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Social Media Marketing Software Buyer's Guide
Table of Contents
- » What is Social Media Marketing Software?
- » How does Social Media Marketing Software work?
- » Is it worth investing money in Social Media Marketing Software?
- » What are the features of Social Media Marketing Software?
- » What are the benefits of Social Media Marketing Software?
- » Before you Choose a Social Media Marketing Software
- » How to choose a good Social Media Marketing Software?
- » How much does Social Media Marketing Software cost?
- » Conclusion
With more than 50% of digital users having multiple social media profiles, it has become imperative for every business to target social media marketing with more potential than anything else. People love to share their opinions, experiences, and recommendations on social media platforms and thus the platform promises for the rapid organic promotion of any business if done well. This part of strategy making to target potential audiences falls into the Social Media Marketing wing. However, bridging the gap between your marketing and social media marketing is not that simple. It involves a lot of tasks such as generating exposure for your brand, increasing subscribers, improving on search engine rankings, reducing overall marketing costs etc. Unless you know how to do social media marketing on your own, it calls for hiring a bunch of experienced professionals with a fixed monthly salary. However, the same can be done in a hassle-free way through a Social Media Marketing Software.
» What is Social Media Marketing Software?
Social Media Marketing Software also known as social media management software (SMMS) helps businesses to popularize their brand online by marketing action-oriented marketing content in front of potential buyers. The software acts as an extra extension to your current marketing effort and blends well with social CRM and email marketing efforts. You can easily target different niches of customers and can run multiple marketing campaigns at the same time classified as per factors such as age, interest, business medium etc.
» How does Social Media Marketing Software work?
Social Media Monitoring Software undertakes a lot of responsibility just like other marketing wings however its mode of operation and target audience varies from that of others. One of the main works is to schedule and publish posts on social media platforms to attract the audience through various social media metric tools. It also keeps a close eye on ongoing social activities on audience profiles, tracks their interests, likes and dislikes and then to strategize the campaigns accordingly. Not just that, it facilitates quick reporting and analysis of ongoing progress and displays the same on a dashboard with charts and graphs for creating an easy visual understanding. It also takes care of the SEO part by looking for potential search keywords fetching maximum potential audience for effective marketing.
» Is it worth investing money in Social Media Marketing Software?
Undoubtedly, social media platforms are invading space on everyone’s mobile. With that being said, you can imagine what level of expectation you should keep from a successful social media marketing campaign. You can expect your business getting triple fold within a month owing to an effective marketing strategy on social media platforms. In this regard, the need of a software that can automatically do the needful can’t be termed as unnecessary.
» What are the features of Social Media Marketing Software?
Loaded with different features a single social media marketing software can enhance the productivity of businesses and companies to a whole new level. To get a good understanding on the same, let’s have a detailed look at the various features of the social media marketing software.
› Multi-Support Dashboard
Businesses use various social media platforms for showcasing glimpses of their products and services. Nowadays numerous social media marketing software comes with a multi-support dashboard system which helps host different platforms through a single dashboard. This helps reduce wastage of time as well as the need for installing additional software.
› Content Scheduling
This feature helps in scheduling content beforehand which can be set to be published at a specific time when your readers are much more likely to get engaged. This helps tackle the need for staying online for prolonged hours and wait for the right time to publish the content. Hence, the feature works without any user interference and can also be used to schedule messages.
› Real-time Analytics
Understanding the importance of analytics on the daily activities of a business, many software companies have devised social media marketing tools which are linked with real-time analytics. The analytics can then be used to track customer orientation and behaviour, including the website’s performance on different social media platforms. These reports can then be used to develop customer-specific solutions to keep the customers engaged in the products.
› Content Library
Content Library helps access previously used contents on the platform to gather ideas for posting relevant updates in the social media platforms. This helps in facilitating the content operations as the operators and the team can analyze and publish engaging content to attract more traffic.
› Marketing Campaigns
Apart from publishing content on different social media platforms, social media management software also allows companies to boost marketing campaigns. As the software can be used to track brand performance in the market, one can easily create innovative and revolutionary marketing ideas to attract customers.
» What are the benefits of Social Media Marketing Software?
Social media marketing software come with a myriad of benefits helping the business evolve with the perfect marketing campaigns. They reduce both time as well as wastage of human resources and finance, thus, proving as a budget-friendly option for many companies. Now, let’s have a look at the various benefits of social media marketing software.
› Enhancing Brand Awareness
As the social media marketing software work by managing different social media platforms they have higher chances of attracting customers. This is because nowadays most people remain socially very active which gives exposure to the company’s brand name.
› Increased Click Rates
As people witness the name of your company in different social media platforms, it leads to an increase in the trust factor. This helps in gaining increased click-through rates as concluded by various studies.
› Satisfied Customers
The blogs, images, videos, etc. which are shared in the social media keeps your customers engaged and prevents dropouts. Moreover, sharing creative content regularly makes sure that your readers stay updated with the company’s services and facilities.
› Gain Marketplace Insights
The social media marketing software serves as a link connecting the customers with the company or business directly. Thus, operators can track the profits or customer orientation and rectify any lacking areas to maximize output while ensuring that the users get genuine satisfaction.
» Before you Choose a Social Media Marketing Software
While being able to choose a good social media management software is generally intimidating, there are some points which should be kept in mind before going for a specific social media monitoring app. Although these points may seem a bit old school, they are very important aspects to land with a great deal of software. So, now let’s study the factors briefly.
› Does your company actually need the software?
In spite of the fact that the social media monitoring app comes in handy and offers numerous benefits, it is not always necessary to implement the software. When your company or business is not fully launched or does not have enough creative content to attract the readers, it is highly advised not to hire the software. In such cases, one must first set up a strong foundation, and then only share contents in numerous social media platforms through the software.
› How customizable it should be?
Numerous social media monitoring app comes with pre-installed templates which help share content easily. Yet many are also there where one can completely customize the way content will be shared and displayed on social media. Hence, proper care must be taken to analyze beforehand what the company needs from the social media management tools.
› What are the company’s needs from the software?
As discussed above, understanding and noting down the requirements of one’s own company or business is essential so as to tackle the need for churning the head while selecting a good social media management software. This, in turn, helps to streamline the process by cutting down the number of software to choose from.
› What is the vendor's reputation?
Vendor reputation matters a lot while selecting any software. Good words of mouth about any service provider give you assurance about quality service for sure. Also, you should see how long the vendor has been dominating the market. Some gain popularity quickly and lose at the same pace after a few years. However, a consistent market dominator is the ideal one to go for.
» How to choose a good Social Media Marketing Software?
In the market which is filled with options related to the best marketing tools, being able to choose a good social media marketing software is not always easy. This is because each software comes with their own sets of strengths and weaknesses which are completely different from one another. Similarly, while some may have greater expertise in offering the best social media marketing tools, others may be skilled in other aspects. Hence, in this list, we have hand-listed some of the major points to help you choose the best marketing tools to increase your brand name as well as customer satisfaction.
› User-Friendly Interface
Not every employee in the team is skilled in coding or programming languages, hence, a good social media marketing app must be easy to operate. This will help manage operations more efficiently as the team can focus more on the content rather than the complexity of the software.
› Analytics & Reporting
Companies are very dependent upon analytics and reporting as they provide deeper insight into the customer onboarding and behaviour. Hence, if your company needs daily insight into analytics then one must always go for a more updated and advanced software providing complex tools on analytics and reporting.
› Team Collaboration
Many social media monitoring tools also let their users avail team collaboration facilities which can be used to gather teams in a single place. Moreover, software companies have also provided user-access controls where different roles are assigned to the users to keep a track on the employee as well as the content.
› 24/7 Customer Support
A software providing 24/7 customer support is far better than others, as it helps maintain the customer’s trust in the company by providing instant solutions. Furthermore, the updated best marketing tools also come with support services which even helps the companies to choose the best social media platforms to share their content to attract more traffic.
› Security
Each and every content of a company is highly confidential and needs to be protected from the claws of malicious hackers. Hence, various experts have suggested hiring a social media monitoring app which adds an extra layer of security above the existing ones. Many software come with two-factor authentication, activated firewall, and more which helps keep the contents hack-free.
› Integration with Existing Tools
What is more appealing than having a social media management software which readily integrates with other existing marketing tools! Understanding the need for compliance with other marketing tools, many software companies have devised software which allows the users to work without any worries.
› Pricing
One of the most important factors while choosing the best marketing tools is to look for software which fits the budget. Hiring expensive software or subscribing to a premium plan can lead to increased pressure over expenses.
» How much does Social Media Marketing Software cost?
The pricing structure of the software differs from one another mostly due to the differences between its facilities and tools which are provided by the software. In most cases, the number of users and the term of the contract also play a crucial role as the deciding factor of a software’s price. The lowest price of a social media monitoring tool can start from as low as $9 while reaching a whopping high of $299 is also possible. However, numerous social media software also support pay-as-you-go features which allow users to pay the subscription fee first. Afterwards, the number of facilities and tools can be increased by paying the hiring fee as you go ahead.
» Conclusion
If you want to escalate your business reach to a higher level, you are going to need an ideal social media marketing management software by your side. However, keep in mind to select the one that will best match with your specific marketing needs. Instead of quickly zeroing on any software, take your time and scrutinize as many vendors as you can till you get someone best complementing your organization’s interests.