Social Media Management Tools

bySAWalden

868 followers

6 years ago

It took me long enough but I'm finally on lesson 10 of Level 4 EOC training. For those of you that have completed this you will remember the training centers on the use of social media - specifically, the how and why of social media to facilitate our success in the world of affiliate marketing.

Watching the videos and following the training I found myself in Google-land in search of the how and why of social media. After a few minutes of scrolling through several sites I began to notice a pattern - each one promoting a strategy for harnessing the powers and analyzing the effects of social media for your business. The duration of time it took me to do this research led me to another ah-ha moment - managing these accounts can become quite time intensive as well. I am now trying to negotiate only one barely-up-and-running website with email, Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest. If I had several websites, the task, in my opinion, would quickly become unmanageable.

Thankfully many others before me have long since encountered this problem and have created a variety of solutions (and their own business in the process!) which have come to be known as "Social Media Management Tools".

Through the use of these various tools you can schedule and specify a time and location for a specific article to be posted. This eliminates the need to create a schedule or calendar of your own which in turn requires you to also do the following: 1) remember to use the calendar and, 2) physically post an instance of content to your website and then to each of your social media accounts.

My next great find was this article at WordStream.com It lists 7 Best Free Social Media Management Tools. The list below is a brief overview of each tool.

1. Hootsuite - Manage up to 3 social media profiles in one place, schedule 30 posts in advance and generate leads with social contests.

2. Buffer - Manage 3 social profiles, schedule up to 10 posts, use their browser extensions and mobile apps (iOS and android) feature, and create and schedule content using their image creator and GIF/video uploader.

3. TweetDeck - Perfect for social marketers managing multiple Twitter accounts.

4. SocialOomph - Manage up to 5 Twitter accounts. There is a cost to utilize the platform's other features.

5. Friends+Me - The free plan includes management the following accounts (with an emphasis on Google+): Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Tumblr. Pinterest and Instagram are supported but at a cost.

6. SocialPilot - This one is geared more for a business and allows for management of multiple client social media profiles at once including 3 connected profiles. It also allows bulk scheduling of 10 posts per day and 30 posts per queue.

7. Zoho Social - The free plan allows you to manage 1 brand and includes the URL shortener and SocialShare browser plugin. It has also has many advanced features that are accessed with a paid subscription.

I find all this information fascinating so be on the lookout for most posts on this subject!

Realizing I am nowhere near the point in my online endeavors to implement any of the above tools however, there are many, many of you out there that are.

For those of you familiar with this type of automation, what management tools do you use? Do you recommend the free or paid versions?