Best Social Media Management Software

What You Should Know About Social Media Management Software

Social networks may have begun as platforms for personal connections, but today, social media profiles are necessary for businesses. As both customer resources and marketing tools, social networks have the capacity to touch thousands (or millions) of users in your target audience with timely, high-quality content.

If you sell a good or service, especially with consumer-facing brands, then well-maintained social profiles are all but required to legitimize your business in the eyes of your audience. It can be a tall order on top of your countless other tasks, especially as these social channels continue to evolve. Social media management platforms are designed to simplify the process and maximize the returns.

A complete social media strategy will require your marketing team or social media marketers to stay on top of multiple communities, respond to customer posts or comments, and produce a steady stream of posts that are unique to each platform but tied to similar announcements, deals, and so on. Management tools like those in this category provide a centralized "mission control" for your chosen social networks, consolidating the myriad tasks involved with overseeing social profiles for efficient, convenient execution. Rather than logging into your social platforms individually, you can use these tools to manage all your accounts, interact with followers, and collect valuable insights into your social media marketing strategy—all from a single location. So long as social networks maintain their relevance, social media management platforms will grow even more commonplace in professional settings across the world.

Key Benefits of Social Media Management Software

• Manage multiple types of social media accounts
• Collect data from your customer base and social media following
• Efficiently respond to criticism or complaints
• Track brand competition
• Gain insights on customer behavior and satisfaction

Why Use Social Media Management Software?

Social networks are a tool unlike anything to come before them, in terms of how we interact with brands and with each other. In a matter of seconds, you can use social networks to promote your business, interact directly with people around the world, respond to customer issues or questions, and define your brand through visual and written content, among other things. From marketing to customer service to sales, the right management platform can benefit your business by optimizing your social presence and capitalizing on the true potential of the medium.

Each tool in this software space is uniquely built to address your social media activity with features like automated posts and a unified social inbox. There are a few primary features associated with these platforms and buying considerations related to the intended use of these products within your company to have the best social media management possible.

Monitoring capabilities — Social media management tools can be complemented by native monitoring tools or integrate with social media monitoring software. It is likely that your company has multiple social media accounts across different platforms. Cross-channel monitoring features allow you to simultaneously track activity from all of your accounts. This increases efficiency, improves notifications and response times, and collects data into a centralized place.

Integration — Social media management tools collect data that can be incorporated with other programs such as CRM software, or customer relationship management software. This allows you to see data about customer behavior overall and customer behavior specific to social media, which can help you further understand customer motivations and how to improve customer satisfaction rates. Some companies choose to integrate their social media management software with third-party customer service products in order to improve their support system and inquiry management.

Analytics — Following the implementation of your social media management software tool, you will begin receiving large amounts of data that will require analysis. Find a product that integrates with social analytics software or collect and analyze data such as satisfaction scores, customer demographics, incident response and handling times, and social media presence statistics. You may also want a product that has the capability to visualize your data in an organized report. Having access to many types of data allows you to accurately analyze the effectiveness of your social media strategy.

Reputation management — Social media management tools often offer features that help analyze your reputation and market presence on social media platforms such as brand competition monitoring, employee tracking, and alerts and notifications. It is essential to use your software to monitor alerts of social media mentions and conversations related to your company in order to engage with customers and respond to criticism.

Filtering — Customers differ depending on location, age, and other demographics. Therefore, it is important to analyze groups of customers in relation to their demographics. This allows your staff to further understand the needs and motivations of the customer base and respond to any incidents accordingly. Select a product that offers the capability to filter data and results depending on demographics.

Who Uses Social Media Management Software?

The position of social media manager naturally resulted from the popularity and importance of social profiles as they relate to business matters. Designated social media specialists, as part of a larger marketing team, are perhaps the most prevalent use case for the products in this category. These positions will continue their upward trend and become a staple of more and more businesses and industries.

In cases where a company has yet to flesh out a social media marketing role or department, the digital marketing team is the most likely to adopt this technology. Digital marketing and social media go hand in hand, and increasingly the lines are blurring between a strong social presence and other forms of brand communication. Any promotional campaigns, company announcements, or branding efforts are likely to involve posts on one or more social networks. Basic updates to contact information, logos, or branding require attention to detail on any and all social media profiles. Marketing departments, community managers, office managers—and in the smallest businesses, even managers or CEOs—can take advantage of this software to oversee the organization’s complete social presence and maximize engagement with past, present, and future customers.

Social Media Management Software Features

Social media management tools help users manage and automate processes related to social media accounts across a variety of platforms. These tools provide a number of features to simplify social media practices by organizing content, scheduling actions, planning campaigns, and archiving posts.

Managing multiple accounts — This may seem obvious, but the overwhelming majority of social media management product reviewers said managing multiple accounts was the largest business problem solved. These tools allow users to consolidate accounts across multiple platforms into a single, centralized location where dashboards will display information and allow users to post to one or many accounts. The tools often provide administrative features to assure your account information is up to date, profiles are fully customized, and campaigns are organized.

Centralized social accounts can simplify efforts to outpace the ever-evolving social media market. When new platforms become relevant, many social media management products will adapt and integrate. This helps users stay ahead of the curve when working tirelessly to increase brand awareness and customer engagement through social media practices. It is also significantly simpler to navigate through and manage accounts when posting on behalf of clients or separate company departments.

Scheduling and automating social activity — Users repeatedly mentioned the benefits of scheduling multiple social media campaigns through one medium. Social media management software gives users the ability to schedule posts months in advance. When social media managers have surplus content, they can schedule posts accordingly to ensure they share as much content as possible.

Users can also maximize social reach through best practices. They can identify optimal times of day and days of the week, then schedule posts accordingly. Teams can plan in advance to publish timely posts related to holidays and events. Some teams may publish a weekly summary or monthly update. Social media management tools give users the ability to schedule timely posts, increasing relevance, awareness, and interaction.

Engaging with customers on social media — The simplified process of publishing content has given users increased time to engage with customers, according to reviewers. When users spend less time planning and scheduling social media posts, they are able to focus more on interaction. Many reviewers connected their improved social engagement to growth and brand awareness. Users said their increased engagement connected directly to producing a more active community.

Many social media management platforms provide users with alerts when customers engage with their content. This eases the process of responding to negative reviews, thanking people for positive feedback, and assisting with technical support. Companies can use negative customer experience stories to improve their own product and improve that specific person’s experience. Positive feedback can be captured, shared, or retweeted as free marketing content. Social media is also often one of the first mediums by which people attempt to contact companies. Social media management tools allow companies to respond more quickly and often.

Reporting relevant data — Another benefit of social media management software is the ability to create reports that analyze best practices. Not all products contain reporting and social analytics features, but ones that do save users a significant amount of time that would otherwise be spent analyzing effectiveness. Depending on the product’s reporting features, users can analyze specific variables such as demographics, locations, and trends.

Reporting tools can also be used to produce content for demonstrations with teammates, partners, or prospective clients. Companies can demonstrate empirical evidence to explain their social media practices and their effectiveness. Reports can show trends over time and which variables had the most significant impact. Many tools can often archive content as well to create a database of existing content, prior posts, and past campaigns.

Social Marketing Features

Social ads — Amplify brand and community stories, reach customers by social profile and activity, and optimize social ad campaigns in real time.

Social sharing — Add intelligent social share buttons to your campaigns and content. Track who is sharing your content and driving conversions.

Social campaigns — Schedule automated posts to one or more social accounts, use or integrate with URL shortening services, and measure likes, comments, replies, and retweets.

Social engagement — Social apps including polls, sweepstakes, and referral programs can enhance audience engagement on your website, landing pages, Facebook pages, and emails.

Social analytics — Uncovers customer sentiment and identifies trends to better accommodate customers.

Software and Services Related to Social Media Management Software

The full scope of social media management, especially as your company grows, can entail a number of products or services. Below are some of the most notable examples:

Social networks software — Social media management software would not serve a purpose, or exist for that matter, without the social networks software behind your company’s social profiles. Whether it’s analytics on individual posts or a mapped-out schedule for posts, these management platforms are built around the features and specifications of social network platforms and work in harmony with a specified selection of social networks. Full integration with the most popular social network tools, at the very least, is a baseline necessity to qualify for inclusion in this category. And as the social media landscape continues to grow and evolve, with new networks being created and perhaps some existing ones going away or becoming less relevant, social media management developers will act accordingly to ensure these solutions remain up to date for worldwide users.

Social media analytics — While numerous social media management tools offer reporting capabilities, there are other solutions designed solely for analytics. Social media analytics software can measure various components of your social performance, often with real-time data that captures the timeliest insights about your posts, your viewers, and your profile as a whole. For example, you may see a demographic breakdown of the people interacting with your posts, peak times of interaction, and which aspects of your posts are more effective than others. In addition to the reporting features included with a given product, consider how a platform could be improved with additional analytics and the integrations that are offered in the social media analytics space.

Social media marketing (SMM) companies — It can be a unique challenge for your marketing team to not only juggle multiple social accounts and engage with those different communities but to ensure the right message is being broadcast in your posts and at the right time. Social media marketing companies, or SMM services providers, can address these needs. Outsourcing your social media management to these specialists might involve managing accounts, creating content, or interacting with visitors—and perhaps a combination of all three, depending on your arrangement. Social media marketing providers should be well versed in the correct approach for each major social network, the people you can expect to reach on each platform, and the types of content that are most effective. They can also help with proper scheduling of posts and other updates for maximum engagement and impact, based on what you are trying to communicate or accomplish through these channels. Even companies with in-house social teams can benefit from the input of these providers, especially during major product rollouts or high-traffic occasions.

Marketing strategy — A well-rounded social presence is just one aspect of a proper, modern marketing strategy. To help shape your approach, and see how it fits into the bigger picture of your complete marketing initiative, you can consult with a marketing strategy agency. These providers can greatly assist in shaping your voice, plotting the optimal roadmap for your efforts in social, digital, and traditional marketing, and getting your team to understand how they all work together. You might also consider branding agencies to address your core values and how you present your brand to the world, including your company name, logo, and aesthetic. A slight adjustment to your branding can make a difference in your social media success.