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Choose the Right Social Media Management Tool for Your Company

Choose the Right Social Media Management Tool for Your Company

Social media is a powerful way to generate audience engagement and brand loyalty, creating new customers and keeping your existing ones. In order to use your valuable time efficiently, you can streamline your social media activity with a scalable, all-in-one social media management platform. There are numerous platforms on the market, of varying quality and capability, designed to automate content distribution and analyze your performance. Before you invest in one of these tools, learn which one is right for your marketing team.

Platform Features

The first step is to consider what features you need in a social media management platform. What do the different members of your marketing team need it to be able to do? For each option, look at:

  • How many social profiles you can manage
  • How many members of your team need to access the platform
  • Quantity of posts you need to schedule (and how far out)
  • Whether it can handle both organic and paid social
  • What kind of reporting and analytics you will need

Platform Costs

The cost of social media management tools varies. Many platforms let you subscribe monthly. Some platforms have free basic plans as part of their tiered subscription, others offer free trials, and many offer both. Look at the features above and compare costs depending on which ones you need, then figure out your budget.

Compare Popular Platforms

Now we will take a look at some of the most popular social media management platforms on the market to help you decide which one will work for your brand.

Hootsuite

Choose the Right Social Media Management Tool for Your Company

A popular platform with more than 15 million users, Hootsuite offers a 30-day free trial and a limited Free plan, which includes three social profiles, 30 scheduled messages, and one user. Hootsuite’s Professional plan offers unlimited scheduling for 10 profiles at $29 a month. To add more social profiles, users, and unlimited scheduling, monthly subscriptions range up to $599 per month. 

Buffer

Choose the Right Social Media Management Tool for Your Company

Similar to Hootsuite, Buffer offers a 14-day free trial and a basic Free plan, which includes three social channels, 10 scheduled posts, and one user. If you want to add more social channels, number of scheduled posts, and users to your account, the Pro, Premium, and Business plans offer scaled up features with tiered monthly pricing ranging from $15 to $399 per month. Buffer’s user interface is clean and simple, ranking high for ease of use. Its Analyze feature is more robust than other platforms, but costs an extra $50 per month. 

Sprout Social

Choose the Right Social Media Management Tool for Your Company

Sprout Social lets you try the platform for free with a 30-day trial, but they don’t offer a basic free plan. Standard subscriptions start at $99 per user a month, which includes five social profiles. You can upgrade to a Professional or Advanced subscription at $149 and $249 per month, respectively. Sprout Social is one of the few platforms that provides customer relationship management (CRM) tools. Their CRM tools let you see conversation history with customers, contact information, and internal notes to help you build a context for each customer.

Sendible

Choose the Right Social Media Management Tool for Your Company

You can try Sendible for free with a 14-day trial. After the trial, you can choose their Starter plan, which includes 12 social profiles, eight quick reports, and one user. Quick reports include Google Analytics Integration and posting analysis. Other tiers of Sendible’s subscription range from $99 to $299 per month, with more users, profiles, and reports. Sendible is built specifically for agencies that manage several clients. Like many platforms, Sendible lets you schedule your content individually or in batches, and it offers in-depth reports for your team. Standout features include integration with other apps like Canva and YouTube search.

Agorapulse

Choose the Right Social Media Management Tool for Your Company

Agorapulse offers a free 28-day trial. Plans begin at $79 per month and include 10 social profiles, two users, and unlimited scheduled or queued posts. For more social profiles, users, and features such as customer support and powerful reporting, you can choose a subscription from $159 to $399 per month. Agorapulse delivers an all-in-one platform like the rest of the options on this list, but their competitor analysis tool is a unique feature that others don’t offer.

Compare to ThumbStopper

Now that we’ve reviewed the basics of some popular platforms, compare them with the features offered by ThumbStopper. 

Choose the Right Social Media Management Tool for Your Company

Too often, a disconnect exists between brands, creating high-quality content in support of their products, and retailers trying to sell those products. None of the other platforms listed above is explicitly designed for brands and retailers to collaborate. 

The use of disparate social media management systems compounds the disconnect. For example, if you’re using the professional version of Sprout Social, while one retailer uses the free version of Buffer, another uses Hootsuite, and some use no platform at all… well, you get the idea. 

It’s important to get brands and retailers in sync. A study found that localized social media posts are six times more successful than global posts. Your brand can reach these audiences by partnering with your retailers. 

A unified solution ensures that your brand’s content gets shared consistently across social media channels and that you can see the results all in one place. With ThumbStopper, your brand distributes your quality content not only on your own social channels, but on those of your retailers, too. Posts will adjust according to what products a given retailer carries, and the best time to post to reach their unique follower base. You sign up, and we onboard your retailers.
And, with ThumbStopper’s performance and reporting data, you can see just how your content performs. Your statistics are packaged into a convenient quarterly report that allows you to see which content succeeded and when, influencing the decisions you make for future campaigns. Learn more about what ThumbStopper can do for your brand today.

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Key Points:

 

  • Companies should understand the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to ensure their websites are accessible.
  • Brands that concentrate on accessibility on social media demonstrate care for their customers and build a positive brand reputation.
  • Brands should always consider inclusive design, such as plain, straightforward language, in their social media posts.

 

 

Accessibility may not be a term you usually associate with the internet and social media. You might picture wheelchair ramps, directional signs in braille, or sign language interpreters at live performances. The landmark Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 dictates the legal necessity of these and similar accommodations in public spaces. As we’ve come to rely on the internet for everything from entertainment to buying groceries, it’s become clear that the internet is now also a public space. It must be accessible to everyone. And like other applications of ADA, businesses that do not comply are liable for damages caused by inaccessibility.

 

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are an international set of standards to provide instruction on meeting accessibility needs. It’s important for companies to understand how this applies to their websites, especially if they engage in e-commerce. In terms of social media, the requirements are less concrete. But prioritizing accessibility on your company’s social media is essential to your reputation, even if the legal requirements are uncertain. We’ll look at why it’s important to your customers, how it affects the perception of your brand, and how to make these changes efficiently.

Social Media for All

The cornerstone of accessibility is inclusive design: products or experiences that are accessible for everyone regardless of disability. The most important place where this shows up is on company websites where most users expect to also find links to the brand’s social media profiles. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of websites are not accessible, despite the fact that the application of ADA to the internet is over 20 years old. Making websites accessible is a complex process without the use of specialized software like Accessibe or EqualWeb.

Unlike websites, making sure your social media is accessible is a straightforward, ongoing process. Every social platform has been quick to release optional accessibility features. These features are important to many users even if they don’t rely on them to use social media.

Making your social presence accessible tells users that your brand cares about people, not just profits. It’s the same idea as the push for the representation of different body sizes in fashion or more expansive skin tone ranges in beauty products. Brands that meet the needs of underrepresented groups endear themselves to others as well. And while optimizing your brand website for accessibility might be a larger project you aren’t ready to tackle yet, starting with your social media pages is a great way to show customers that you’re listening to their concerns. 

 

Making Content Accessible

Shifting to accessible content means incorporating inclusive design into your creative process. The practice varies by type of media. For platforms that have graphics or videos with captions, it means not only adjusting each component but also being mindful of how they interact with each other.

For example, YouTube’s automatically generated closed captions and subtitles are often inaccurate. It's one of many examples where the caption generation software has issues picking up strong accents and mumbled words. This could be remedied with handcrafted video transcription services. If that’s not in the budget, the video creator could add their script or transcription to the video description.

None of the technology for accessibility is perfect yet. Teaching computers to digest complex information for human understanding is difficult, and the variations in disabilities further complicate it. The majority of adjustments creators need to make revolve around helping assistive technology better understand their content. Let’s look at how to make different kinds of content accessible. 

Text

  • Use plain language that’s easy to understand 
  • Avoid text in all caps
  • Capitalize the first letter of each word in a hashtag, like #SocialMediaMarketing, a practice called camel-case

Videos

  • Provide descriptive captions. Instead of just displaying the words people on-screen say, explain background noises and other sounds that are relevant to the scene.
  • Add your own subtitles or enable auto-subtitles on the video platform of your choice
  • Use captioning for live videos when possible

Graphics

Distribute Accessible Content

Many users find their new favorite brand through social media. When disabled people (who make up 26% of the population according to the CDC) can’t access your brand’s social posts, you miss the opportunity to connect with a demographic that’s eager to engage in online communities. On a hyper-local level, that kind of connection goes even further.

That’s why ThumbStopper exists to help brands distribute their social content to their retailer network. Retailers can connect with their local audience - with your accessible, branded content - in a more personal way. And since content goes to their page automatically once they sign up, retailers can effortlessly promote your brand online while focusing on running their business. 

Ready to see how ThumbStopper can help your brand improve its reach? Check out our brand reach calculator or book a demo.

 

 

accessibility
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[/et_pb_column]
What Is Social Media Automation?
[/et_pb_column]
[/et_pb_column]
10 Ways to Automate Your Marketing
[/et_pb_column]
[/et_pb_column]
How Effective Is Your Social Media Strategy
[/et_pb_section][/et_pb_column]
[/et_pb_row]
[/et_pb_column]

Key Points:

 

  • Companies should understand the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to ensure their websites are accessible.
  • Brands that concentrate on accessibility on social media demonstrate care for their customers and build a positive brand reputation.
  • Brands should always consider inclusive design, such as plain, straightforward language, in their social media posts.

 

 

Accessibility may not be a term you usually associate with the internet and social media. You might picture wheelchair ramps, directional signs in braille, or sign language interpreters at live performances. The landmark Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 dictates the legal necessity of these and similar accommodations in public spaces. As we’ve come to rely on the internet for everything from entertainment to buying groceries, it’s become clear that the internet is now also a public space. It must be accessible to everyone. And like other applications of ADA, businesses that do not comply are liable for damages caused by inaccessibility.

 

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are an international set of standards to provide instruction on meeting accessibility needs. It’s important for companies to understand how this applies to their websites, especially if they engage in e-commerce. In terms of social media, the requirements are less concrete. But prioritizing accessibility on your company’s social media is essential to your reputation, even if the legal requirements are uncertain. We’ll look at why it’s important to your customers, how it affects the perception of your brand, and how to make these changes efficiently.

Social Media for All

The cornerstone of accessibility is inclusive design: products or experiences that are accessible for everyone regardless of disability. The most important place where this shows up is on company websites where most users expect to also find links to the brand’s social media profiles. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of websites are not accessible, despite the fact that the application of ADA to the internet is over 20 years old. Making websites accessible is a complex process without the use of specialized software like Accessibe or EqualWeb.

Unlike websites, making sure your social media is accessible is a straightforward, ongoing process. Every social platform has been quick to release optional accessibility features. These features are important to many users even if they don’t rely on them to use social media.

Making your social presence accessible tells users that your brand cares about people, not just profits. It’s the same idea as the push for the representation of different body sizes in fashion or more expansive skin tone ranges in beauty products. Brands that meet the needs of underrepresented groups endear themselves to others as well. And while optimizing your brand website for accessibility might be a larger project you aren’t ready to tackle yet, starting with your social media pages is a great way to show customers that you’re listening to their concerns. 

 

Making Content Accessible

Shifting to accessible content means incorporating inclusive design into your creative process. The practice varies by type of media. For platforms that have graphics or videos with captions, it means not only adjusting each component but also being mindful of how they interact with each other.

For example, YouTube’s automatically generated closed captions and subtitles are often inaccurate. It’s one of many examples where the caption generation software has issues picking up strong accents and mumbled words. This could be remedied with handcrafted video transcription services. If that’s not in the budget, the video creator could add their script or transcription to the video description.

None of the technology for accessibility is perfect yet. Teaching computers to digest complex information for human understanding is difficult, and the variations in disabilities further complicate it. The majority of adjustments creators need to make revolve around helping assistive technology better understand their content. Let’s look at how to make different kinds of content accessible. 

Text

  • Use plain language that’s easy to understand 
  • Avoid text in all caps
  • Capitalize the first letter of each word in a hashtag, like #SocialMediaMarketing, a practice called camel-case

Videos

  • Provide descriptive captions. Instead of just displaying the words people on-screen say, explain background noises and other sounds that are relevant to the scene.
  • Add your own subtitles or enable auto-subtitles on the video platform of your choice
  • Use captioning for live videos when possible

Graphics

Distribute Accessible Content

Many users find their new favorite brand through social media. When disabled people (who make up 26% of the population according to the CDC) can’t access your brand’s social posts, you miss the opportunity to connect with a demographic that’s eager to engage in online communities. On a hyper-local level, that kind of connection goes even further.

That’s why ThumbStopper exists to help brands distribute their social content to their retailer network. Retailers can connect with their local audience – with your accessible, branded content – in a more personal way. And since content goes to their page automatically once they sign up, retailers can effortlessly promote your brand online while focusing on running their business. 

Ready to see how ThumbStopper can help your brand improve its reach? Check out our brand reach calculator or book a demo.

 

 

accessibility
[/et_pb_column]
[/et_pb_column]
What Is Social Media Automation?
[/et_pb_column]
[/et_pb_column]
10 Ways to Automate Your Marketing
[/et_pb_column]
[/et_pb_column]
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