Picking out the right social media management tool is not a task to take lightly. As Statista reports, the typical person spends an average of 2.4 hours a day on social media. So, you want to make sure your business has an effective strategy to reach your customers where they are. 

But in order to do that, you need to select a social media management tool that is right for your business. While it’s important to keep your goals in mind, there are specific features that can serve businesses in any industry. In this article, we’ll break down which features your team should consider and why. We’ll do so in the following sections:

• A Tool That Aligns with Your Business Needs
• Social Monitoring and Social Listening Capabilities
• Content Scheduling 
• Social Media Analytics
• Integrations
• Competitive Analysis

A Tool That Aligns with Your Business Needs

If you find yourself asking “What is the best social media management tool for my business,” your first consideration should be your business needs. Your social media strategy touches multiple aspects of your business, so the tool you select should support those needs. Consider asking yourself what goals you’re looking to accomplish and how a social media management tool can support that. 

Once you have answers, research various social media management solutions to see if and how they can support your needs. From there, you can focus on more specific features that can help you to achieve your goals.

Related: The Difference Between Social Media Reach and Impressions

Social Monitoring and Social Listening Capabilities

There’s a stark difference between social media management, social media monitoring, and social listening. Here’s a quick breakdown between the three:

• Social Media Management — Generating content to post on relevant social media channels
• Social Media Monitoring — Tracking real-time activity on your social mediapages and replying to comments as needed
• Social Listening — Monitoring the internet for both tagged and untagged mentions of your name 

Social monitoring and social listening are invaluable features in a social media management tool. That’s because they help to provide a deeper understanding of your audience’s engagement. This includes the way they interact with each other and the content you post online.

As we previously wrote, social monitoring gives insight into what people are saying. A social listening  strategy will help to give you context around the “why.” 

Finding a tool that offers both social listening and social monitoring offers a myriad of benefits, such as: 

• Enhancing your customer service offering — Customers tend to reach out to businesses on social media for services needs. Oftentimes, they expect a prompt response. A tool with social monitoring capabilities can immediately notify your team of incoming messages so that they can provide swift service. 
• Initiating social selling — Leverage conversations with both tagged and untagged mentions of your business as part of your organization’s sales process.
• Staying ahead of potential crises — Both social monitoring and listening can and should be utilized for crisis management planning. A platform with both of these functionalities may allow you to track trending keywords and sentiment around your brand. Consider if your team notes a sudden drop in sentiment or spike in certain trends. With that data on hand, you can quickly act before an incident spirals out of control. 
• Measure customer sentiment — Social listening enables you to track the general sentiment of customer posts and comments. That way, you can see what words are coming up the most and the general feeling around them. 

Related: What is Social Listening (& How to Get Started)

Content Scheduling 

Consistency is key to posting on social media. The internet moves quickly. If your business doesn’t post frequently on its social media channels, you’ll get lost in a sea of your competitors.

Ideally, you should be posting every day. The ability to schedule content can help you to achieve that goal while saving time for your social media manager. 

Content scheduling is a user-friendly feature that is commonly found in social media management tools. It gives you the ability to automatically publish content during optimal times of the day for your audience. That will undoubtedly drive more engagement to your posts.

Social Media Analytics

Any social media management tool worth its salt should have a thorough analytics offering. This is key to ensuring your strategy is effective.  It’s the best way to see your ROI, if you’re reaching new audiences, and how your brand promotion tactics are performing. Consider some additional benefits from Dynamic Sales Solutions:

• Decide which social networks are most effective — A strong analytics offering can help you decide which social media channels are most effective for your goals. For example, you can learn if you should spend more time on your Instagram or Facebook pages. Social media analytics can help you to see where your posts are getting the most engagement. You can also see how much traffic they’re bringing to your website. Those numbers can help to inform which channels your social media manager should dedicate more time to.
• Create better content — Reviewing your social media analytics can help you to understand which of your posts are performing the best. That way, you create more of what resonates the most with your audience.
• See how campaigns are performing — If your team is running a paid social media campaign, you’ll need visibility into how it is performing. If needed, you can pivot the direction of the current campaign.
• Understand your audience — Social media analytics can help you to better understand your audience’s behavior. This includes the time of day they are most active on social channels. Leverage that information to create content that is as targeted to your demographic as possible. 

Related: 11 Social Media Trends to Look Out for in 2022

Integrations 

The odds are that your business uses a plethora of different software products on a day-to-day basis. The more your software tools integrate with each other, the easier your job will be. Remember that your social media management tool is no exception. While it’s unlikely that your social media management tool will integrate with everything, here are a few options to consider look for:

• CRM to manage incoming leads 
• Help desk to allow your social team to seamlessly coordinate with your customer support team
• Website and URL tracking, such as Google Analytics, to track the ROI of your posts

Competitive Analysis

Not only does social media management software give you insight into your own performance, but you can keep tabs on your competitors’ online activity as well. Any tool should be able to provide you with basic information on your competition. This includes their follower counts across all social media channels. 

But it would be beneficial to dig deeper and find a social media management tool that offers competitive analysis functionalities. These may include the ability to view competitors’ best-performing content, their influencers, ongoing campaigns, and more. That way, you can compare your own growth and performance against your competitors, along with modeling strategies after theirs. 

Conclusion: The Right Social Media Management Tool is Invaluable to Your Business

Social media has increasingly become a vital part of businesses in any industry. But if you aren’t using the right tool, your online efforts will be futile. If that happens, you may find your audiences turning to your competition. Now’s the time to find the right solution for your business.

Consider the features that are important to you, conduct thorough research, and you’ll find yourself exceeding your digital marketing goals. Social media management tools aren’t a one-size-fits-all situation. However, with thoughtful research, you’ll be able to find the best one for you.

Get started with social media management today