6 OF THE BEST REASONS WHY YOU NEED TO USE A SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT TOOL
One of the best ways to market yourself online? Social media.
Both social media platforms and online marketing as a whole are great strategies to focus on individually. Combine them together and they make the perfect recipe for success.
But we all know that managing social media takes a lot of effort and hard work. Plus with all the noise out there, it's tough to make sure we're using it effectively.
Whether you're using it for your blog, small business or personal brand, it can be a challenge to maintain and build a presence across multiple platforms. Luckily, there's something you can use to make it a lot easier - a social media management tool.
Don't get me wrong - social media management tools don't do all the work for you. But they do save you a lot of time when it comes to managing your social platforms. From Buffer to Hootsuite and Smarterqueue to Edgar, here are 6 reasons why using a social media management tool will help you.
P.S. Be sure to grab a copy of your free social media posting schedule template, where you can get a customised, optimised schedule for each of the main social media platforms - this helped increase traffic to my website by over 100% in just two 2 months!
6 great reasons why you should be using a social media management tool
#1 | Stay on top of your social media calendar
If you're anything like me, you have different systems to help you stay organised in your day to day life. From a paper planner to an online calendar, you're totally on track.
You keep note of deadlines, what tasks you've completed, and what's coming up over the next week, month and so on.
So now let me ask you this - what do you use to keep track of your social media content?
That's where a social media management tool comes in, because it essentially acts as a virtual content planner. It lets you see what you've posted, what you can post next and what types of content are most popular, so you can create more of that moving forward.
A social media management tool acts as the foundation of your entire social media strategy because it keeps you organised. Which leads me nicely onto point number two!
#2 | Manage your social media strategy
What is going to help you see success for your brand on social media? A strategy. Trust me, this is the one thing that the big brands and businesses all have in common.
For those of you who aren't sure what a strategy actually is, I mean a plan.
Having a strategy in place for your social media platforms is so important for many reasons. Most importantly, it allows you to determine what's working and what isn't working, so you can make changes and improve.
A social media strategy also saves you time, money and lets you save a lot of energy and effort. It means you can successfully align the work you do with your social media channels, which will make it a lot easier for you to meet you goals.
For example, if your goal is to increase online visibility for your ecommerce shop and reach the 18-34 demographic, you might want to focus more of your efforts on Instagram. If this is the case, a planning tool such as Planoly that helps you plan your feed, captions and hashtags, would be really beneficial for you.
#3 | Schedule updates for multiple accounts
As a blogger, I'm guessing you have a presence on multiple social media platforms. Pinterest? Twitter? Instagram? Facebook? If you've got a variety of different content going out on a variety of different platforms, you're doing a great job.
But if you struggle to keep up will all your platforms, a social media management tool can really help you, because you can manage all your accounts from just one main dashboard. Yep - no need to log into each social platform and manually check whether you've scheduled everything!
This is a great way to not only save you time and make your life a lot easier, but also make you more effective on social media as a whole.
Plus it also allows you to schedule your content in advance which means you can take a break every so often.
#4 | More time to engage with your audience
Social media success doesn't just come from getting content out there on multiple platforms. Engagement is also a key factor.
You are your brand, so it's important to make sure you're actively engaging with your audience by following, commenting, liking and so on.
But I know what you're thinking...where do you find the time to engage when you've got so many other tasks to do? Some social media management tools can actually help you keep track of your engagements within your main dashboard, so nothing will go unnoticed.
Doing things like starting conversations with people and saying thanks when someone shares your content can turn a general follower in a loyal audience member!
#5 | Easy to add team members
If you're thinking about eventually getting someone to help you manage your social media platforms, it's important to make sure you've got a safe way to give others access to your accounts. I've learnt this from working with clients and honestly? It doesn't have to be as scary as you think.
For some of my clients, social media is a team effort between us. We need to make sure we're all staying up to date with the content going out on each social platform.
Luckily, you can put things in place to avoid any awkward situations, like two people scheduling the same social update. Set boundaries and use a tool that allows you to streamline communication within your team.
#6 | Analyse your growth
I know I say this often, but analysing your social media performance is the only way you're going to be able to reflect on your strategy. By evaluating what's worked and what hasn't, you can plan effectively for the future.
Most social media management tools provide you with data about each of your platforms to help you you analyse your efforts and make informed decisions moving forward.
Some metrics included in social media management tools include, popular content, number of link clicks, how much engagement you're getting with different platforms, optimal times to post and more.
You can use this information to underpin you whole social media strategy. For instance, if you find that people really engage with your quote graphics, definitely try to share more of them!
How to choose the right social media management tool
The best way you're going to be able to choose the right social media platform is by deciding how many platforms you want to mange. Some management tools can be used with all platforms, whereas others are more specific. Think about which platforms you want to grow your presence on, your overall goals and pick a tool accordingly.
For instance, if you want to manage your overall strategy, you're going to want to choose a tool that allows you to connect multiple platforms. But if you want to hone in and focus on a specific platform like Instagram, you're going to be better choosing a tool specific to managing Instagram.
Whenever you're choosing a tool to help you manage your social media platforms, refer back to this list to help you make the right decision for you.
Want to feel even more confident with your social media strategy? Enter your details to get a free copy of a social media posting schedule. I give you the optimal times to post to each social platform, plus different types of content to share, AND you'll get access to the last issue of the Blogging Breakthrough magazine for 2017.
