Snapseed for photo enhancement and Phonto or Vont to add text over images or videos.

Collaborating and Storing

Using email to send creative assets for social media posts between team members can be cumbersome and disorganized. There are apps that let you upload files to folders that can then be accessed by others to peruse, comment on, download, and collaborate on. Apps like Dropbox and Google Drive are useful by combining storage, file sharing, and collaboration capabilities. Other similar apps include Box and Microsoft’s OneDrive.

Another aspect of team collaboration is communication and project management. Apps to streamline teamwork include Slack and Microsoft Teams for communication or for more management features, use apps like Asana, Basecamp, Monday.com, and Trello. If you want to add video conferencing to the communication and collaboration mix, try Zoom or Google Workspace.

AI-Driven Apps

With the continued growth of artificial intelligence-driven apps, many of the mobile apps mentioned above now have an AI component such as Canva and Adobe Photoshop for AI-generated or manipulated visuals and Sprout Social that uses AI to assist with tasks such as content generation and sentiment analysis.

An area of social media management that is being transformed by artificial intelligence is content creation for post captions. While you now have the ability to use AI to craft post captions, stay vigilant for potential issues including factual errors, plagiarism, and content anomalies that may create additional work for you rather than save time.

If you want to effectively manage your social media on your smartphone, first download the mobile versions of each social network you use and familiarize yourself with how they work. If you are using other social media tools, look for their mobile versions as well. Then think about the tasks you do most often and seek out apps that are focused on those specific activities. The more focused apps can be easier to use when you’re trying to perform a single function. They can also be more affordable if you’re marketing on a budget.