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7 Free Facebook ToolsMarketers Should ConsiderBy Jason How

Published February 18, 2015

Are you looking for ways to enhance your Facebookmarketing?

Do you want to capture the attention of moreprospects and customers?

The right Facebook tools can make the job easier bysaving you time and optimizing your Facebookmarketing efforts.

In this article you’ll discover seven valuable (and free) Facebook tools that canhelp marketers succeed.

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Discover 7 free Facebook tools marketers should consider.

#1: Improve Targeting With Audience InsightsFacebook Audience Insights can help you determine if you should target a specificinterest with Facebook ads. So how do you do that?

First, head over to Audience Insights. Then type in the interest that you’rethinking about targeting. For example, say that you run a local accounting firm andwant to target “accounting coach.”

Enter the interest you w ant to target.

Next, click on the Location tab. Here, you see a breakdown of an interest targetgroup by city and state .

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The Location tab breaks dow n target groups by city and state.

This is where you need to ask yourself a few key questions: Where are myexisting clients from? Do they match that of the existing interest group?

If you answered yes, do you want to continue growing your client pool from thesestates? If no, are these locations part of your expansion plans?

After you answer these questions, calculate the estimated audience size and seeif it’s large enough for you to target.

Suppose you want to target people from Florida. Here are the percentages fromthe Florida cities:

Jacksonville, 2%Tampa, 2%Orlando, 2%Miami, 4%

And the total interest audience size is 14.1K.

Now add up the percentages from Florida cities and multiply the result by

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the total interest audience size :

(2 + 2 + 2 + 4)% x 14.1K = 1.41K

The result is your estimated audience size. This number tells you 1.41K of theinterest group are relevant to your targeting strategy.

You can then repeat the process for other interests before you rank them andthen choose the ones with the largest numbers.

#2: Create an Ads Report With CompassCompass is a little-known tool from AdEspresso. You’re going to love this tool if youneed an appealing and easily digestible ad report. This report shows what’s workingwith your Facebook ad campaigns and what’s not.

The sample report below shows some of the key metrics, such as amount spent, adfrequency and number of conversions.

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Compass generates an easy-to-read Facebook ads report.

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You’ll also find a section focused on engagement, offering metrics such as linkclicks (not all clicks) and conversion by type.

The next section gives you a data breakdown by age, gender, devices, placement andcountries. These are the data breakdown options that Facebook ads reports provide,but presenting this information in a beautiful report makes it easier to understand.

AdEspresso has analyzed ad spend of over $290 million, which means when youcreate your Compass report, you get to benchmark your ad performance againstothers’ performance , amounting to over $290 million. That’d be a valuablebenchmark to show how you’re doing relative to other Facebook advertisers.

#3: Refresh Link URLs With the FacebookDebuggerThe Facebook URL Debugger tool lets you tell Facebook to re-crawl yourwebpage metadata so you can change and update how your link looks whensomeone shares it on Facebook.

You can use this tool to re-crawl any of your webpages after you’ve updated the metadescription and feature image. If you’re using WordPress, you can make theseupdates with the WordPress SEO plugin from Yoast.

To install this plugin in your WordPress file , go to SEO > Social, as shownbelow.

Install the WordPress SEO plugin.

Then navigate to the Facebook tab and select the Add Open Graph Meta Datacheck box.

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Select the Add Open Graph Meta Data check box.

Next, click the Add Facebook Admin button and log into your Facebookaccount. (Note that if you were previously logged into Facebook, the button is labeledAdd Another Facebook Admin instead, as shown in the above image.)

Now upload the new image you want to see on Facebook and fill in the meta

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Description box.

Enter your meta description in the Description box.

You can also choose to upload another image in the Default Settings section atthe bottom as a failsafe option.

Finally, head over to the Facebook URL Debugger tool and type in the URL ofthe webpage you want Facebook to re-crawl, and you’re done.

#4: Improve Headlines With Headline AnalyzerHeadlines are the second most visible feature in the Facebook news feed andinfluence whether users click through on posts. (Images are the most visible feature,of course.)

Keep in mind that good headlines don’t need to over-promise—they just need tocapture the essence of what your content is about and what value itprovides. CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer helps you do that.

CoSchedule has analyzed the headlines of top articles, focusing on social shares,SEO value and traffic. The Headline Analyzer tool gives you a score on your headline,benchmarked against CoSchedule’s research findings.

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Headline Analyzer rates your headline and gives tips for improving it.

CoSchedule uses a scientific approach to breaking down the composition of yourheadline and will remind you to use powerful and emotional words to convey themessage and feelings to readers.

You also receive other recommendations for improving your headlines, suchas reducing the number of characters or words.

If you’re interested in finding out more about how their analysis works, CoScheduleshared some of their findings in this article.

#5: Add Sharing Buttons With SumoMe’s ShareIf you don’t have a mobile-compatible sharing plugin or you’re still using desktop-onlyversions of free plugins like Flare, you’re losing out on valuable traffic.

SumoMe’s Share is a free social sharing plugin that works on both desktop and mobileplatforms, and it shows you which pages were shared using the plugin.

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Share show s how many clicks your pages are getting.

Installing Share is incredibly easy, and it comes with many other useful plugins, suchas Heat Maps and content scrolling analysis tools.

#6: Run Contests With the Timeline ContestToolSince Facebook banned like-gating last year, the value of using apps has diminishedfor many Facebook page managers. Some administrators prefer to run casual, regularcontests on their page by posting images and asking fans to participate.

One key advantage to using a contest app rather than posting to your wall is that itsaves you administrative time. If you’re running a “like to win” contest, you might get300 to 500 likes, and combing through the list to choose a winner can be a hassle,especially if the list doesn’t generate any long-term value.

To make your work easier, you can use AgoraPulse’s Facebook TimelineContest tool. It lets you create three types of contests: sweepstakes, quizzes andphoto contests.

You can administer three types of contests w ith the Facebook Timeline Contest tool.

For sweepstakes, use the tool to randomly pick a winner among people whohave liked or commented on your post, or both.

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For quizzes, ask a question and select winners among people who answeredcorrectly.

For photo contests, ask fans and other people to comment with photos,request that they invite others to like their comments and pick the winnerwith the most likes on his or her comment.

The Facebook Timeline Contest tool is a great option if you’re looking for a short-termengagement tactic for your fans.

#7: Find Inspiration in Real-World FacebookAdsThis isn’t exactly a tool, but the folks at AdEspresso have compiled a comprehensivelist of real Facebook ads in their free ebook, 500+ Facebook Ads That Will InspireYou.

Take a look at real-w orld ad examples for inspiration.

Creating effective Facebook ads can be challenging, especially if it’s your first timerunning an ad campaign. To be successful, you need a combination of highly relevant

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targeting, suitable images and copies and an understanding of the technical side of adoptimization.

For these reasons, it’s helpful to look through AdEspresso’s collection of real-worldFacebook ads for inspiration. You can see how other brands are creating ads,what kind of images they’re using and how they portray themselves to theirtarget audiences.

The ebook also delves into details like whether other brands in your industry are usingmodels and celebrities in their ads, how direct or indirect their copies are and whetherthey’re using calls to action.

Conclusion

These seven free tools can help you become more productive with Facebookmarketing. I hope that you’ll find them as useful as I did.

Have you tried any of these tools before? What free Facebook tools do youuse? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Related Posts

Tags: f acebook, f acebook ad report, f acebook audeince, f acebook contest, f acebook debugger, f acebook headlines, f acebook

share buttons, f acebook tool, jason how

ABOUT THE AUTHOR, Jason How

Jason How is a marketing consultant and Facebook ads spec ialis t.

He helps small bus iness ow ners and soc ial media consultants get

more value out of Facebook ads . Othe r pos ts by Jason How »

5 Ways to Improve YourFacebook Contests

36 Tools and Tips forSocial Media Marketers

10 Successful FacebookMarketing Examples

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11 Comments Social Media Examiner

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• Reply •

Kerry Butters • 21 hours ago

Very useful, thanks, am already playing with the headline resource :) 4△ ▽

• Reply •

Jason HJH • 20 hours ago> Kerry Butters

I'm glad! The CoSchedule team would be proud to hear that. △ ▽

• Reply •

Chris Mikulin • 19 hours ago

Another great free Facebook tool I use is: http://www.wiselytics.com 2△ ▽

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• Reply • 2△ ▽

• Reply •

Jason HJH • 18 hours ago> Chris Mikulin

Hey Chris,

Thanks for the recommendation! Mind sharing with us what it does and how you use it? 1△ ▽

• Reply •

Camille St Martin • 18 hours ago

Thanks for the great resources/tools! △ ▽

• Reply •

Jason HJH • 18 hours ago> Camille St Martin

Thanks Camille for reading it! If you love it, do share it with your friends and colleagues who might find ituseful, thank you!

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• Reply •

Amandah Tayler Blackwell • 15 hours ago

Thanks for the list of tools!

I'm checking out CoSchedule AgoraPulse’s Facebook Timeline Contest tool right now. I have a client that wants torun a Facebook contest. However, I don't have all of the details, yet.

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• Reply •

Dale Brose • 12 hours ago

Great information as always. Makes me look forward to these post. I do have one question. the Total Interest Audience size data of 14.1k from? Is that based on the monthly active people number? math please. Thanks

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• Reply •

aviv • 12 hours ago

BIG LIKE! Tnx for being the most useful website for social media managers! 2△ ▽

Sayantan Mukherjee • 3 hours ago

I couldn't find the 1 st link anywhere in facebook insight. Attaching the screenshot. Where to go now?

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• Reply •

Sayantan Mukherjee • 3 hours ago> Sayantan Mukherjee

The above is a screenshot of a page insight. △ ▽

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