Social Media Management Resources

You’ve set up your brand’s social media profile on the platforms that make sense, you have a content calendar planned out, posts created, hashtag strategy set…now what? If the idea of dedicating even three to five minutes a day to posting your prepared social media posts is daunting, you are not alone. Fortunately, there are a number of resources available to help with the process.

Automation software such as HootSuite, Planoly, Sprout Social, and a number of other options will let you schedule out posts well in advance and will push them out to the social platforms you specify according to the schedule established. While there are some hiccups with each of the resources out there, those speedbumps are still less cumbersome than manually pushing out content every day on every social platform your brand uses. We’ll take a look at some of the more popular tools and provide as much information as we can on the triumphs and challenges of each.

 

HOOTSUITE

  • Allows you to upload and schedule posts to push out automatically

  • Provides a content calendar that lets you see all of your posts at a glance

  • Offers a mobile app that allows you to edit, approve, and manage scheduled messages

  • Helps you curate content by creating search streams based on hashtag, keyword, or location

  • Offers customizable reports using over 200 choices of metrics

  • Provides a large selection of social analytics integrations and apps

  • Offers a number of monitoring options for you and your team

  • Supports Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest

The Professional Plan

$29 per month

1 user, 10 social profiles

Auto scheduling and bulk scheduling

Publishing calendar

Content apps

$500 per month boosted post spend

Report templates

Social inbox

Ability to monitor incoming messages

Compliance integrations for security

On-demand product training

Access to free apps

Paid access to premium apps

The Team Plan

$129 per month

3 users, 20 social profiles

Everything in the Professional Plan plus,

1 custom branded URL

Customizable reports

$2000 per month boosted post spend

Team assignments

Employee permissions

The Business Plan

$599 per month

5 users, 35 social profiles (can add up to 10 more users)

Departmental or client organization

Everything in the Team Plan, plus

5 custom branded URLs

Message approvals

Content library

$5000 per month boosted post spend

Ability to add-on ad campaign management and social listening

Messaging tagging

Security notifications

60 minutes of 1:1 training

Access to premium apps

The Enterprise Plan

Contact Hootsuite for pricing

5+ users, 50+ social profiles

Everything in the Business Plan, plus

5+ custom branded URLs

Campaign management – planning, tagging, and reporting

Unlimited boosted post spend

Team productivity reporting

Ability to add-on paid and organic ROI reporting and competitive benchmarking

Automated team assignments and messaging tagging

Live training for the entire team

Quarterly business review

Ability to add-on employee advocacy and social selling

The main challenges cited by users include: expensive analytics reports and custom URL shorteners (forced to use Owly short links), Facebook image problems, lower Facebook reach and engagement, and expensive for teams.

 

 

PLANOLY

  • Curate, plan and schedule posts

  • A content calendar allows you to visually plan content

  • Has a drag and drop feature to allow you to easily make changes

  • Supports Instagram and Facebook

The Free Plan

1 Instagram account, no ability to share to Facebook

1 user

30 grid uploads per month

30 story uploads per month

Supports photos

Can view the last 1 month of analytics

Can view comment inbox from the 5 latest posts

The Solo Plan

$7 per month billed annually OR $9 month to month

1 Instagram account plus the ability to share to Facebook

1 user

Unlimited grid and story uploads per month

Supports photos, videos, and GIFs

Can view the past 1 year of analytics

Can view comment inbox from the 15 latest posts

The Duo Plan

$15 per month billed annually OR $19 month to month

2 Instagram accounts plus the ability to share to Facebook

2 users

Unlimited grid and story uploads per month

Supports photos, videos, and GIFs

Can view the past 3 years of analytics

Can view comment inbox from the 30 latest posts

The Squad Plan

$79 per month billed annually OR $99 month to month

5 Instagram accounts plus the ability to share to Facebook

5 users

Unlimited grid and story uploads per month

Supports photos, videos, and GIFs

Can view full analytics history

Can view comment inbox from all posts

The Team Plan

$159 per month billed annually OR $199 month to month

10 Instagram accounts plus the ability to share to Facebook

10 users

Unlimited grid and story uploads per month

Supports photos, videos, and GIFs

Can view full analytics history

Can view comment inbox from all posts

The main challenges cited by users include a lack of organizational features of the media library; a limited number of social networks supported; content failing to post even though it was scheduled without an error message being communicated; and a lack of comprehensive analytics.

 

 

SPROUTSOCIAL

  • Over 25,000 customers worldwide

  • Provides a social content calendar to help you manage all of your posts

  • Offers the ability to draft, schedule, queue, and post content from a single window

  • Users can view and manage social content of multiple profiles, networks, and campaign tags from one place

  • Has team focused tools – you can see when someone else is interacting with a message, utilize a message approval option, assign, and manage tasks, and utilize an internal audit trail that helps prevent duplication of your efforts

  • Offers a wide range of analytics and reports

  • Social listening tools allow you to set up, track, and analyze keywords, hashtags, and locations

  • Supports Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+

The Standard Plan

$99 per user per month

5 social profiles

Publish, schedule, draft and queue posts

Social content calendar

Instagram posting and first comments

Profiles, keywords, and locations monitoring

Tasking and social CRM tools that provide contextual information such as conversation history, contact information, and internal notes

Group, profile, and post-level reporting

Paid promotion tools to boost Facebook posts

iOS and Android mobile apps

The Professional Plan

$149 per user per month

10 social profiles, may purchase additional profiles for a monthly charge of $25 per profile.

Everything in the Standard Plan, plus

Competitive reports for Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter

Incoming and outgoing message content tagging

Custom workflows for multiple approvers and steps

Scheduling for optimal send times

Response rate and time analysis reports

Trend analysis for Twitter keywords and hashtags

Paid social reporting for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn

Helpdesk integration – you can integrate your ZenDesk, HubSpot, or UserVoice account

The Advanced Plan

$249 per user per month

10 social profiles, may purchase additional profiles for a monthly charge of $25 per profile.

Everything in Professional Plan, plus

Message Spike Alerts for increased message activity

Digital asset and content library

Chatbots with automation tools – create, preview, and manage chatbots for Twitter and Facebook

Saved and suggested replies

Inbox rule builder for automated actions

Custom URL tracking

Twitter surveys to define Customer Satisfaction Scores (CSAT) or Net Promotor Score (NPS)

The main challenges cited by users include the relatively steep cost of the plans and additional resources within such as social listening; the fact that there are some social networks not supported; there are, intermittently, bugs that can cause functionality issues; and accounts being logged out for no apparent reason.

 

 

BUFFER

  • Ability to draft posts and orchestrate social media marketing campaigns

  • Create a preset publishing schedule for each account

  • Custom tailor posts for each social network

  • The content calendar provides an at-a-glance view of all content set to go

  • Ability to collaborate with other team members – you can see when someone else is interacting with a message, assign, and manage tasks, and help prevent duplication of efforts

  • Track performance and create reports for Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter from a single dashboard

  • Provides analysis across accounts and in-depth insights into specific social channels

  • Supports Facebook, Instagram, Twitter

The Professional Plan

$50 per month billed monthly

1 user; each additional user $25 per month

1 social account; each additional social account $10 per month

Shared team inbox

Tags and custom folders

Saved replies

Customer profiles

Assign conversations and internal notes

Personal signatures

Keyboard shortcuts

Overview report

30-day reporting history

Integrations include iOS and Android apps, Slack, and Help Scout Docs

Self-service knowledge base

Social media and email support

The Business Plan

$225 per month billed monthly

1 user; each additional user $25 per month

1 social account; each additional social account $10 per month

Everything in the Pro Plan, plus

Automation Rules

Twitter Searches

Full reporting history

Engagement report

Team report

Export to CSV

Onboarding training

Dedicated account manager

The main challenges cited by users include the content feed doesn’t always pull the most recent links; Instagram posts need to be monitored; some hashtag lists do not display correctly; could use stronger collaboration features; and the analytics lack the ability to monitor mentions, searches, or hashtags (only fair to mention they have a separate tool to handle those analytics).

 

 

The best solution is to invest in a social media management software that meets your needs – namely to simplify the process of social media marketing. Obviously, your budget and the size of your team are other considerations that will come into play. Bottom line is to educate yourself on the tools out there (these are only four of many) to understand what the resource will and will not do for you.

The experts at Strategy Driven Marketing understand how important an effective social media presence is for any brand. Whether you are seeking assistance to make sure you are on the right track or are looking for an agency partner that will handle your social media efforts from start to finish, the team at SDM is ready to help. Contact us today!