When assessing social media management tools, it’s important to remind yourself of why you’re using social media for your business in the first place. Once you’ve got your social media objectives at the forefront of your mind, you’ll be better placed to choose a social media management platform that helps you meet your goals and – crucially – your budget.
In this article, we’re going to touch on some key objectives for your social strategy, and align them with social media management platform features so you know what to look out for.
When it comes to buying a new product, are you likely to choose a brand you’ve never heard of or one you’re familiar with?
“71% of consumers said it was very or somewhat important that they recognise a brand before they make a purchase.”
Source
Building brand awareness and positive engagement is an essential way for businesses to nudge consumers in the right direction when they’re in the consideration phase.
It also promotes brand loyalty, leading to repeat purchases, increased market share, sales, and ROI.
Over the last decade or so, social media has become an increasingly important way for businesses to reach new customers, offer customer service, and drive engagement. As the medium has matured, it’s become necessary for brands to use social media management software to stay on top of their mounting weekly social media tasks.
Statistics show that approximately one-third of consumers learn about new products and services through social media.
What is a social media management platform?
In general, social media management software is a group of tools built for managing and evaluating social interactions. It usually comes with a functional dashboard that provides engagement metrics for several social media accounts.
With the use of social media management tools, businesses can run social marketing campaigns, schedule and post content, identify brand mentions, measure engagement, and provide customer service.
Like any other software solutions, the market for social media management platforms continues to grow, which is why it is important to consider the most crucial features your social media tool should have.
Outlined in this article are essential social media management tools features to take into account when seeking a solution that attracts prospective clients, increases engagement with existing customers, and establishes your brand as a thought leader in its niche.
1. Social Media Monitoring and Listening
We all want large followings on social media and content that drives interactions. But it’s important that every business acknowledges the risk that comes with a large platform. The last thing any brand wants is to go viral for the wrong reasons.
Remember the Kendall Jenner Pepsi ad?
To prevent and mitigate PR disasters, it’s critical to continuously monitor your brand’s social media channels. This way you can catch negative comments about your brand or a campaign quickly before.
Through social media monitoring and listening, you can monitor and evaluate the social buzz around your brand, competition, and industry terms. You can look for trends in behaviors and moods and seek opportunities to promote your products.
Subsequently, your social media managers can gather all these trends and individual posts from customers to see the bigger picture and act on it. Social media monitoring tools also enable you to concentrate on analyzing large sets of online data to generate strategic insights.
2. Insights and Reports
A good social media analytics tool allows you to discover your best posting times, most successful post types, engagement rate, growth, reach, popular hashtags, and topics.
It’s wise to look for a tool that provides visual reports, which will enable you to easily present information back to other areas of the business and demonstrate the value of social media.
Understanding both when and why customers are interacting on a specific post or time of day lets you fine-tune your outreach to have the maximum impact.
3. Scheduling
Scheduling is arguably the number one feature of a social media management tool. Pre-scheduling posts across all your social media platforms allows you to compartmentalize your social media tasks, giving you back the time and focus to concentrate on more than just creating and publishing posts.
It also means that you can reach your customers at times they’re online, when you might not necessarily be; as well as maintaining an active social presence even if a team member is away.
Maintaining an active social media presence reflects well on your business, showing potential customers and clients that you are active and responsive.
If your social channels are full of rich, engaging content, you’ll slowly but surely build a legion of loyal followers. Consistent, quality output gives them a reason to follow you.
4. Social Integration
Having the ability to connect and manage all social media platforms in one place is key to efficient social media management.
Not only does it save time on switching between tools to schedule your different content, it allows for more seamless and consistent cross-platform sharing of assets and messaging.
Did you know? Presenting a brand consistently throughout all popular social media platforms can enhance profits by up to 23%.
5. Collaboration
With more organizations embracing social media throughout various departments, the need for a social media management solution to have collaborative tools is more important now than ever.
An ideal social media management platform should allow users to designate every social media message to a particular team or person who is most suitable to respond.
This ensures that you not only respond to customers with relevant and helpful information but also reduce response times, which is key to customer service success. By reducing your response time, your business can show customers that you are always accessible and ready to help them in their time of need.
In most cases, customers might feel neglected if they have an immediate need for an answer that you are failing to deliver. Note that relationships with social followers are often fleeting, fickle, and require each conversation to be approached carefully. With collaboration tools, your social media team can work together to monitor and follow up with customers on multiple platforms, so you avoid losing business.
Selecting the Right Social Media Management Tool
Finding social media management software that fits your needs is a key part of a successful social strategy.
By finding a functional social media management solution, businesses can stay organized, save time, and boost engagement, traffic, and reach.
The right social media management tool will eliminate the guesswork and risks that come with developing a voice on social media.
SmarterQueue is a powerful social media scheduling solution that empowers businesses, content creators, and marketers with the technology and features they need to grow their online reach and visibility. With its intelligent social media scheduler, users can take advantage of scheduling automation powered by content variations, visual calendars, content categories, queue posting plans, advanced analytics, and a social inbox.
SmarterQueue, which also offers a free trial, offers four unique pricing packages, including the solo, business, agency, and custom plans.
