We’re now a little over a month into the New Year – how are your business’ resolutions going? Did you set social media marketing goals for 2014?

Maybe you said, “We’ll blog X number of times per week.” Or, “We’ll host one Facebook contest a month.” Or, “We’ll finally put some effort into that Twitter/Instagram account.”

Sound familiar?

But maybe you only have your first blog post published. You have yet to come up with an idea for the first Facebook contest, let alone another eleven. And that Twitter/Instagram account still only has its first post from two years ago.

Reset your social media marketing goals today

You didn’t fail. You just, uh, procrastinated. Life got busy. Just because social media projects were on the back burner while other projects rose to the forefront doesn’t mean you should quit social media altogether.

Restart today. To make your New Year’s Resolutions 2.0 a little easier, here are eight social media tools that’ll make your time and financial investment worth it.

Social media monitoring tools

SocialFlow – SocialFlow is the consultant tool of social media. The tool will use your social media pages’ statistics to see what time and which content works best for your audience. Get insight on both your owned and paid social media efforts, then you’ll know when to invest time into posting and money into ads.

HowSociable – HowSociable lets users track more than 30 different social media websites. Manage and monitor your brand’s reputation online with this tool. HowSociable even offers an analytic tool to help you determine which social media sites to focus your efforts and money on, and which ones to abandon (because they have little impact on your brand).

Brand watch tools

Mention – Mention lets you watch your brand name like a hawk. Whenever your brand is mentioned on a social media platform, this tool will alert you. You’ll get statistics to help you determine how to best reach your social media goals. Also, check out the mentions of your competition and your industry.

CARMA – CARMA will analyze how your brand appears to social media users. Get an evaluation of your image on social media, fans’ brand recognition, how you’re positioned against the competition and more. This analysis can better your social media efforts, and can even be carried on to your traditional marketing – CARMA offers both traditional and social media content analysis.

Ad management tools

Social Ads Tool – Social Ads Tool focuses on your brand’s ROI. With seven unique features, you can optimize your cost per click, analyze keywords, automate your cost balancing based on ROI, and more. A few of these features include:

  • Massive ad generation: Test multiple variables by showing different ads to a number of audiences.
  • New features every two weeks: When Facebook updates their features, like the most recent video ads, Social Ads Tool does the same. Use the tool’s new features to get the most out of your ad spending.
  • Automatic ad optimization: Use their technology to determine your ad bid.

Qwaya – Qwaya is a tool specifically for social media marketing on Facebook. With it, you can create and save all your creative work, allowing you to tweak old drafts and reuse material. Take advantage of bulk creation, which allows you use similar ads to target different audiences. Qwaya also offers an analytics tool that lets you track and improve your success.

Analytic software tools

Source Metrics – Source Metrics gives you specific details on how much revenue your social media marketing efforts have earned. The tool looks at clicks, conversion and sales to determine the success of your social media presence. Get stats for both online and in-store purchases – then learn how to continue to grow your ROI.

Visible – Visible offers analytics for every level of social media interaction. Learn how to improve your social media marketing with these four levels of analysis:

  • Snapshot: Get a basic summary of the most important metrics for each page your brand manages.
  • Analysis: Look at your brand and campaign, as well as those of competitors for an insightful quantitative analysis.
  • Focused study: Ask specific questions about your marketing efforts and receive qualitative answers.
  • Advanced study: Meet with a business analyst who will give you a comprehensive analysis of your social media presence.

If you have kept up with your social media pages, which tool is your go-to?