With all the hard work that goes into getting your business up and running and profitable, it’s no wonder why so many entrepreneurs struggle to find the time to maintain their social media presence.

That’s why I’ve invested in discovering little social media “hacks”: tools and methods I can use to maintain my presence, grow my following, and make money on social media WITHOUT increasing my workload every day.

In this article, you will discover 7 such time-saving social media tools:

1) Tweet Adder – With this software, you can automate sending direct messages to new Twitter followers (a great way to offer your followers free gifts for following you on Twitter, thus building your list in a fully automated way). You can also quickly and easily generate lists of relevant people to follow without having to log in to the Twitter platform. Easy peasy!

2) Pay with a tweet: With this software, you can offer followers an alternative to subscribing with their name/email address. Instead, they can “pay with a tweet” (they tweet a message on their Twitter profile, and in return, you give them access to your offer). I like to use this to kill 2 birds with one stone: add value to my list and build my list. The way this is done is by only allowing existing newsletter subscribers the option to pay with a tweet. When your subscribers send their tweets, the tweets will contain a link that will take them to a landing page that DOES require a subscription. So anyone who clicks on your tweet has to sign up for the mailing list, which makes your list grow (again, without any extra work)!

3) Meet Edgar – The typical social media scheduling software used by entrepreneurs (i.e. Hoot Suite and Sprout Social) still require quite a bit of manual work because you have to enter the days and times posts are published for each profile . You also can’t automatically reuse content (you have to re-enter it into the system). With Meet Edgar, you can upload a ton of content in bulk and let Edgar choose when to schedule it. And, the more content you post, the smarter Edgar gets (so if a certain post is getting a lot of attention, Edgar will automatically reuse it to help increase engagement on your pages). I’m lovin ‘it!

4) Fan of the Week – This app is a great way to show some love for your most active fans on your Facebook fan pages. Each week, the software evaluates which of your fans was the most attractive on their profile and will reward the fan by announcing them as the “Fan of the Week”. This is an easy and automated way to keep your followers happy!

5) Hub Spot Blog Topic Generator – One of the most challenging parts of social media is finding things to post. This includes creating blogs to syndicate on your social networks. With this tool, you can enter a couple of words related to what you want to write about and it will generate a list of blog topic ideas for you.

6) Canva: Unless you’re a graphic designer, creating branded graphics for your social media posts can be a pain (and if you hire people to do it for you, it can cost you quite a bit). I like technology, but I’m not a designer, so what I do instead is use Canva to create my social media graphics. I customize their free designs with my brand colors, images of me, and quotes or messages that would resonate with my followers.

7) WooBox – This one is pretty cool, because you can do so many things with it: contests, coupons, quizzes, surveys, social media landing pages, and more. But the social media “trick” and time-saving feature is one that allows you to set it so that everything you post to your fan page automatically posts to your Twitter. Now, the downside to this is that your content on these platforms is the same (so why should anyone bother following you on Twitter?) and if you post a longer post, it will look weird on Twitter. But, if you’re really short on time, consider the length of your posts and establish another means by which people should follow you on Twitter (i.e. giving followers an exclusive giveaway just for Twitter followers, using Tweet Adders). Direct Messaging function mentioned in #1), then it’s worth it.

Armed with these 7 social media tools, you’ll be able to build a following that loves you without having to sacrifice hours each day to generate content, create posts, and think of ways to build engagement. (wow!)

Now go out and do it!

<3 Amanda