Choosing Your Social Media Platform

As an agency, we manage and monitor a multitude of social media profiles on behalf of our clients. But with the wide variety of options when it comes to social media management tools, it’s hard to know where to start. Here is our team’s thought process on whittling down the list to find the best tool.

1. Determine your objective.

What are you trying to accomplish with your social media tool? Are you seeking help in scheduling weeks of content for your clients, or are you hungry for detailed analytics and data visualizations of your platforms? Most social media tools offer these services. Find out what will bring you the most value to your clients, and that will help narrow down your choices.

Publishing – Scheduling content hours, days, weeks ahead for ease of mind
Analytics – Reports on reports on reports, breaking down the data for everything from engagement to conversion
Community Management – From responding to comments to larger-scale listening to the platforms’ audiences
Competitive Monitoring – Watching the competitors to analyze how your profiles stack up

2. Assemble your team.

Figure out who on your team will need access to this tool. Set a final tally of the social media profiles you’ll need to integrate with the tool. Finally, decide whether to give your client access as well.

3. Break down what information you want.
What data, and therefore key learnings, do you want to pull from the social media platforms? For each client, decide which of the below about their social activity is important to track and monitor.

Location – Does your client need to know where their most engaged customers are based? Knowing your client’s hotspots can inform you where you should be targeting paid ads.
Demographics – Knowing the makeup of your audience is key, from their household income to their main likes and dislikes. The more detailed information your tool can glean, the sharper you’ll be able to craft your message.
Sentiment – Do you need to know the breakdown between positive, neutral and negative messages you’re receiving? Understanding the sentiment of your audience can help you adjust your messaging.

4. Understand the level of customer service each tool comes with.
Every tool comes with customer service for when things go wrong. Figure out how much help and support you’ll need, based on your team’s familiarity with these tools. Ask what onboarding training services are offered, as well as ongoing webinars or training sessions are available. Many provide lessons on how to get the most of all their features.

5. Establish your budget.
Get a wide range of the available plans, tiers and prices and set your final budget. Many vendors will work with your team to determine a custom price depending on what features and tools you will actually use.

6. Test and learn with trials.
Leverage the free trials that many vendors offer. Set up dummy social media accounts and use those to test out the full features that every tool offers. Always keep an eye out for new tools – even after you choose the tool you want, there might be a better one out there better suited for your needs.