Previously, we discussed four areas to build strengths on so your business can efficiently make use of social media: knowing your audience, coming up with a content strategy, providing a great customer experience, and being guided by your declared core values. We then moved on to a rundown of top social media platforms you can take advantage of. Then we talked about examples of brands whose social media strategy you could look into or emulate. Now, letโs look at some social media management tools that are available and are ready to use.
Here are the links to the previous articles leading to this if you havenโt checked them out yet.
Built-in social media tools
In this article, our grounding actions are still regarding the four areas to build strengths on. But, since we mentioned the social media platforms in Part 2, we might as well begin with some of the platformsโ built-in social media management tools.
1. Meta Business Suite Insights
In July 2021, Facebook shut down its Audience Insights and made available
Meta Business Suite Insights, โa tool that allows you to access your audience insights across Facebook and Instagram.โ
Metaโs new tool no longer just provides audience data. With it, you can also โview trends and metrics on the performance of your Facebook Page and Instagram business profile.โ
If you want to make use of Facebook for brand awareness and marketing, then it seems Meta has it sorted for you. As a bonus, not only you can take advantage of Facebook, but Instagram as well.
2. Instagram Business Account
If you already have a personal Instagram account, the app allows you to easily Switch to Professional Account. With an Instagram Business Account, you can track your account performance using real-time data and insights. With real-time insights, you can learn what works well with your audience. A basic advantage of having an Instagram account is๏ผif youโre audience is on Instagram๏ผthe ability to directly engage and build relationships with your customers as a brand, thereby organically cultivating a brand personality.
70% of shoppers look into Instagram for their next purchase, so, if you havenโt yet, you may want to open a shop right there, now, and sell directly on Instagram. There are, however, already 200M+ Instagram business accounts, so be sure you have a really great content strategy to stand out and be interesting.
3. WhatsApp for Business
WhatsApp is among Metaโs recent acquisitions. Like Facebook and Instagram, Meta is also injecting a business mindset into WhatsApp. Check out what we said earlier about WhatsApp for Business, here.
4. Youtube for Business
Since Google already owns Youtube, all you need to set up a Youtube business account is a Google account. In Part 2, we saw Youtube ranking as the second most popular website in the world. Aside from that, Youtube is also the second-largest search engine in the world, just behind its parent company, Google. Well, there are those who donโt want to read lengthy information, so they would just prefer to get information in video form whenever possible. So, when considering Youtube for Business, might as well keep an SEO strategy in mind.
5. TikTok for Business
TikTok for Business welcomes you with a counter-intuitive advice on advertising: โDonโt make ads. Make TikTok videos.โ
Itโs time to talk about here the elephant in the room, Facebook. The recent market perception of Facebook dropped dramatically, the lowest for the platform since it started trading and the lowest for any business in history. Shares of Meta Platforms Inc., Facebookโs parent company plunged by the end of January 2022, wiping out $232 billion from their market value. A sharper-than-expected decline in profit and a gloomy outlook pulled Metaโs shares down 26%. โExpectedโ because of the rise of TikTok becoming overwhelming in the last quarter of 2021, plus Appleโs new privacy features in relation to the majority of people in the US who are iPhone users.
So TikTok just demonstrated how to eat the proverbial elephant, creating TikTok videos. Getting started with TikTok for Business, all you need is as simple as to jump right in.
As for the rest of the platforms, you must have gotten the idea by now, all the top social media platforms already have the features you need if youโre wondering where to get hold of social media management tools.
Social media management tools and toolkits
Now, what if you want to make use of multiple platforms and donโt have the luxury of time, because–who has the time for all those? Well, perhaps consider upgrading to toolkits or toolboxes. The following are examples of social media management tools that allow you to be present and manage all your socials in one place.
6. Later
Back in 2014, Later began as the first-to-market Instagram scheduler. Since then, it has grown โfrom a simple Instagram tool to the #1 visual marketing platform for Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. Now with over 6 million users globally, Later is a member of the Instagram Partner Program and a Pinterest Marketing Partner.โ
Laterโs features focus on visual scheduling, media management, marketing, and analytics to streamline your social marketing strategy. On top of Laterโs features is its Visual Planner. With it youโre scheduling of social media content is as simple as dragging-and-dropping. Later allows you to easily plan a monthโs worth of social media posts. It even tells you your unique Best Time to Post.
7. Post Planner
Post Planner is a social media scheduler that automates posts, promising to โskyrocketโ your engagements and optimize your brand. The scheduler also allows your evergreen content to automatically get re-published, allowing you to further reach more followers with no extra work. Post Planner helps you tailor your content for various platforms, showing you a live preview as you create your posts.
With Post Planner you can reduce a weekโs worth of social media content planning to 20 to 30 minutes.
8. Tailwind
Ever wish of having a dedicated team you can just instruct to handle social media pages so you can just forget about it and do other things? Well, Tailwind prides itself as โthe tool that feels like a marketing team.โ
Tailwind is a social media management tool that allows you to create, schedule, and optimize content with no design skills required. Tailwind began in 2011 as a marketing solution while the company was building a website targeting an audience on Pinterest. Then, a huge opportunity emerged as they realized they could provide a similar solution to others having similar problems.
9. Hootsuite
Hootsuite offers to turn your socials into your superpower. For Hootsuite, the track to getting results and keeping customers happy is through social intelligence. Perhaps itโs not enough to rely on a tool to do all the work. Hootsuite is concerned that you stay on track for the foreseeable future. To do this, Hootsuite provides you with insights so you can spot, track, and analyze trends and sentiment in real-time. This means incorporating social listening and building social intelligence into your strategy so youโll know when to flip the script when needed.
To help you grow your brand and stay ahead, there is also the Hootsuite Academy. While Hootsuite can easily provide you with the social media management tool you need, it also offers to equip everyone in your organization with regards to the role they need to play. Hootsuite can help you โgive them the social platform and skills they need to step into the spotlight and build your brand, strengthen relationships with customers, and drive business results.
10. Agorapulse
If you want to be on top of things, then Agorapulse may be for you. Agorapulse envisions that you โtake control of your social media.โ
The toolkit that is Agorapulse consists of an inbox, publishing, reporting, monitoring, and team collaboration tools. It is an easy-to-use solution loaded with powerful features and fortified with the industryโs top customer support. Among its competitors, Agorapulse is proud to have the best support in the business. Taking full control is a good idea. But itโs also comforting to have a customer support on standby as though a crew at your pitstop so you can keep your thoughts on the race at hand.
11. Sprout Social
Sprout Social is another toolkit option for you. This social media management tool offers a powerful, all-in-one social media management platform that promises to unlock โthe full potential of social to transform not just your marketing strategy๏ผbut every area of your organization.โ
This social media management tool prides itself on being โthe leading platform to extract real business value from social.โ
Aside from being a leader in ROI and customer support and satisfaction, Sprout Social is also proud to be a leader in usability and user adoption. In getting started with this social media management tool, the first thing you need to do is to identify your need. Whether social management, customer care, data and intelligence, social amplification, or social commerce for enterprise, small business, or agency, Sprout Social got it covered.
12. Sprinklr
Speaking of enterprise, there are also social media management tools designed generally for enterprise-level companies. One of the tools out there is Sprinklr, which allows you to reach, engage, and listen to customers online at scale and with ease.
Spriklr highlights three top features that can help your company. The first is its ability to help your social media team to achieve more with AI integration. Second, it promises to help generate more revenue by transforming social conversation to become your revenue driver. Finally, it helps you reduce risks. Spriklr is proud to have a compliance framework that encompasses approvals, governance rules, and moderation processes.
13. SocialBee
Now, if you want to start with just one social media specialist, then you can check out SocialBeeโs Concierge Services. With this, you can access your own dedicated specialist. Whether social content creation or content marketing such as article writing, copywriting, and guide creation, SocialBee, through its Concierge Services, commits to provide you with a dedicated expert that is fun to work with.
Takeaway
From social media management tools built-in to the social media platforms to a dedicated specialist, to enterprise-scale toolkits: you have all the options out there. With more and more businesses realizing the need to take advantage of social media, you really have to get into the action ASAP. With the social media giants, though, taking hits from the recent market perceptions brought about by privacy concerns and some ideas of social media detox, there is also the new challenge of navigating through all these just when we thought it would just be all smooth-sailing as soon as one embarks on social media for use in business. Still, however, there are already social media tools and toolkits ready for use out there at price options depending on your needs.
Or you might be considering outsourcing a team to build and take care of your socials for you. Well, we at StratAccess could help you with it.
StratAccess Inc., established in 2012, commits itself to find its clients the BPO in the Philippines for successful business solutions. The company focuses on transforming the landscape of call center partnerships. This is important in order to meet the requirements of todayโs small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). StratAccess consultants stand ready to help clients take a hard look at their business objectives, organization infrastructure, and operational practices.
We at StratAccess strive to build long-term relationships that extend beyond the typical vendor-client transactions. Our primary focus is to successfully promote and serve each clientโs products or services as though they are our own. Combined with the skill and knowledge of the Philippine outsourcing industry, our company has positioned itself as a leader in delivering its clients access to qualified quality and cost-effective BPO referrals.
