7 Free Social Media Marketing Tools (that Shouldn't be Free)

The social media marketing niche is full of hype pipers and hope dopes. Everyday I get a "product launch" email touting the latest Wordpress plugin, software app or marketing system, promising BIG traffic or quit-your-day-job ROI.

If you have been around (the internet marketing scene) for even a few months you'll know just what I am talking about. I am at the point where I am more interested in the way the product is being marketed than what the prodcut is.

I have settled in to a few (mostly free) web 2.0 tools that make my social media marketing work.

So, shut up and tell you what they are already, right? Got it...

VIDEO SYNDICATION
The big gun in video submission is, of course, Traffic Geyser. This is a great service and, besides taking hours to set up and being priced on the high end, works very well at getting you and your silly videos plastered all over the web. However, recently I stumbled upon a free video submission service called TubeMogul that I like quite well, thank you very much.

TubeMogul allows for automated submission to the 12 big video sites all at once. The interface is super-simple. It allows you to add a title, description, tags and category setting to you video. And you can upload as many videos as you want for nada (FREE!).

Check it out at TubeMogul.com.

SOCIAL MEDIA SUBMITTING AND BOOKMARKING

Some of the new folks get confused here so let me briefly explain... Social media marketing calls for lots of "submitting". One of the mainstays is submitting your post (your story, your article  whatever you call your content) to a social media site.

There are really 2 types of sites for post submission. There's the social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us and technorati which just want you to primarily submit a link and tag. There's not much voting or browsing of these "bookmarks" going on after you submit.

Then there's the social news sites like Digg and Propeller. These sites want your link and tags also but you will also need to provide a good description of you post and hope that other vote it up.

So, with that out of the way... On to the freebie.

I have used a few of the paid tools out there to automatically submit to both the social bookmarking sites and the social news sites and, in my opinion, the free tool at SocialMarker.com works better than all of them. You just input your post data, check the sites you want to submit to and arrow through the submissions. "That was easy!"

KEYWORD RESEARCH
Yes, I still do keyword research, I think it is important to keep track of your main keywords and look for variations as new topics come up. I use the free tool from the giant keyword service called Keyword Discovery. The free tool works great for bloggers who are not building 10,000 word PPC campaigns.

IMAGE EDITING
By far, the service I use the most is picnik.com. I always have to crop, resize, fix, etc. the images I need to use. This online editor makes it quick and easy.

VIDEO CAPTURE AND EDITING
Well, this may be a bit advanced for the new folks but just in case you are ready to stick your toes into the video pond, here's a couple of free tools you'll need.

First, you will need a good screen capture software. I like the tools from TechSmith, either Camtasia (V3 is free right now) or JingProject.

Once you have you fancy screen capture then head over to Jumpcut.com and start editing. This is an awesome free online editing software that should cost big bucks.

So, there you have it...

The list is not long but, trust me, these free tools will get you f-a-a-a-r in your social media marketing endeavors.

You can try lots of other similar free marketing software, tools and systems; there is an endless number of them that's for sure.

This is what has worked (and continues to work) for me. Enjoy!