Switchfast Blog: The Future of IT
Streamline Your Social Media While Tracking its Success
Friday, July 08, 2011 by Michelle Hartley
Your company is on top of the social media craze. You have a
Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Google Buzz, and
BrightKite page. It gets exhausting trying to interact with each
while monitoring and responding to comments, keeping accounts
secure, and measuring the success of each page. Fortunately, social
media management solutions have created an easier way for
businesses to engage and track their profiles easier and
faster.
Three of the most popular social media management platforms are
HootSuite, CoTweet, and Sendible. Each is
built to help manage and report the different social media profiles
your company holds. In addition, they help to engage, analyze and
track conversations across each social media platform.
One of the many benefits of utilizing a social media management
platform is its ability to allow several team members to complete
their duties assigned duties without confusion of who is
responsible for what. Updates and follow up messages can be
assigned to certain employees and the responder is tied to the
response to allow for ease of questions or comments regarding
responses. In addition, team members can assign and share tasks
within the tool to ensure work is being spread evenly among social
media team members.
One of the most important functions is the ability to measure
the success of each social media profile. Each platform allows for
you to easily measure the increase of followers over time along
with mentions on Twitter. Small businesses can utilize this
function to find out where traffic is coming from in addition to
the number of clicks. Being able to evaluate how you are getting
traffic will give you a better idea of where to focus your
marketing efforts.
The social media platform that is right for you will depend upon
your budget, number of social media profiles, and variety of
services you wish to utilize.
Here are three of the most popular social media management
platforms and some information about their pricing and unique
features.
HootSuite
The functionality of HootSuite is designed to meet the needs of
marketing teams, especially those within a small business. The free
ow.ly analytics option allows you to find where traffic to your
site is coming from in addition to the number of clicks. For user
help, they have a HootSuite blog and help desk to ensure your
business can operate the system as seamlessly as possible. In
addition, the employees utilize HootSuite on a daily basis.
Therefore, they are always aware of the level of functionality and
are consistently thinking of new ways to improve upon it. Their
free package includes social analytics, 5 social profiles, 2
RSS/Atom feeds and is Ad Supported. A step above the free package
is the Pro package priced at 5.99/month. It includes enhanced
social analytics, unlimited social profiles, 1 free team member, 1
free report, Google analytics integration, Facebook insights
integration, advertisement free, and unlimited RSS feeds.
CoTweet
CoTweet only supports Facebook and Twitter platforms and is
accessed through your web browser. Recently, CoTweet has extended
itself to include other CRM tools such as Salesforce and Microsoft
Dynamics which will allow you to associate and tag leads and sales
opportunities from your Twitter account to your CRM application.
The Standard edition is completely free and allows up to 6 Twitter
accounts. The Enterprise edition allows multiple Facebook and
Twitter platforms and costs about $1,500 a month. They stress that
they are built for the unique needs of businesses and they offer a
product demo where there is someone is on hand to help set up your
account.
Sendible
Sendible supports the most social media platforms out of
three options. This social media management platform supports
Facebook, Twitter, Google Buzz, LinkedIn, BrightKite, and
Foursquare. As you increase the number of services you want to use,
you increase the price. It offers the added options of managing
your email and SMS in addition to your social media. Sendible
offers a certain sense of simplicity. The appearance of the program
is similar to your email, with folders, updates, and messages all
in the same place. Sendible offers a free 30 day trial and the
smallest package is $9.99 a month which includes 15 social
networks, 400 send limit, and 500 contacts. Additionally, a
monthly plan includes the Sendible IPhone app for
free giving you the option to manage your social media while you
are out of the office.
Each of the above platforms has its pros and cons and the
one you choose will depend upon the options you need and money you
are willing to spend, but at the very least the free trials or free
small packages are an excellent way to see if a social media
management platform is right for your business.
Until next time -
Michelle Hartley
Switchfast Technologies
Chicago IT Support &
Consulting
DC IT Support &
Consulting
Outsourced Marketing Services
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