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Thanksgiving is just around the corner, which means 2019 is winding down. It’s time to start making plans for holiday coverage across social media platforms and to brainstorm ideas for what to write and share with members in 2020. It’s also a time to stop and think about what we are most thankful for, and in my role as AAMA Communications Coordinator, there are at least three marketing tools I have relied on a lot in 2019. Here is my list of must-have resources and how you can use them for your own company.

Hootsuite

I have been using Hootsuite more in 2019 because I have been able to add multiple Twitter accounts to our scheduling stream. That means I can toggle easily back and forth between scheduling a tweet for @AAMAinfo and scheduling something for @GlassDocs or @WindowSafetyTF. I can see all scheduled content on Hootsuite’s helpful calendar planner view. I’ll be using it more soon to schedule holiday coverage for Thanksgiving and beyond, so our account remains active even when AAMA Marketing is out of the office.

How can you use it? If your company maintains multiple Twitter accounts for multiple branches, locations or specialty focus, Hootsuite makes it easy to ensure even coverage across accounts. But be aware, each Hootsuite plan type has a limit to the number of social networks that can be added to the dashboard.

MailChimp

AAMA switched to MailChimp three years ago, and it has been one of the biggest changes to my role in terms of tools. We use MailChimp to send out several newsletters, including the monthly AAMA e-News, the bimonthly Product Certification e-News and regionally focused newsletters. One thing I love about MailChimp is the access we now have to statistics. Seeing what recipients clicked on most helps us gear our content to be interesting and relevant in the future. View our latest newsletters here.

How can you use it? If you are reaching out to an email list of customers, MailChimp can help you organize those customers based on their interests – ensuring you are not spamming them with information they aren’t interested in. Tinkering with audiences, tags and lists in MailChimp can help you target your information toward its intended audience.

Flickr

This time last year, AAMA upgraded its Flickr account to include unlimited storage. Images uploaded do not lose resolution quality and can be re-downloaded at various sizes, depending on whether AAMA needs it for a magazine article (high-resolution) or for our website (where a smaller size is fine). I love that I can sort albums seamlessly and tag images with searchable information for when I need to find something later. Plus, because we now have so much storage, AAMA is in the process of uploading archived images from past events, some of which date back to the 1980s. Check out our photo albums now.

How can you use it? A single case study could justify its own Flickr album, making it easy to share on image-focused social media platforms like Pinterest. Manufacturers can also create albums by product line, material or other preferred distinction. The same image can be included in more than one album, so crossover is definitely allowed. Share albums as part of your marketing materials.

What hacks are you grateful to have discovered? Share the wealth in the comments below!