10 free social media tools for charities that you may have never heard of
Howard Lake | 20 March 2017 | Blogs
Social media can often take most of your time but it doesn’t have to be costly or time-consuming. There is an abundance of free social media tools for charities and platforms available that any organisation can use to maintain an active social media presence, engage with followers and target audiences. Most of them are also free.
You have probably already heard of tools like Hootsuite, Sprout Social, Facebook Insights and Twitter Analytics, so I won’t go into those. In this blog, I want to share with you some free tools that you may never have heard of – or thought of to use for social media.
Our team at Zaffo use most of these tools on a daily basis. If you are interested in all our favourite tools, here are our 10 free Facebook tools and our 10 free Twitter tools for charities.
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1. Social Mention
Social Mention is the real-time social media search engine. It works just like any other search engine (Google, Bing…) however it shows you how your keywords are performing on social media. Social Mention also shows you the most used hashtags, top users, sentiment, allowing you to tailor you content to suit what is currently trending.
It’s a handy tool to quickly find out what is being said with your keyword on social media and it’s completely free.
2. Quuu
If you’re not already using Quuu then you are missing out! As a social media manager, most of my time is spent searching for new content or coming up with new ideas. Quuu, not only helps you find content, but it suggests hand-curated content, tailored to your needs. Now you can use up that time you normally spent sourcing content, on building up more unique and hand crafted content or spending time engaging with your audiences.
Quuu’s free version lets you link up to 3 different accounts and comes with 2 tailored daily content suggestions. It fully integrates with Buffer and Hubspot and prices can go up to $30.
3. Adobe Spark
Editor’s update 21 June 2023
Adobe Spark is no longer available. It has been replaced by Adobe Express, which offers the same suit of free online design tools to help individuals and businesses create graphics, videos and websites.
Adobe Spark is an easy to use graphic design app where you have the tools online to create social graphics, web stories and animated videos (and it’s free). It’s perfect for those times you need to get something out quickly or while you are on the move – with their free mobile app.
We recommend looking at their Web Stories section; charities and organisations can effectively use this tool to tell inspiring stories or stories that raise awareness. Creating an engaging and relevant web story – that you can then upload to your social channels, is an effective method of digital marketing and getting your message out to the millions.
4. Ghost Browser
Ghost Browser is a free Chrome extension that lets you log in to multiple accounts all in one browser. This extension is critical if you are managing more than one social media account. It lets you switch between your multiple Twitter accounts all in one browser, making engaging and posting that much easier.
Think about how productive you could be with this extension… managing your multiple Gmail accounts, Facebook Pages or Ad Accounts and with groupings, you can switch between your personal accounts and your work accounts.
5. Later
Later is a brilliant app that lets you effectively manage your Instagram account through scheduling and content planning. Upload images from your desktop or mobile and schedule your posts to go out at the most appropriate times for your audience. (see Squarelovin for Instagram analytics below).
Later lets you bulk upload your images and provides you with a grid preview so you can see your account’s layout before you post. This feature is extremely effective for Accounts that focus on layout and design.
6. IFTTT
IFTTT is an innovative automation tool that syncs with hundreds of your favourite apps. It lets you create tailored ‘recipes’ that are automated when an action occurs. IFTTT stands for ‘If This Then That’ – ‘This’ being the trigger and ‘That’ being the action.
Some of the most popular recipes for social media marketers include: Get an email whenever someone mentions your organisation on Twitter. Or, whenever someone uses your Hashtag on Instagram you can send the post straight to your Facebook page. Cool right?
7. Panda 5 Beta
If content is what you are after, then look no further than Panda 5 Beta. The sleek design and powerful customisation features will help you find relevant and useful content that your audiences will surely appreciate.
The platform aggregates content from your favourite sources (that you can tailor in settings) and shows you the most popular articles, news and blogs that you care about. It’s a social media manager’s dream to be able to see relevant content all in one dashboard. Plus there is the ability to share content straight from the platform to Facebook and Twitter.
Our Facebook guide is full of detailed advice for your charity or organisation. Download it here for free to get some great insights into Facebook marketing for charities.
8. Squarelovin
Squarelovin is an essential Instagram management tool, especially if your organisation has an active Instagram account. The platform lets you delve into your accounts analytics, manage posts and manage and grow your Instagram audience.
Squarelovin has access to very powerful analytics which will support your marketing efforts with the best times to post (day & hour), highest performing content and most used hashtags & filters. Its insights will help you create and distribute content that your audience wants to see and engage with.
9. Cyfe
Cyfe is a free social media analytics dashboard that lets you customise and prioritise what is most important for you. Get real-time analytics when you connect your social media accounts to the Cyfe dashboard. There are plenty of popular apps that also integrate to Cyfe’s dashboard.
Other apps you can integrate with Cyfe include; Google Analytics, Facebook Advertising, Salesforce, Basecamp, Google Alerts, Mailchimp, WordPress, Google Adwords and much more. Although the free service only lets you connect up to 5 widgets, it is still worth it to have your most important analytics all in one place for quick access to measuring ROI and to help improve marketing activity.
10. Joomag
Joomag is a free digital publishing platform that lets you create bespoke magazines, catalogues and e-books. It is a powerful tool that doesn’t take hours to use, saving you time and money. Providing useful guides and e-books to your audience is essential to your inbound marketing strategy and helps engage your supporters.
Design and create your digital magazine that you can then publish to the Joomag newsstand for extra exposure. Or share your publications with their shortened links to your social media channels, email marketing campaigns or even embed your publications to your websites and landing pages.
Pricing for Joomag varies from their Basic service, which is free, to their most advanced features which cost up to $79.
Bonus:
Flipboard, Google Alerts, Followerwonk, Hootsuite’s Hootlet, CoSchedule.
For more insights download our free guides here:
Get in touch with us if you have any questions or give us a shout on Twitter at @alyse-robertsZaffoUK!
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.