Social Media Management Tools in 2024: A Complete Guide
What is Social Media Management and what does Social Media Management include? Let’s start by defining Social Media Management. It is the process of generating, organizing, scrutinizing, and engaging with content that is present on social media platforms, mainly Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
Social media management is the need of the hour. Connecting with your clientele or potential clientele nowadays should be the number one priority of an organization. When customers interact with the organization over a social media platform, they expect quick responses and skilled employees to give them professional advice.
An organization (or even an individual) needs the services of a social media manager to enhance and perpetuate its reputation. To start with a Social Media Manager is in charge of coming up with and executing a social media marketing plan.
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A social media marketing plan comprises the following elements –
1. Developing a brand – He needs to answer the ‘why’ of things. The consumer needs to be convinced of the excellent quality he would receive if he buys the product from his company. ‘Why buy here’ should be backed up by facts and figures.
2. Targeting the right clientele – He has to bear in mind that his product cannot satisfy all the needs of his client. He should note down the features of happy customers from the past.
3. Setting clear-cut goals – The goals should be interpreted clearly and be pragmatic. If this is not done the ROI cannot be determined.
4. Designing visuals and strategizing web development– To have an enduring effect on the viewer the visual content must be homogenous. He needs to ensure that all updates of the status and Facebook ads are gripping and convey the message. To gain domain authority a hub needs to be retained for the content. This would enable the customers and potential customers to drop by and gain knowledge about the products.
5. Focus on Content Strategy – ‘What posts exactly should be published’ is a question that can be confusing but not if you are aware of the power of your brand and as discussed before, if you know what clientele you are targeting. The uniqueness of your product needs to be answered in detail. Further, the social media manager needs to be very sure of how the product can help in addressing the concerns of the customers. The content that is posted should be original and it should be able to answer all of the above questions.
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1. Multiple accounts can be managed – Keeping pace with the numerous social media accounts can be a cumbersome process. When you have accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and even TikTok, the process of managing all of them can be a humongous task. But if you do your social media management right all of these accounts can be operated from a single platform. Such is the power of social media management that it can save you precious time while posting on every account. It enables posting of the same content on different accounts thus maintaining consistency.
2. Advance scheduling of posts – It often happens that the time when you’re online doesn’t match with the best times to post. Posting content can thus be very demanding. It can derange your day and it might require you to post erratically as far as timing is concerned. This brings us to the role of social media management software. So, what is social media management software and what does it do for the user. Social media management software enables the advanced scheduling of posts. Further, it allows you to go live whenever you want. The posts can be scheduled not just a few days in advance but even months in advance. The entire social media strategy for the coming year can be implemented in a few hours flat.
3. Monitoring of comments and effective responding– It has been observed that nowadays more and more customers seek customer service over social media. Gone are the days when phone and email were the primary sources of customer service. But with the standard social media platforms, it was getting to be an arduous task that was demanding 24/7 involvement.
But now things have changed with the advent of social media management software. This is adept at giving comments on the content and in many cases, the chatbot function ensures that the response goes out immediately. It can thus be said that the monitoring of comments and effective responding can be achieved because of this software.
4. Analysis of social engagement – For an organization getting the complete picture as to who all are engaging with their content can be a daunting task, something which is not always possible. A social media management company can help out in this case.
They use the services of the social media management software which answers the questions of who, the frequency, and where the customers are going through the organization’s content. It, therefore, helps in developing a strategy as the organization knows which practices are following and which to abandon.
To name a few, demographic numbers and geographical statistics are a couple of analytics which social media management software helps gain access to. These help immensely to improve an organization’s social media presence.
6. Helps in working jointly on content – In the case of social media, yardsticks are constantly changing thus making it extremely difficult for an organization to make an impression. Reaching out to potential customers in a purposeful manner can be a pain because of the hullabaloo combined with the viral content. The social media management team, when they come together in a meaningful way, that is they work jointly on social media management software, can prove very useful in such cases.
It should be noted that this software is cloud-based thereby allowing access to the entire team at the same time. The team, therefore, works jointly on posts or even on entire campaigns. In this manner, every post can be used to the maximum.
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For a single product, varying brands are vying to get consumer attention. Social media platforms are coming up with new tools to help marketers reach potential customers. All organizations feel the need to invest in social media management software. But is social media management really worth it? We can appreciate the importance of the same when we look at some of their benefits:
1. Posting to numerous channels – Consider this – posting to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other social media channels many times in a day can prove to be very detrimental to an organization because they won’t be left with any time to do other tasks. What social media management tools do is that they do away with the need to go from one platform to the other. Just get your message right and then with the help of these tools it can be posted on the various channels all at once.
2. Understanding the competition – Understanding customers is one thing but understanding the competition is also very vital to an organization. With the help of these tools, one can gain knowledge of the competitors’ actions, what they are saying, and who they are saying it to. Awareness of the competitors’ response to trends in the market is thus made possible by social media management tools.
You can get a very good idea of what’s happening across various social media platforms with the use of these tools. One can learn from his competitors’ mistakes and develop a strategy accordingly. Uniqueness can be achieved as far as campaigns are concerned. Listening on social media can prove very fruitful as it helps in targeting different customers in different ways, for example, based on their behavior what deals should be made available to different individuals, all can be ascertained.
3. Help prevent the use of the incorrect hashtag – An organization needs to ensure that they are not jumping on trending topics and using the wrong hashtag. Granted that using a trending hashtag will get you a second’s worth of attention from your potential customer but then it might be unrelated to your product and this can prove to be disastrous. Social media management tools help prevent such accidents because they ensure that all social media updates of the company are delivered via dedicated servers.
In such a case it becomes impossible for the customers to use the wrong account. Tweets relating to business content can therefore be made from inside the social media management tool. Moreover, there are advanced features that come along with these tools which enable limiting the number of employees who are allowed the performance of certain tasks. For example, it is fine if the entire social team prepares content but the company will allow only a smaller special group to do the publishing. In a nutshell, it can be said that these tools ensure that the company retains control thus facilitating the creation of a steady image for its followers.
Every platform individually exports data to a spreadsheet where it is compared and this can be a lengthy and cumbersome process. Here’s where the social media management tools come in very handy. These tools make for simpler collation by picking out the relevant information directly. Thus the analysis becomes streamlined and also it does away with the mistakes which can otherwise cause misrepresentation when the data is being exported and imported.
5. Cost-cutting – The main function of a social media management tool is to remove the complexities associated with social media platforms. Basically, it aims for cost-cutting and saving labor time. There are numerous channels to cater to when it comes to social media and the organization needs content for each one of them.
This leads to overlapping but the good news is that these tools help in taking benefit of economies of scale. An example of the same is Falcon.io’s Publish content calendar. It helps in distributing social content across various networks and campaigns. It consolidates the creation of content as well as the publication process. It, therefore, helps in the reduction of time and effort that is involved in each update.
6. Simplifies content management – When it comes to driving a social media campaign an organization uses multiple assets, it makes optimal use of such assets for different platforms to enhance customer engagement. The organization probably has a surplus of these resources but there is a problem. The problem lies with integrating them with social media channels.
This is where the use of social media management tools comes in. Many social media management tools have an inbuilt content calendar and they help to integrate the content with the social media accounts. These tools simplify the process to such an extent that at times it requires only the practice of drag and drop. Thus with the help of these tools both time and energy are saved when the posting of content is done. Because of these savings, the organization can focus more on the other elements of the campaign.
7. Updating the CRM – Social media management tools have successfully brought about the blending of marketing and technology and this process is known as martech. But while choosing from the various tools that are available one should bear in mind that the choice one finally makes should be in sync with the organization’s existing CRM.
This is done to ensure that the static CRM entries remain always fresh and long-lasting with social media data. The marketers while enjoying the benefits of social media management tools use the term ‘agile marketing’ a lot and the abovesaid helps in making it real.
8. Helps in getting a realistic picture of where you’re headed – Among the various benefits of these tools, one truly stands out. These tools enable controlling and monitoring of the entire campaign. The knowledge gained by using the best metrics gives you a bird’ eye view of the holistic performance of the organization.
Accordingly, adjustments and tweaking is made possible. In other words, pleasing your boss becomes simple because it gets easier to convey the details of your good performance. Also, you present a clear-cut view of the ROI you’ve managed to generate.
What is the social media management cost for an organization? Social media management tools come with different price tags so a customized quote is should be procured before deciding on which tool to use. This will of course depend on the scale of operations and the needs of the organization. The companies providing social media management services normally base their charges on 2 factors – firstly they want to know how many accounts need the services and secondly how many posts are going to be scheduled.
We have talked extensively about the benefits and features of social media management tools but we still have to discuss the various tools that are in use. This brings us to the question of which social media management tool is best? There is no definite answer to this question through Buffer and Hootsuite are considered very popular. While deciding which tool to use, generally depends on the organization’s needs and budget. Let’s get to know the top 10 social media management tools:
1. Buffer
It is probably one of the few tools that work on intuition. It is known for the streamlining it brings to social media management platforms. It is widely trusted by brands and agencies all over the world. It includes products for publishing, engagement, analytics, and for working jointly as a team.
It prides itself on the fact that consumers love it for the fact that it is clean and intuitive. Also, customer support is famed for being very friendly and timely. The pricing of Buffer ranges from a forever-free plan to $399 per month. Hootsuite – It can boast about the fact that it is the biggest social media management tool. The client base is enormous with 15 million people all over the world currently using it.
It is an all-inclusive tool that helps in scheduling content, measuring the ROI. Further, it can run social media advertisements. The unique features of this tool include handling various accounts and keywords and connecting with over thirty-five social networks. The Hootsuite pricing varies from a free plan to $599 every month.
2. Sprout-Social
This is similar to Hootsuite in the sense that it brings together several social media management tools onto one platform. What makes it unique, however, is the fact that it offers features of Customer Relationship Management (CRM). This feature helps build an updated and complete profile of the organization’s clientele. This further leads to better customer service and establishing long-lasting relationships with customers. Also, the reports generated are of excellent quality. Sprout Social pricing varies from $99 to $249 per month.
3. Agora Pulse
More or less similar in scope to other social media management tools mentioned above it is a comprehensive tool that performs the functions of reporting and scheduling. But its uniqueness lies in the fact that it also does competitor analysis in a very efficient manner. Further, it provides Facebook contest apps at a very reasonable price. It is available at a cost that varies from $49 to $299 per month.
4. Sendible
This is most popular with agencies that have a huge client base. The biggest advantage of using this tool is that here you can make changes to the social media management dashboard as per your needs of promoting your brand. In addition to that, it provides Canva editor, YouTube search, and royalty-free image search. Finally, it provides automation to a certain point to save time on repetitively doing the same task. Its price varies from $29 to $299 per month.
5. E-clincher
What sets this tool apart is that allows you to post automatically with RSS feeds and smart queues, the images can be stored in a media library. Further, social media influencers can be searched with this tool. It’s reasonably priced with prices ranging from $49 to $199 per month.
6. Social Pilot
Not really known for the monitoring function but is well equipped to fit many social media management tools onto one dashboard. What it is known for its client management function which comes in handy if the organization has a huge number of clients. It aids in finding relevant content by suggesting content from all kinds of industries. It is also popular for the white label reports that it provides. It is relatively cheap as compared to other tools and is offered at $10 to $80 per month.
7.CoSchedule
It delivers more than the usual tools in that that it offers a very powerful calendar that can cater to various aspects of marketing. Social media posts, events, content, and tasks can be achieved as the team can work jointly when using this tool. Optimal posting times can be found out with the ReQueue function that this tool offers. There is a lot of price variation as the cost of this tool can vary from as low as $20 and can go as high as $1200.
8. Hubspot
This tool deserves a special mention as Hubspot is a very big name when it comes to marketing software. The various tools form a part of its comprehensive marketing software. In a nutshell, all the marketing strategies relating to social media, SEO, and CRM are brought under one platform. Thus comparing results and measuring ROI becomes very easy. That said, this tool doesn’t come cheap as it is priced at $1120 per month.
9. Oktopost
This tool is designed especially for B2B marketers. It helps them to generate leads and compute the business value of their social media efforts. In addition to social media management, it provides tools for promotion and helps in the advocacy of employees.
Before we wind up let’s look at a free app to schedule social media posts. Tweetdeck is one such app.
10. Tweetdeck
This app provides a consolidated interface to the users of Twitter so that they can manage an unlimited number of Twitter accounts. Known for its reliability, it enables an organization to do real-time tracking and engagement on Twitter. Further, it helps in monitoring multiple lists, hashtags, and searches.
To conclude one can safely say that to achieve the full potential of a social media campaign the services of social media management tools are a must. The prices for such services are on the higher side but the results make the entire deal a worthy one.
As has already been saying their beauty lies in scheduling posts for various social media accounts. It’s totally worth it when one can achieve the same while operating from a single platform. Social media management is not a very old concept but the fact that an increasing number of organizations all over the world are using the same and singing its praises at the same time speaks very highly of social media management. We can safely assume that social media management is here to stay.
Frequently Asked Questions- FAQs
Q1. I am looking for learning social media management course, which is the best online learning program?
IIM SKILLS have the best skill development online courses. These courses are designed by their mentors personally who have more than 12 years of experience. The courses by IIM SKILLS are economical & covers all the important topics. Also, the best thing about IIM SKILLS is that all their courses are certified courses and approved by the government.
Q2. How to enroll for the social media management course with IIM SKILLS?
You can simply login to their website and have a live chat with their customer executives for any details about the course. And can apply for the course. They have the forms available online.
Q3. What is the scope of growth after completing the course?
Social media is growing by leaps and bounds these days. As far as you keep a track and upgrade yourself with the new trends you can build a successful growth in your career.
