Facebook, Twitter, Pinterst, Instagram, LinkedIn, Whatsapp, Wechat, Snapchat, Youtube and the whole lot! Connecting with your customers on social media is the best way to build brand loyalty and communicate your product offerings directly. However, how can anyone find the time and energy to manage all these channels by themselves?
Social media- the global marketing stage
Social media is a two-way platform and for it work you need to use it and use it effectively. Besides from the quality of your content, if you're a small business that owns multiple social media accounts with an established or growing customer base, posting consistently and frequently is key to keeping your customers engaged with your brand and products.
Yeah, we get it… it takes too much time and energy logging in and out of each account, formatting each social media post correctly, and remembering to post on time.
Here at Webplanners, we have compiled a list of awesome social media tools you should use to help you save time and energy, helping you manage your social media channels better (some of these we use ourselves).
Picking the right social media tools for your business
As a small business ourselves, we understand the struggle of having to manage client work, our own work and then to have to expend time and energy on managing our image and potential customers on social media. So we use CRM or customer relationship management tools to help streamline the whole process.
The tools you'll see below are often referred to as social media scheduling tools. Essentially all your social media accounts are set in one place so when you send out one post, it formats to send out into different channels.
1. Hubspot
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HubSpot_Logo.png
Website here: https://www.hubspot.com/
We understand that building marketing campaigns needs dedication and creativity. Imagine being able to manage your emails, blog posts, landing pages, all your social media accounts, sales figures, marketing reports and your websites all in one place. This is what Hubspot can do (There is a reason why Hub is in its name).
Hubspot's design and functionality is a tad technical however anything technical is supported by short online video lessons to help you understand why you use it and how to use it. They have an incredible support system to help you through any and every kind of issue you may encounter.
For free users, it is a prioritizing tool that doesn't let necessary meetings and interactions slip away from your mind. Apart from the regular stuff like scheduling posts, monitoring the insights you can also measure and compare different channels and campaign results too.
Hubspot mainly specialises in CRM, Marketing, Sales and Services. Check out their pricing and services page here: https://www.hubspot.com/pricing/service
They even have an academy to teach you about all the ins and out of understanding and operating your business digitally such as SEO, Social media, Blogging etc.
Price range: Free - $3,000 + (depending on the package)
Bottom line: Hubspot is a bit more technical but the trade-off is that you have more control and freedom to manage different aspects of your business. It is mainly for start-ups, small - large businesses and agencies. They have a range of free CRM (customer relationship management) tools, but the real kicker is when you pay a monthly subscription to any of their packages that is relevant to where you want to improve efficiency.
2. SocialOomph
Website here: https://www.socialoomph.com/
SocialOomph is an affordable and user-friendly CRM and social media management tool. Although the website doesn't seem modern, the features sure are. Apart from an awesome name, the tools it offers helps you manage better relations with your social media followers such as offering:
- Auto DM (direct messages) being sent to new followers
- Auto follow new followers
- Deleting all your tweets and direct messages
- Auto unfollow
- Email reply digest
- Schedule your tweets
Apart from Twitter focused features, it can track keywords, promote profiles, and monitor social media activity, manage blogs and more.
Price: Free - $17.79 p/fortnight. Check out their pricing here: https://www.socialoomph.com/
Bottom line: More Twitter focused with an easy and free auto features to help you get started and noticed. It is relatively cheap and good for businesses or people with a budget. All in all, it requires minimal effort to bring maximum results.
3. Buffer
Source: https://buffer.com/press
Website here: https://buffer.com
Trusted hugely by big brands and businesses, Buffer is known for its simple interface and clean functionalities.
Tired of handling multiple login accounts and their passwords?
Buffer gets you rid of it. In one place you can do it all - schedule posts for later, analyse performance and share content. Also, it's a brilliant platform for people new to social media services.
Pricing: Free - $399. Check out their pricing page and services here: https://buffer.com/pricing
Bottom Line: What makes buffer different is they are a social media content management platform. For example, they have features such as an RSS feed, link shortening and analytics to help optimise your social media and analyse posting results.
4. Hootsuite
Source: http://www.stickpng.com/img/icons-logos-emojis/tech-companies/hootsuite-logo
Website here: https://hootsuite.com/plans
One of the most popular marketing tool, Hootsuite helps in better finding, managing and monitoring of social media sites.
You can also schedule on the go with their mobile phone app or work simultaneously in a team on the same account too!
The best part is you can filter the conversation in multiple languages by keywords and tags to know the reviews of consumers. Also it allows you to keep track on your social media ROI in efficient ways.
Pricing: Free - $675 – Custom Pricing. Click here for their pricing page: https://hootsuite.com/plans
Bottom Line: Hootsuite has some features that helps it stand out as a social media manager. Besides the standard scheduling and management, Hootsuite also features its intuitive mobile app, collaboration feature and has customised analytics.
5. SproutSocial
Source: https://charitycatalogue.com/resource/sprout-social/
Website here: https://sproutsocial.com/
Sprout Social is a social media engagement and management tool that is data driven.
Having on-call insight and knowledge about how your posts ran is important for businesses to know whether what they are doing is working or not.
With the kind of data Sprout Social offers, it helps you create stronger and loyal customer relationships through more confident and quick decision making.
Pricing: starting at $99 - $249. Check out their pricing page here: https://sproutsocial.com/pricing/
Bottom Line: Although Sprout Social is a social media management too, it features are more focused towards data and analytics. Definitely a game changer to workflow and allows you to address issues and make decisions with confidence.
Conclusion
With these social media marketing tools, managing individual social media account and tasks are a thing of the past.
All these easy and streamlined marketing tools will likely to save you time, energy and effort either for free or with a bit of a cost.
Regardless, it's time you work smarter, not harder. Before you decide on a tool, be sure to do extensive research on it to see if it fits your organisation or not.
