Driving Engagement through Social Media Management Tools

Engagement ... it’s key to the success of your brand.  While social media platforms provide an excellent opportunity to make connections and build relationships, effective engagement requires good timing - you can’t afford to miss the moment!  Do you honestly have the time and energy to juggle posting, updating, replying, and keeping up with trends, on all the major platforms, and nail the timing for maximum impact?  

Yeah, me neither.  But there is a way to make social media work for you.  Social media management tools change the game.

The right tool can help you keep up with the load of publishing across platforms at the optimal moment for engagement, monitoring what people are saying about your brand, measuring effectiveness, staying ahead of trends, and saving you from the nightmare of corporate social media faux pas.  

In this post, we are checking out two major social media publishing tools: Buffer and Social Report.

Buffer

Buffer was an early entry in the social media management field and remains a familiar face.  Beginning as a scheduling app, it blossomed into a full-fledged management tool with analytics and reporting features. This internet-based app works with the biggest social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+ (and toss in Pinterest with paid plans).  It can also be integrated with WordPress, Chrome, RSS feeds, and other tools via convenient browser extensions.

With Buffer, you can create pre-scheduled, media-rich posts across multiple platforms.  Queued posts can be set up to accommodate your custom timetable, or queued using the built-in schedule optimization tool for greater impact.  Engagement is easy to monitor under the Posts tab, where you can view clicks, likes, shares, comments, and other stats for each platform. You can also utilize evergreen content by rebuffering your most popular posts!

Buffer’s popularity is largely due to its simplicity.  The clean and clear interface is friendly and customizable.

Things to Like about Buffer:

  • Clean, minimalist, user-friendly dashboard.

  • Once the posting schedule is set up, just add posts to the queue, and Buffer will do the rest.  No need to individually schedule your posts.

  • Free Plan option available with some good features for those just starting out.

  • Login on multiple accounts.

  • Stack the queue 10 posts deep in the free plan, and thousands in business plans.

  • Convenient breakdown of engagement stats.

  • Browser extensions allow you to add posts to the queue as you are browsing, and open up some nice integration options.

  • Solid mobile app for adding posts to the queue.

Plans

All plans include the mobile app, browser extensions, basic optimization, and image, video, and GIF tools.  For a full breakdown of plans and features, visit Buffer’s pricing page.

Free Plan - FREE

  • 8 accounts

  • 10 posts in queue

Pro Plan - $15/month

  • 8 accounts

  • 100 posts in the queue

  • Add RSS Feed(s) and Calendar

  • Add Social Analytics

  • 7-day free trial

Small Business Plan - $99/month

  • 25 accounts

  • 2000 posts in the queue

  • Up to 5 Team Members

  • RSS Feed and Calendar

  • Add Advanced Analytics

  • 14-day free trial

Medium Business Plan - $199/month

  • 50 accounts

  • 2000 posts in the queue

  • Up to 10 Team Members

  • RSS Feed and Calendar

  • Advanced Analytics

  • 14-day free trial

Large Business Plan - $399/month

  • 150 accounts

  • 2000 posts in the queue

  • Up to 25 Team Members

  • RSS Feed and Calendar

  • Advanced Analytics

  • 14-day free trial

Social Report

Social Report promotes itself as “The World’s Most Complete Social Media Management Platform.”  And it certainly makes a strong case, especially for its target users - marketing agencies and social media managers.  Social Report schedules posts to all the most popular platforms, and a broader range of social outlets including Youtube, Vimeo, Reddit, Blogger, and more.

This cloud-based social media management tool offers a bounty of features for your buck.  This includes things you would expect, such as post scheduling and engagement analytics, as well as some nice surprises like a Smart Inbox that merges all messages into one convenient stream.

Social Report offers not only analytics for your business, but the ability to track the stats of competitors … and as much as we would like to deny it, we want to know how we stack up!

While there is no Free plan for Social Report, all three service levels offer a 30-day free trial.

Things to like about Social Report:

  • Lots of analytics options.

  • Ability to track competitors.

  • Smart inbox for social media interaction, with messages from all platforms, merged into a single stream.

  • Handy mobile app for iOS and Android.

  • Scheduled posts can be geocoded - tagged with a location.

  • Versatile social media listening tools for relevant keywords, hashtags, and influencers.

  • Weekly webinar for training and many video tutorials.

  • White labeling for Pro subscribers.

  • Custom reporting that can be scheduled to be emailed to clients, business partners, or just for your records.

Plans

All plans include publishing and scheduling of posts, Social Inbox (at different levels), business reviews, unlimited reports, goal setting, contact management, and live support.  For a full breakdown of Social Report’s plans and features, see the pricing page.

Standard - $49/month

  • Manage up to 5 Projects (business, customer, brand, initiative, etc.)

  • 5 users, 25 profiles

  • Social Inbox

  • 5 search agents

  • Load up to 1 month of historical data from social profiles

Advanced - $99/month

  • Manage up to 10 Projects

  • 10 users, 50 profiles

  • Upgrade to Smart Social Inbox

  • 10 search agents

  • Load up to 3 months of historical data from social profiles

  • Add Competitor Tracking

Pro - $199/month

  • Manage 20+ Projects

  • Unlimited users, 200+ profiles

  • Upgrade to Smart Social Inbox & Tasks

  • 20+ search agents

  • Load up to 6 months of historical data from social profiles

  • Competitor Tracking

  • Add full White Labeling, Resell data as an affiliate, and REST API for more advanced integration

Concluding Thoughts

Buffer and Social Report are two great choices for social media management!  Buffer is targeted a bit more for individuals and individual businesses, while Social Report is optimized for agencies that handle social media for others.  One of these options may work well for you!


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