The Five Sites Social Media Marketers Should Bookmark

It’s not a surprise that social media moves fast — really fast. New platforms are ever emerging, algorithms are always changing, and new slang switches constantly. Even for the professional social media marketer, it can be hard to keep up.

That’s why we’ve rounded up our five favorite sites and blogs to follow for social media news and tips. Each offers something unique.

Social Media Examiner

From the web: “Social Media Examiner helps millions of businesses discover how to best use social media marketing to connect with customers, drive traffic, and increase sales.”

Why we love it: Social Media Examiner shares expert news and recommendations in a variety of different formats — text, video, infographic, podcast, talk show, you name it — making it easy (and fun!) to follow along with the current state of social media marketing. Through their social channels and physical get-togethers (they host what is, according to their website, the industry’s leading physical conference) they’re an excellent resource that empowers social media marketers to communicate with and learn from one another. With the theme of navigating the “jungle” of social media, their quirky exploration-themed graphics don’t hurt the experience, either!

Social Media Today

From the web: Powered by Industry Dive, “Social Media Today is an online community and resource for professionals in marketing, social business, communication, customer experience, content marketing and digital strategy, or any other discipline where a thorough understanding of social media is mission-critical.”

Why we love it: Social Media Today is a robust hub for the latest social media news. With an always-running Twitter feed and constant flow of industry-related content on the web, if something newsworthy happens in the world of social media, you can bet one of Social Media Today’s contributors will be one of the first to post about it. It’s our go-to for what’s going on.

Hubspot Blog

From the web: “HubSpot‘s Blog for marketing, sales, agency, and customer success content, which has more than 400,000 subscribers and attracts over 2 million monthly visitors.”

Why we love it: HubSpot’s blog tackles more than just the social media landscape. It delves into the 360-degree world of marketing, advertising, and sales to provide a more comprehensive experience for readers. While social media is an exceptionally important part of marketing today, it’s even more important to understand how it fits into the context of other business functions. HubSpot’s blog provides just that.

Sprout Social Insights

From the web: “Sprout Social Insights is a social media blog for business with a focus on bringing you the latest social media tips, strategies and best practices.”

Why we love it: Sprout Social Insights helps show social media’s power across a wide range of industries, providing helpful recommendations that are relevant to more than just social media managers for B2C, for-profit brands. When it comes to platform-specific tips, Sprout Social Insights covers them all. And with Twitter chats and Facebook groups, the blog takes the conversation to a place they make a whole lot of sense: social media.

Buffer Blog

From the web: “Buffer’s social media marketing blog covers the latest social media tools, analytics, and strategies for Twitter, Facebook, and more…”

Why we love it: Buffer does a fantastic job of managing the community of commenters on their blog. Buffer blog writers are clearly acknowledged with profile pictures and bios, and participate in the conversations that happen both in the comment sections of the blog and on any social platform the topics continue to. (Take a read through the articles — you’re bound to see a comment from moderator Kevan Lee.) Marketers are customers to, and Buffer does an amazing job inspiring them to be a part of their community of experts.