100+ top marketing tools to rock your social media strategy in 2020

Best practices13 min readDec 19, 2019

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Welcome (almost) to the year 2020!

While many people are painstakingly closing out Q4, others are thinking – or should be thinking – about completing their toolboxes with digital marketing tools.

The new year brings a lot of changes, and switching marketing tools for some more reasonably priced ones or just adding a few new ones can be exciting and very beneficial.

Finding marketing tools is not rocket science.

However, finding the top marketing tools is.

This is why we decided to gather quite a few (more than 100!) suggestions of tools that we know, appreciate and often use. We hope that you’ll make some great choices and play with these digital marketing tools a little during cold winter evenings – or equally cold winter days in the office. Enjoy!

How important is social media listening for any business that is on social media? Well, it can be crucial for your brand awareness, customer service and, ultimately, sales.

Keeping an eye on your online reputation and identifying any – positive and negative – mentions about your brand can win you some business if you react accordingly.

And here is where some marketers would just say “I don’t have time for constantly checking it manually!”.

Sure thing. But this is where social listening tools come in handy with all the data and analysis you need for your brand to act quickly.

Mention
Sentione
Brand24
TweetDeck / also helpful for Twitter community management
Google Alerts
Brandmentions

This category could probably be a bottomless pit. Social media automation tools are here to help marketers, and social media analytics is crucial to make sure your marketing activities are somewhat effective.

There are a few tools that you can try, especially if you need to analyze a lot of data coming from social media or if you are looking for some new solutions to power up your social media game.

RocketLink / for shortening links and smart retargeting
Social Auditor / for verifying influencers
HypeAuditor / for verifying influencers
Social Blade / for verifying influencers
Grytics / for analyzing performance on FB Groups
Analisa.io / for Instagram AI analytics
Provesource / for showing positive reviews from social media on your website
Crowdy / for social proof and social media counters on your website
IFTTT / for automating and integrating your tasks with each other
Adzooma / for optimising Facebook Ad campaigns
Keyhole.co / for analyzing hashtags
Walls.io / for making the most of social media during events

With social media automation features like reporting, analytics and scheduling, Kontentino can obviously join the club too.

Top marketing tools for building chatbots

Have you ever encountered a chatbot on social media? We guess so. However, chances are that the thought of building your own chatbot has crossed your mind, but… you chickened out.

Do you know that building a simple, intuitive yet fully functional chatbot does not have to be terribly difficult?

Many trends predict a significant role of chatbots in 2020. While chatbots will be really something in the sector of e-commerce (according to Growcode E-commerce Trends 2020), they will also matter in social media – and we covered it in one of our latest blog posts, right here.

Other than that – well-designed chatbots are just cool and can take your brand to the next level, so we decided to recognize three tools you can use to build a chatbot of your dreams.

Chatbotize offers many ready-to-use templates and plugins, so if you have never created a chatbot before, yet you want to give it a go without having a coding nightmare, this solution may be made just for you.

Marketing tools for graphic design

A picture is worth more than a thousand words. We know it, and we guess you know it too.

Creating appealing social media graphics is important not only for aesthetic purposes, but also for many more reasons that a social media manager should be aware of.

Driving more traffic with more attractive photos is simply easier, as well as generating higher engagement and overall interest in your communication. This is why some of those digital marketing tools that social media teams should be using are graphic designing marketing tools.

Not everyone is a Picasso that could paint a great social media post from scratch, and not everyone is a Photoshop pro either.

Also, not everyone is lucky enough to have a team consisting of some graphics designers just waiting to transfer amazing ideas into reality.

It is easy to get frustrated or just resign from the idea of designing some posts yourself, but not when you have quite a few of the best marketing tools at your disposal.

No more waiting and sugarcoating – let’s hop on the list of tools you should check out and have them handy.

The best marketing tools for designing social media graphics:

Sometimes, a “simple square” known from Instagram is not enough – you need to put more data or context onto your graphics, make them longer and more comprehensive.

There are some marketing tools for small businesses that help design these kinds of graphics in a heartbeat.

If you need to create illustrations and infographics, or some slides, the list of marketing tools below can help you with many templates – a lot of them available for free – to amaze your audience.

Sometimes your graphic designs are already great, but they need that little touch – a tweak to the size, colours or just the format.

There are a few small marketing tools you can use to make your graphics shine bright like a diamond – and here they are!

Kraken.io / for optimizing the size of your graphics
remove.bg / for removing backgrounds
SmartMockups / for creating mockups
PlaceIt.net / for creating mockups
Coolors.co / for choosing color palettes
Flaticon / for icons
Iconfinder / for icons

Stock photo sources as marketing tools

Well, let’s face it – sometimes you simply have no opportunities to hire a graphic designer or buy some amazing photos for your content, yet you still want your content to sparkle.

Or, you have already spent your marketing tools budget on some digital marketing tools and therefore cannot squeeze another tool in. Does it mean that you should sadly wave goodbye to nice stock photos? Absolutely not!

We’ve identified several sources – some so-called best marketing tools – of high-quality stock photos that you can use completely for free, without even paying with a link to the author, or by giving appropriate attribution.

So, if you are a bit tired of Shutterstock or are looking for some alternatives to your old marketing tools, our list can come in handy.

Rawpixel
Kaboompics
Pixabay
Unsplash
Burst Shopify
Ouch
ManyPixels
UnDraw
All the Free Stock / more than just photos – you have many elements to choose from!
Gratisography
StockSnap
Librestock
Photo Editor from Icons8

Top marketing tools for Instagram & Instagram Stories

Instagram is going strong. One of the key Instagram mistakes that you might make is to not use marketing tools to make your Stories even more appealing, and your content even more competitive.

With so many digital marketing tools on the market, we found a “magnificent seven” that can help you turn your Instagram Stories into amazing stories!

Marketing tools for Instagram Stories include a set of ready templates and objects to create collages, videos and photo album-like stories.

Marketing tools for Instagram – while we have provided some tools for creating social media graphics in the few paragraphs above, it is worth mentioning that there are also some marketing tools for making the most of your Instagram bio.

They can help you turn your link into a fully clickable and accessible mini-landing page with as many links and as much content as you like.

Kontentino makes a great Instagram tool, too! You can create a content calendar for your Instagram profiles and schedule posts to this platform via mobile app or Creator Studio, thanks to a handy integration.

Before you hit “schedule”, you can see a live preview of your post and get it approved by your beloved clients. Have we already mentioned that you can schedule Instagram Stories and analyze your performance on Instagram too? Needless to say that you can generate reports as pretty as they can be.

Marketing tools for creating videos

Videos have been identified as one of the upcoming marketing trends for 2020, which does not come as much of a surprise.

According to Insivia, mobile video consumption rises by 100% every year, and HubSpot claims that social media posts with video have 48% more views.

Furthermore, G2Crowd say that social video generates 1,200% more shares than text and image content combined and that people tend to look at video 5 times longer than static content.

It goes even further – A Facebook executive predicted that their platform will be all video and no text by 2021, according to Quartz!

Yes. It means one thing – marketing tools for videos should not be a choice for marketing toolboxes, but they should be their pillars.

Whilst marketers seem to be a bit concerned or scared of creating videos, we have reached the point where they really have no choice if they want their brands to be competitive.

It turns out to be not especially difficult to create a nice, short video for social media purposes – if you make use of some tools that are out there. Since we have found them for you, all the stars finally align, dear marketers!

Digital marketing tools – mobile apps

We are all surrounded by mobile devices – and there is nothing more frustrating and deterring than having to access websites in order to complete your tasks that are not yet mobile-friendly. Argh!

However, and fortunately, there are a bunch of nice marketing tools that have user-friendly mobile websites or dedicated apps. Some digital marketing tools live only as apps anyway, and these are the ones we decided to list for you.

These ones will help you create videos on the go, but many of the other marketing tools we mention in this article have mobile versions too – take a look at Google Play or the App Store.

Golden tip: Do you know that Kontentino has a nice mobile app, which is intuitive for both your team and your clients? Give it a try and discover a brand new level of client approval 💙

Kontentino post preview - best marketing tools

Top marketing tools for gaining Inspiration

Crisis mode? It’s happened to everyone.

You can shoot ideas down on a daily basis, but sometimes you may need some encouragement, motivation (or just relaxation, to be fair).

We identified a few digital marketing tools that can help you overcome your creative breakdown, and make you come up with some new, fresh ideas.

Best marketing tools for identifying trending content (for your social media post ideas)

Top marketing tools for increasing productivity when working on your content calendars

Marketing tools for self-development in the area of marketing and copywriting

Golden tip: Do you know that using Kontentino can save you up to 40% of the time spent on operational tasks? Get on board with us and recall what hassle-free social media management means.

The creme de la creme – Kontentino as one of the best marketing tools

We’ve listed some amazing social media & marketing tools already, no doubt about it. We have even given you some hints about our tool – Kontentino, which we consider as a must-have in any social media marketing toolbox, for at least 7 reasons.

Kontentino helps you sort out your internal communication, being a tool for project management in the area of social media. So what does that really mean? That you can create post requirement checklists for your communication lines and make your team tick all of the boxes before they press the “send for internal approval” button. You can discuss content, assign tasks, send files and give feedback to your team, remote workers, translators or brand managers. It all happens in our tool, making your social media workflow a breeze.
It helps you schedule your social media content (created using some of the amazing apps and tools we have recommended in this article) across different social media platforms, including many types of content on LinkedIn all the way to Instagram stories.
Kontentino helps you sort out your internal communication, being a tool for project management in the area of social media. So what does that really mean? That you can create post requirement checklists for your communication lines and make your team tick all of the boxes before they press the “send for internal approval” button. You can discuss content, assign tasks, send files and give feedback to your team, remote workers, translators or brand managers. It all happens in our tool, making your social media workflow a breeze.
Your external communication will simply flourish and your clients might keep asking why you have not used Kontentino before. True story! They can comment on content that you are going to publish (and share files in the comments if needed), and approve or reject each and every piece of content with just one click. No more trying to reach them through the phone, e-mail, carrier pigeon or owl post. Easy-peasy.
Thanks to a light and intuitive mobile app, your clients can approve your content on the go, even if they are watching the sunrise in the Maldives. You can discuss it when you are sipping another Mohito on your vacation. Of course, we just wanted to say that the mobile app makes approval quicker and more accessible, but picturing it with some holidays scenes sounds way cooler. Amirite?
There is no social media management without social media analytics. Period. This is why you have access to Facebook & Instagram performance stats in Kontentino, so that you can (and you should!) analyze it on a daily basis. If this fact sounds great to you already, the next one will be jaw-dropping. That is, you can even generate detailed reports of your performance, so pretty that you can simply send them further to your clients directly. You can monitor your social media budget, too!
Too many ideas running through your head? Use some of our tools to gain inspiration, then save some of the most amazing concepts and put them into content inspiration calendars in Kontentino. You’ll thank yourself, you’ll see (and make the most of them when you need them the most!).
Oh, last but not least. You have unlimited space for your brand assets – photos and videos can be made accessible in albums for your team. If you create a lot of content, you know that the struggle is real when you need to find “the one” photo or video in the depths of your (or someone else’s) computer. Cross it out from your list with Kontentino.

That is pretty much it. So then, see you on a free trial? Over 4000 companies all over the world befriended us – you’re next.

To sum up

Of course, you do not have to use all of these marketing tools or even use any of them at all.

However, you may be amazed by how refreshed your strategy can become with some new designs and ideas.

Some of these marketing tools for small businesses can also be used out of the social media world to support other marketing activities and help you with keeping data at one place.

While you can’t automate everything (such as empathy and approach!) it’s worth automating some of your most tedious tasks.

Keep looking for new sources of inspiration to deliver brilliant communication that you’ll be proud of.

So, which top marketing tools are you going to add to your toolbox? Let us know!