An enterprise buyer’s guide to Social Media Management Platforms. Organizations often view social networking platforms only as places to market and advertise. That limited view may also limit the benefits of using social media management software.
It took time for organizations to embrace social media marketing as a promotional tool. Businesses now use these networks to increase engagement and collaboration with customers, employees, and other stakeholders, like investors and partners.
How to Evaluate Social Media Management Platforms
These days, many people will check social media before navigating to the company’s official website. Beyond advertising, business leaders need to understand that social media management and collaboration tools can expedite real-time news distribution, customer service responses, collaboration with partners, and the rapid sharing of information and feedback.
From another perspective, social sites also provide a place to listen. Savvy organizations gather information about motivations, reactions, and attitudes to help inform responses and business decisions. In addition, the social nature of social networks makes them platforms for two-way communication and excellent sources of insight.
Thus, selecting the best social media management platform depends on first understanding the benefits various social sites offer the company. That understanding will help clarify which features will prove most useful. Setting goals that these platforms can help achieve will also give management and marketers a way to gauge their effectiveness. Many software options also provide tracking features to help test, report, and measure returns.
What to Expect From Social Media Management Platforms
Just as businesses might engage with social media platforms in several ways, social media management platforms may offer various tools. The most robust products provide features to create, schedule, post, analyze, monitor, and engage with multiple platforms.
Social media automation software can save time by increasing productivity and reducing repetitive tasks. In turn, these tools can help expand a company’s reach to expand audiences, gather more information, and develop better insights. These tools may also increase their effectiveness with other marketing and sales systems.
Advanced platforms incorporate AI and machine learning. According to the Marketing AI Institute, this intelligent software can use machine intelligence to create and respond to posts with a specific brand or social site voice, analyze audiences, discover new influencers, and even report on which kinds of content work well. Some even manage ad campaigns across multiple channels and platforms.
Besides an obvious need for integration with social media networks, some other integration examples could include business websites and eCommerce platforms, CRMS, and analytics platforms.
Features/Capabilities?
Who Benefits the Most From Social Media Management Software?
Large and small businesses, individuals, and even governments use social media to engage with their audiences. Specific cases for using software to help manage these interactions include:
- Social media posts: Create content faster and ensure adherence to a publishing schedule. Discover new audiences and essential influencers. Find and respond to relevant posts about the organizations more quickly.
- Social media analytics: Uncover trends and gain a better understanding of markets. Determine the best topics and voice to use for content. Keep track of responses and conversions to test and measure returns.
- Social advertising: Some management platforms can analyze PPC data to suggest angles and bids.
Also, social media may have other uses besides engaging an audience to make purchases. For instance, some organizations use social accounts to announce downtime, communicate with a global workforce, or attract recruits. The same management platforms used to manage sales and marketing accounts can also help support executives, IT, HR, and other departments within the organization.
Pros and Cons of Social Media Management Software
The advantages of social media management platforms will vary by the business and the features they decide to utilize. In general, the benefits of using software to automate social media tasks can include:
- Managing multiple social media platforms and accounts
- Ensuring no company mentions or messages get lost in the noise
- Scheduling social activities in advance
- Monitoring social sites for information and responses
- Analyzing results, audiences, and trends
- Reporting on returns to collaborators and managers
- Speeding up the development of content and ads
- Testing various tactics
- Freeing up more time to strategize, test, and reach new audiences
- Integrating with other systems
- Aligning marketing, sales, customer service, and other departments
Other sources might elaborate on the possible downsides of using social media. Some common concerns include privacy, information overload, and sacrificing necessary in-person interactions.
This article only focuses on possible obstacles businesses might face when using software to manage their social strategy:
- Business-class tools will require an investment in subscription fees, implementation, and training.
- Even the most innovative algorithms can’t always replace human judgment, so people still need to supervise to ensure the AI makes choices that represent the brand well.
- Finally, some employees may resent the changes or fear that automation will take their jobs. Senior management needs to emphasize benefits and encourage or even censure resistance.
