Social media is a great way to advertise small and big businesses. A lot of small businesses have considered or are already using social media and management tools along with it. If you have a small or start-up business, you should consider trying out a social media management tool. But others can also benefit from these tools. If you are an influencer, you can make use of these tools to make your social media management easier and more organized. Or maybe you’re an up-and-coming artist who wants to make yourself known. You can post your works online and advertise yourself on social media.
What is a Social Media Management Tool?
It’s not uncommon for people not to know what a social management tool is. Not everyone actually uses it after all. Most people that use it either have a business or are influencers. For people that advocate for a cause, having this kind of tool is very helpful, too. What it does is it allows you to publish, monitor, and manage the material you share on social media. You don’t have to go through all the hassle of checking each account. It makes it easier for you to see all the activity in one interface.
Scheduling when to share content is a breeze, as well as responding to queries from customers or followers. This kind of tool is also very helpful if you have a team that manages your accounts.
A few examples of the most major social media tools are Hootsuite, Buffer, and Sprout Social. With these, you can manage most of your accounts, to all of it. There are also some tools that can only manage one social network. For example, TweetDeck can only work for Twitter, while Facebook Page Manager can only work for a Facebook App. Whatever it is that you’re getting, make sure that it fits your needs.
What re Social Media Management Tools used for?
Scheduling posts
It’s actually been proven that there are specific times when you should post content so that more users will be able to see them. Social media traffic varies on a day to day basis and depending on the time as well. Different social media platforms can also be a factor. So it’s good to know when are the times and days in a week to post your content.
With a good social media management tool, you can choose when to post your content in whatever types of social media apps. This gives you a much better chance for your audiences to come across your post when they’re scrolling through their feed. You get to reach more people and garner more reactions and shares when you post at the right time.
Social media monitoring
A good management tool can give you an overview of all the activities happening on all your social media platforms. You will be up-to-date with all your new followers, likes, and mentions or comments. You can easily respond and interact with your audiences without having to keep shifting from one account to the other.
Social media analytics
It’s good to keep track of your platform performance over time and the different time periods for all the other social media accounts that you have. Your followers and interactions can vary from time to time, depending on the season and situation. When you have a track of these things, you won’t have to keep wondering why you’ve had some down time in the past. You will be able to compare how you’ve gained activity from last year to this time.
Analytics are helpful for your brand because it shows if your advertising is effective. It gives you a view of the number of clicks and interactions with audiences. This will help you and your team understand why your brand is progressing or just stagnant. You want your business to keep progressing, so you need analytics to help you with that.
Team collaboration
In a day, you can get many queries from your followers and audiences.A good social media management tool can help social media managers assign themselves to a message. This ensures that all queries are answered. When audiences’ queries are replied to quickly, it gives a good reputation for your and your platform. It gives audiences the feel that they are really prioritized. This gives good customer service reviews and can also entice future audiences and followers.
What are the Best Social Media Management Tools?
You want to get a social media management tool that is versatile and flexible so that you can manage different accounts in one interface. This makes it easier for you and your team to keep track of activity. Other than that, you also want it to be user-friendly. Because who wants the hassle of being completely dumb-founded while using the application, right? And lastly, it should offer good value for money. Not everything expensive works well, while not everything cheap works horribly.
So you have to get one that’s priced right so that you get the best bang for your buck. We’ve wrapped up the best social media management tools so you have an idea how they work and which ones are best fitted for your needs.
Hootsuite
Hootsuite is probably the most popular social media management tool today. It’s deemed as the best because of how flexible and versatile it is. It can manage all the popular social media platforms. Other than that, you can choose which plan you want to use, if you’re managing your accounts by yourself, or you have a team that’s helping you out.
A great thing about Hootsuite is that it also has the most features that can help you and your business or platform grow. Compared to its competitors, it’s probably the most used because of how well it works with almost all social media platforms.
A con to Hootsuite is that it’s not the most user-friendly tool out there. It’s quite complex and you will need time to get used to it. The interface is clean, but it’s not simple. It can be slightly confusing at first. Another con to it is that although price points are flexible, costs can still add up after some time, especially if you’re managing your platforms with a team. Small businesses are better off with other tools. Hootsuite is actually more useful and suitable for bigger businesses and established influencers.
One of the best things about Hootsuite is that it has different price points. This will depend on your needs and how many social media managers will use it. It starts at $19 a month for one user with 10 social media profiles. Then $99 for 3 users with 20 social media profiles. Then there’s a steeper price of $599 for 5 to up to 10 users with 35 social media profiles. But you can also contact Hootsuite to customize your package, so it’s very flexible. This pricing is on a monthly basis.
Social Champ
With Social Champ, you can have one post shared to all your different social media accounts all at once easily. Your content can be available on all your accounts, and coherent. Reposting content can also be done with this tool, because of the repeat feature. Now, you can schedule throwback posts and make your audience engage with it. Recycling content may not be the best for some, but it’s a good way to help you engage with your older audiences.
Lastly, it has content suggestions. You can get suggestions of your next content that’s custom-fit for your business theme. Photo editing is also possible with Social Champ, so you don’t have to use Photoshop to give your photo posts a quick edit, plus points!
The only con to Social Champ is that it’s not the most popular tool out there. There are some reviews online like this, but not as comprehensive. It’s not as widely-used as the other tools, so you can’t really get a gist of it by just reading through reviews. However, it does offer a free trial membership, so that’s really the best way to test it out and see for yourself.
Social Champ has more affordable price points. Starting at $10 a month, you can already manage 15 social media profiles and schedule 300 scheduled posts per account. At $29 a month, you can manage 25 social media profiles and schedule a whopping 1,000 scheduled posts per account. At a slightly steeper price of $99, you can manage 50 social media profiles and have 1,500 posts scheduled per account. The most expensive is at $199 which gives you account management of 100 profiles and 2.000 scheduled posts per account. However, you can also avail a 10% discount if you get a yearly subscription of this tool.
Sprout Social
Sprout Social has been proven to be one of the best social media management tools available today. It is actually as popular as Hootsuite. Businesses are its main users with over 20,000 customers for business. It can manage for different social media accounts which are: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest. The interface is very intuitive and user-friendly. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to use Sprout Social because of how easy it is to use.
The biggest con to Sprout Social is that it’s not cheap. Starting at $99 a month, it’s actually quite expensive. And the fact that it can only manage 4 major social media platforms, it can be a drawback to some people. Also, having a social media management team isn’t the most viable option for this tool. This is because it can only accommodate one user.
You’ll be able to use Sprout Social without limits with memberships that start at $99 a month for a “Standard” package which can accommodate 5 social media profiles. There is also a “Professional” package for $149 a month that can accommodate 10 different social media profiles. The “Advance” package which can be used on 10 social media profiles, but with more features compared to the Professional package. All these packages can only be used by one user.
E-Clincher
E-Clincher has all the features that you need from a social media management tool. But it has a few pluses to it as well. Aside from the usual post scheduling and analytics, you can also gather and share the most popular content from all over the world. This unique tool helps you discover relevant and significant content from different websites and sources. It presents these in your feed quickly and shows it to your audience. This will make your audience be more engaged in your posts. Your social media presence will be boosted and it will be helpful in marketing content.
If you want to set one cross platform queue for your content, E-Clincher might not be for you. You will need to set-up separate queues for each social media account. The problem with this is that your posts may not be coherent or the same for every platform. Another con E-Clincher is that interface is also not the most user-friendly out there. Some may find it quite complex and confusing. It will need some time to get used to.
Having price points of a very affordable $15 to quite whopping amount of $1,200 gives you a lot to choose from. The main difference of the packages are the number of users and social media accounts it can accommodate. You can choose the cheapest option if you’ll be managing your platforms alone with 5 social media profiles. On the other hand, the most expensive option will accommodate 10 users and over 100 social media profiles. The variety of packages is a great way for you to choose which fits your budget and needs the best.
Sendible
Most social media managing tools have very clunky and complex user interfaces. But this isn’t the case with Sendible. Its user interface is very clean and sleek. It’s very easy to use, so you don’t really need to learn anything along the way. Having the same features and services offered by Hootsuite, you really do get to manage almost all the popular social media platforms. Social media reports look stunning on Sendible and it’s been proven to be one of the most accurate, too!
A unique feature on this social media management tool is the automated replies. It can be Tweets, comments, or direct or private messages. This is a great way for your audience or followers to get replies on their queries immediately. It can also automatically follow profiles, but can unfollow them if they don’t follow back within a day.
It’s been reported that the app is glitchy. It crashes every now and then, especially when editing a scheduled post on mobile. However, there will be an update for this that will hopefully fix it. Starting at $29 a month, this app is also on the expensive side.
On the other hand, small team of 3 with 48 social media profiles can get a deal for $99 per month. For a bigger team of 7 with 105 social media profiles, Sendible offers a monthly deal of $199. For a large team of 12 users with 192 social media profiles, a monthly deal of $299 is also available. These monthly packages are discounted if subscribed to yearly.
MeetEdgar
The user interface of MeetEdgar is actually very easy to get used to. The design of the app is very sleek and clean, so it’s not confusing to work with. It has all the features you need for your social media profiles. But the thing that makes it stand out the most is that it can continue to publish posts. Even after you have stopped posting content, it will keep on posting on your behalf. This is a great way to keep your followers and audience’s interest. Stagnancy is never good for business, so updating your profiles is a good way to keep your followers interest.
Unfortunately, MeetEdgar doesn’t work with all the social media platforms. It can only work with a handful of platforms such as: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and just recently, Instagram App. It also doesn’t let you interact with your audience directly through the app. You will need to respond to comments and messages manually from your individual social media account.
MeetEdgar has two monthly package options with very competitive price points. If you’ll be managing your social media profiles by yourself, they offer a monthly package deal of just $19 to help you with 4 different social media platforms. On the other hand, if you have a team to help you out with managing your profiles, then you can avail the $49 monthly package.
Are there free social media management tools?
All the social media management tools we’ve featured here all come with a 30-day free trial. But after 30 days, you will need to avail the paid version. Social media management tools actually require a ton of support from its developers. This is why you have to pay for it to get the full unlimited experience. However, free trials are a great way for you to still get an experience of the social media management tool that you’re eyeing on. Try out different tools to give you an idea of how they work and which ones work the best for you. Social media management tools are a great investment to up your brand or content. Spending a bit can help you in the long run.
Since social media is now easily accessible to everyone, you can reach tons and tons of potential buyers and audience. Having different platforms for your content is a great way to get audiences from different areas. But having to deal with scheduling posts and inquiries can be taxing. You have to monitor any crisis that comes your way, as well as find prospects that are beneficial. Other than that you also have to do reports on various metrics. It’s actually not easy to manage your social media accounts, but that’s why you can get the help from social media management tools.
There are many of these tools that can be found online that offer free trial memberships. This is great so that you can see for yourself if they work out for you, before actually committing to getting a paid full version. It’s good to try out many different tools so you would get a gist of how unique they are. From there, you can decide for yourself which one or which ones work the best for you.
