In 2018, Facebook claimed that there are over 80 million small businesses using Facebook’s free business tools. That number has been increasing ever since – proving to business owners around the world that social media is a powerful marketing tool.
But it can be time-consuming – time that could be used to improve and grow your company. Thankfully, there are tools out there that can help.
Read on to discover our top 3 social media management tools for 2020.
What makes a good social media tool?
The term ‘social media tool’ is very broad, and therefore can apply to a wide range of services. But to make a tool beneficial, it should have the following attributes:
- It saves you time
- It helps increase your brand awareness
- It’s easy to use
- It’s cost-effective
- It keeps you organised
For example, YouTube is beneficial for those in the construction industry, as they can upload ‘DIY’ videos to increase their brand awareness. People in the education sector can use tools to take potential new students on a virtual tour of their school.
So which tools are best for you?
LATER
LATER has to be one of the best social media scheduling tools on the market. It may not be the most cost effective, but it’s by far the most user-friendly and offers the best support and resources to help you excel in your social media.
The biggest pro in the platform is the Story scheduling feature. Many social schedulers don’t accommodate Story scheduling. Scheduling stories ahead of time is a huge time saver and is often a deal breaker for many social media managers.
LATER allows you to schedule content across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest. The only drawback is that it doesn’t offer scheduling for LinkedIn. A little birdy told us that might change soon though.
Our favourite features include, Instagram grid preview (view a visual version of your grid before posting), adding first comments for Instagram, pre-saved captions to add to posts, tagging and location tagging to give your content extra exposure.
Fanbooster by Traject (Traject Social) – formally Social Report
Popular management tool Social Report has now joined forces with Traject – creating the easy to use social media management tool, Fanbooster by Traject (Traject Social).
Read Social Report is Joining Traject Social
This tool is as flexible as it is simple. You can design posting schedules that are customised by platform, frequency, and content category. Even your images can be organised into your own personal content library, and you can customise link preview images and descriptions.
If you’re working in a team of multiple people, Traject Social allows you to share the workload while staying in control. For example, you can provide editorial control of publishing to managers, while limiting junior employees to draft creation. You can even give clients report access and give them the ability to approve content.
Our favourite feature on Fanbooster by Traject (Traject Social) is that you can monitor the KPI metrics specified by your clients, and analyze cross-channel audience growth, activity, and engagement. This way, you can see what content performs well and at what times. We also love that you can create categories for your posts i.e. inspirational, promotional etc. This enables you to see at a glance what type of content works best.
Agorapulse
Managing a social media account across several teams or people can become confusing. Agorapulse streamlines everything to make the account manageable. Agorapulse is an easy-to-use social media management tool with powerful features including flexible scheduling, social inbox, one-click reporting, team collaboration, and a built-in CRM.
Just like its competitors, Agorapulse brings all your accounts to one platform, where you can manage them from the one desktop, with the exception of Pinterest. Agorapulse also allows you to view your posts as though they are live. This proves useful if you need to tweak each post for every social media platform.
For those working in teams, feedback can be added to each post. This means that edits can be made quickly and seamlessly.
Our favourite thing about Agorapulse is the beautiful aesthetic and UX which makes using the tool a breeze.
Should I invest in a social media tool?
If your business is growing and you’ve noticed that you’re spending more time scheduling posts across multiple platforms, we recommend starting out with a tool like LATER. You can start off on their free account, however bear in mind that the free account doesn’t allow Story scheduling or videos.
For growing agencies and large agencies, a tool like Fanbooster by Traject (Traject Social) or Agorapulse can really help you become more efficient and will optimise your results too.
Focus SME’s vision is to help B2B and service-based businesses grow their business effectively through social media marketing. If you would like to find out more about our services, we’d be delighted to speak with you. Contact us here to get started.