HOW TO CHOOSE A SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT TOOL

Transcription

1 HOW TO CHOOSE A SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT TOOL

2 Social media is one of the easiest ways to connect with your audience, get to know what they re looking for, and then engage with them about your organization. As a nonprofit marketer, social media is even more essential because it can be one of the most cost-effective ways to keep constituents engaged and give them meaningful ways to support your cause. Social media management tools are designed to help your organization stay organized when using social media. With so many tools vying for your attention, how do you decide which social media management tool to invest in? We ve compiled a list of 9 features that you really need when deciding on a solution so you can avoid making a wrong decision, costing you time, money, and frustration. Whether your organization consists of two employees or two hundred employees, these 9 features are crucial to your social media success. 1 One core dashboard 2 Monitoring 3 Bulk Importing 4 Uploading Multimedia 5 Reporting 6 Content Features 7 Mobility 8 Workflow Approval 9 Training & Support 2

3 One Core Dashboard Social media marketers may have many channels to manage, so organization is crucial. Look for a social media management tool that keeps it simple in this respect, giving you one core dashboard where you can access all of your channels. Make sure that the tool organizes your channels in a visual way, such as a hierarchy, and lets you easily switch between each account. Your social media management tool should integrate with all of the main social channels: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Instagram at an absolute minimum. Look at the other social media channels you use does the proposed tool offer them? It should. If not, an ideal provider should be willing to add it, or at least have it on their roadmap. You may receive hundreds of messages across all of your social media channels each day. Because of this, it s not enough to have a collective inbox or stream provided by the social media management tool. Look for a filtered inbox, such as a priority inbox, that will highlight your most important messages. Also look for ways to filter your inbox manually, such as a search tool to find messages containing a chosen keyword, channel, or user. 3

4 Monitoring Social listening is a useful way to monitor your company reputation or client mentions, while also tracking competitors and finding relevant conversations to engage in. The ideal social media management tool will do the listening for you, accurately and effectively. However, most tools only provide monitoring on Twitter, causing you to miss out on valuable opportunities or damaging posts on other networks. You need a tool that can monitor multiple social media channels including Tumblr, LinkedIn, blogs like WordPress, and even review sites. Make sure the tool can listen for any keyword provided. This will enable you to not only check your own organization s mentions, but also review your competitors and find engaging content. Advanced tools will even provide you with the ability to highlight the sentiment behind comments. Sentiment shows you whether the comment was said in a positive, negative, or neutral way, helping you to understand the overall mood of your audience. 4

5 Bulk Importing Gone are the days of manually and laboriously scheduling out posts one at a time. Your new social media management tool should allow you to bulk import hundreds of messages at a time, to be scheduled up to years in advance. In addition to importing scheduled messages, you should also be able to add images or import messages into your drafts folder. Bulk importing is a must-have for any social media management tool as it will drastically save you time by doing the tedious work for you. Uploading Multimedia The inclusion of visual content in social media marketing posts is essential. Find a social media management tool that supports all types of media. Look for a tool that not only handles photos, but also videos, graphics, Word/Excel files and even HTML documents. It s handy to have an integration with a graphic creation company, so you can easily create your own high quality images. 5

6 Reporting Content Features Most social media management tools will have some sort of reporting feature, but basic reporting isn't enough. Look for an all-inclusive, comprehensive analytics package that comes with your tool, allowing you to report month-to-month, week-to-week and day-to-day. Don t settle for less. In addition to reporting modules for all native social media networks, find a social media management tool that integrates fully with your Google Analytics account. The right tool will have a reporting system that can pull all your Google Analytics data into reports and easily chronicle your custom UTM parameters to track the success of your campaign. These reports will show you which posts or channels drove traffic to your site. It s always a challenge managing your content strategy, so you need all the help that you can get from your social media management tool. Find a tool that gives you content suggestions based on keywords or from specific influencers. Organize and automatically distribute RSS feeds from relevant blogs or even publish your own. Ideally, your social media management tool will contain a library where you can store content for future use. 6

7 Mobility Workflow Approval Social interactions may happen outside of your own usual office hours, especially if you have a lot of constituents in different time zones. Because of this, you need to be able to access your social media management tool while away from your desk. When searching for a social media management tool, make sure that it is fully compatible with your mobile or tablet. Does your organization require approval for social posts? Find a tool that will allow you to assign approvers against users. Check that posts can automatically be sent to an approver before posting, and ensure that you can restrict access to user settings. This gives you extra control so that all outgoing content meets your organization s brand guidelines. 7

8 Training & Support There is no point buying a bike if you don t know how to ride it. The same logic applies when choosing a social media management tool. It s okay to buy an off-the-shelf product, but do you have the support from the supplier to make sure it is a success for your organization? Your service provider needs to offer training and support before and after purchase. Talk to the potential supplier about your specific needs; a great social media management tool provider will be more than happy to help. Ask for demos of the product or see if they offer complimentary webinars to help you learn about the product, features, and functionality. Ask your prospective service provider what training and support they if offered after purchase. Will they spend the time needed to successfully implement the tool into your company? If not, it s time to look elsewhere. Look for a company that has a proven track record of great communication and easy access to an account manager. There is no point picking a company that is unresponsive when you have a pressing issue. You should not be left alone after you ve purchased your social media management software there should always be someone on hand to help. 8

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