When you work as a social media manager, you may wonder how to improve your current methods of posting as well as responding to followers and comments. This can help you to advertise products, promote brand awareness, and help any existing clients with their queries.
Depending on the type of social media you use, some of your roles may also involve adding products to buy within a designated social media-based store. To be able to accomplish this to the best of your ability, there are certain tools that can benefit you…
As any social media manager will attest to, manually doing ten different things to optimize social media performance. This includes manual postings, generating reports and datasheets, along with understanding the analytics of different platforms.
All this can really take away a lot of time from the one thing that you should concentrate your entire effort on- creating assets! If you want to impress clients, you must put social media management tools to use.
According to leading social media experts at some of the best digital creative agencies, using tools have the following advantages-
In this section, we list down the top three social media management tools that can help you gain a competitive advantage-
Utilizing Digital Asset Management software can help you save a lot of time when creating your social media posts. DAM allows members of the digital creative team to create product content, logos, and other images – you can search and edit them using a single, designated platform.
With on-system previewing available, you can only download the items that match your post requirements. You do not need to look through countless pages of search results or wait to be sent emails containing these images.
DAM allows access to the right users at the right time and is, therefore, a highly secure and efficient tool to use. It is ideal if you and your team are taking care of a number of different social media accounts. However, there is a process that you have to follow to generate engaging and fresh content consistently.
Content calendar is a tool that helps you to plan and post your social media posts ahead of time. It lets you check the content strategy at once, coordinate with the entire team, and help you follow the deadline and maintain the gaps between the posts.
The content calendar helps you to align the social media content with the campaigns, events, and marketing goals. Maintaining a content calendar does not take much time. You can use a spreadsheet, a social media tool that is solely dedicated to creating and managing the content calendar, or any other project management tool.
Content creation refers to the process of creating relevant and engaging content for a social media platform. It includes researching, writing, editing, designing, and optimizing the content for various audiences and in different formats.
Content creation is often time-consuming and challenging, especially when you are creating content for different types and platforms. There are different tools for generating ideas, writing captions, editing videos, designing graphics, and optimizing images for all social media content.
Content publishing refers to the process of uploading the content and distributing it to all social media platforms. You have to choose the correct time, the correct frequency, and the right channel for the content. However, the process does not end here. You must track and manage the posts too.
Publishing the content can be tedious as it is a repetitive task. Especially when you are posting it manually through different accounts and platforms. However, there are different tools that you can use to automate, schedule, and batch social media posts. These also monitor and respond to messages and comments.
Content analytics refers to the process of measuring and evalutating the performance along with the impact the content is making on social media. It also includes collecting, as well as analyzing the content and then creating a report on the content metrics.
It looks after the reach, engagement, sentiment, and conversions. Content analytics is often strategic and insightful. However, it can sometimes be confusing and overwhelming, especially when you are dealing with various tools and sources of data.
There are different tools that you can use to integrate, simplify, and visualize the social media data. You can also generate insights along with recommendations for optimizing the content.
Content optimization refers to the process of enhancing and improving social media content depending on the analytics and the feedback. It includes testing, experimenting and learning from the content results.
It also adjusts and refines the content tactics and strategy. Optimizing content is rewarding and creative. At the same time, it is also dynamic and complex. More so when you have to keep up with all those changing trends and preferences.
There are various tools that help you discover, emulate, and benchmark the best practices. You can also take notes from the social media content that is going around in the industry and in your niche.
Scheduling your posts ahead of time can help you gain back extra time to focus on your other tasks. By using a social media scheduling system, you can add posts as and when you have the time, even if they aren’t to go live for a few weeks.
If gaining one of these tools is not in your company’s budget, you can always learn to adjust the way in which you currently post. Some types of social media may allow you to schedule posts ahead of time, too. However, this may take more time to set up and post.
As long as you can find a way to stay on top of your posting requirements, ensuring they go out with the correct information; and on the right day and time, you will be able to plan ahead with ease.
For times when you aren’t in the office or simply do not have the time to stay on one platform for too long, you may wish to implement an automatic response tool. This can give basic information to those who send messages via your social media pages. This acts as an interim buffer until you can give a more personal response.
These chatbots will have a pre-defined list of responses and options that users can follow to gain the information they need or, otherwise, wait for a response from themselves.
You may be able to set up basic responses within the social media platform itself, such as thanking a person for their time. Or simply letting them know they will receive a response within the next 48 hours, but sometimes this isn’t enough.
Using the above-mentioned tools is great for improving and optimizing the performance of your social media marketing efforts. However, care should be taken to ensure that you do not make unnecessary mistakes when using the tools.
Firstly, all social media marketing professionals need to realize that the platform is your number one source of all information. This means that analytics, reports, trends, and other data coming from the platforms should occupy your top priority.
Secondly, ensure that the tool is fully integrated and works on the platform. There are many tools that stop working midway. This might be because the social platform has withdrawn permission for the said tool in question.
Thirdly, it is important not to spend too heavily on a piece of technology you will not be able to familiarise yourself with at the earliest. Go for tools that have a free trial period and start getting used to them slowly. Ensure you are up to speed when investing in monthly packages.
Lastly, tools by themselves as standalone entities will not be able to deliver on all fronts. You need to invest and pay a lot of attention to the content creation process. Using tools is not an alternative to shabby content creation on any social media platform.
Working in social media management is more than just adding a few posts or images per day. It also encompasses advertising and liaising with the public digitally, which is vital at present. To make the most of your time, you can streamline your processes to find new ways that work for you.
From improving sales to boosting your branding and credibility, these social media management tools can be an invaluable asset to your marketing efforts. Do let us know if you wish to know more about these tools in individual articles. We would be more than happy to create some for you.
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A self-proclaimed Swiftian, Instagram-holic, and blogger, Subhasree eats, breathes, and sleeps pop culture. When she is not imagining dates with Iron Man on Stark Tower (yes, she has the biggest crush on RDJ, which she won’t admit), she can be seen tweeting about the latest trends. Always the first one to break viral news, Subhasree is addicted to social media, and leaves out no opportunity of blogging about the same. She is our go-to source for the latest algorithm updates and our resident editor.
