There are a lot of things you have to worry about. Did your ad go out on time? How much are you spending on your tradeshow booth? Is your boss going to yell at you because you’re on the fifth revision of a white paper and it still isn’t finished?
Somewhere in between all of these big pressing questions, you have monotonous tasks, like social media. It can be fun and exciting, but usually it’s repetitive. When you’re planning, writing, and scheduling, you’re clicking the same buttons and pasting the same URL over and over . . .
Then, one day, some wise person shows you how to use browser extensions. And it revolutionizes how you do things. Well, maybe it doesn’t revolutionize your job, but it does make things go a little quicker and easier.
Here are a few browser extensions I’ve used to schedule and plan social media more efficiently.
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1. Buffer
Buffer is a really cool social media app that helps you schedule and curate social media posts. There is a free version, but you’re limited on how many social posts you can schedule.
What we really want to look at is the Buffer extension. This lets you share from any website, blog, or page to any of your connected social profiles. The extension grabs the page title as well as any associated photos.
You can go a step further and share specific text and images from an article.
The extension also comes with a few additional goodies. While you’re browsing Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or other sites, you can use built-in buttons to access your queue and schedule reshares. All without navigating away from the page you’re on.
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2. Bitly
Bitly is exactly what you would expect from a link shortener browser extension. It has the standard features, including custom shortening, analytics, and copy and share buttons.
Where Bitly excels is in its analytics and organization. You can add shortened links to bundles, allowing you to organize a series of similar links. Also, you can set up notifications when a link reaches a predetermined number of views.
FYI: Available for Chrome and Firefox users.
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3. Ritetag
Ritetag is a cool hashtag analytics tool. Their extension allows you to access direct feedback on the popularity and strength of the hashtags you are about to use. It’s even color coded. Green is good, blue is poor, and red is overused.
FYI: Ritetag’s browser extension is not available on Safari, but if you use Chrome or Firefox, you’re good to go.
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4. Social Analytics
Social Analytics is a cool browser extension that lets you visit a blog or article and see a quick breakdown of how many social shares the post received. Social Analytics shows data on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and Pinterest engagement.
FYI: Only available to Chrome users.
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5. Clipular
There are a lot of screenshot tools sitting around in the world, but the one I use every day (and I stress every day) is Clipular. Clipular is a free extension that allows you to take screenshots of your browser, cut “clippings” from a page, and even manage your clip portfolio.
Another bonus of clipular is you can download and share your screenshots directly from the extension. This includes sharing through email, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Tumblr.
There are tons of browser extensions that can help you become a little more agile in your job, whatever that may be. The ones I’ve highlighted here are just a few of the ones I have experience with. Get out there and give some of the others a try. Oh and let us know how you like them!
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