July 2017 - Going Social

When was the last time you looked over your various social media account profiles? I’m referring to both your personal as well as business accounts.

Let me say that again – both personal AND business.

Why both?
Why is this important?
Isn’t it enough that you just have an account setup?

In this blog article I’ll explain:

why it’s essential that you do a social media account and profile audit for BOTH personal and business accounts at least every three months
what you should look out for
how doing this exercise will help you stay at the top of the minds of your friends and contacts, so you can grow your professional reputation and business success

Here are our top five reasons for doing an audit to your social accounts:

1. Social platforms change rapidly
Depending on how active you are with your social media marketing, you may or may not be aware that the platforms are constantly and continually evolving. Facebook alone is known to make changes weekly, if not more frequently. Many of the social platforms don’t tell users about all of these changes either. More importantly, if you are not actively looking to stay in the know about these changes you may not ever notice.

The most significant changes that can affect how you “look” on social platforms are the changes to the platform User Interface or UI. Almost every platform has changed their UI in the last year. What does this mean for you? For one, your profile pictures and cover photo may need to be adjusted if the size of the image area has changes. Also, Facebook sometimes changes how information is displayed over a Page cover photo. If you have text on your cover photo it may now be covered by text or even buttons.

In addition to image changes, sometimes the platforms will change what information is actually visible on your profile. There may be more options for you to include additional information – so make sure you are checking frequently!

2. You own personal info has likely changed (job, interests, photos)
Your business grows and evolves, as do some of your own interests. Have a look at your company bio and links (maybe you are no longer using a specific social media platform – why link to it if you don’t actively use it?). Look at your summary, job history and other details on LinkedIn. Have a look at your Twitter bio and consider what you might change? Facebook (your personal profile) is a trove of collected information. Not only do you possibly have “friend” connections you might want to purge, but you likely have pages you liked a long time back that you might want to clear out, groups you want to “unjoin” etc. Facebook is known to use this data to help target ads to users and clearing this info out might help you to no longer see some annoying ads that you have zero interest in.

3. People connect with YOU First – then your business

I mentioned earlier that reviewing your “personal” profiles along with your business profiles is important. Many people don’t consider that it’s the person behind a business that people really want to connect with. You may not realize that people are looking at, and may try to connect with, or follow you on your personal profiles as well. Have a look at your account bios, cover photos, even the type of content you are posting and sharing. Is your account public or private? You might want to consider making an adjustment depending on how you connect with your customers and the type of relationship you want to create. This is a great segway to point number four.

4. How you use social accounts may have changed – private or public

For your personal accounts, have a look at the content you are sharing publicly. Do you want your customers or potential customers to see this info? How much personal info do you want to share with the world? I’m not going to tell you whether you should go private or public – that’s a personal decision you have to make – I’m just suggesting you think about it and that will help you stop and think before posting on selected accounts.

5. Your accounts may be linked

Another factor to look at is if you have social accounts connected to each other. By this I don’t mean whether or not you have LINKS to each social profile on each platform. What I’m referring to here is whether or not you have them linked to cross promote your posts. Many people used to connect their platforms, for example, to save time people would connect Twitter posts to automatically post the same content (tweet) onto Facebook. My recommendation is to break these ties. Both the audience on each platform as well as the structure and use of the platforms are very unique. Twitter for example is limited to 140 characters, while Facebook allows for a much longer post. People on Facebook also don’t like to see as many hashtags as one might use on Twitter. On that note, hashtags are still very popular on Instagram, but if you use 20 – 30 on a given post on Instagram, you won’t want to post that exact post to Facebook. It makes sense to post on each platform independently.

Here are a few other small things to look for:

Make sure your contact information is up to date
Look for messages you may have missed (your Facebook inbox, Twitter direct messages)
Look for new invite or connection requests
Check notification settings on each platform – these may have changed
Check to see if there are software updates for apps for iPhone/Android so you have latest features

If you haven’t taken a look at your social platforms in a while, we hope you will consider doing a review so you can be sure you are putting you best image forward to both your friends and clients.

You’ll likely find a few things you can change or improve. Sometimes these changes (such as changing a profile cover photo) can be published in your feed and that can be used to your advantage as another way to have your audience see an update from you.

Let us know in the comments if you have found something else you’ve deemed important to review with your own social accounts and how we can help you do a social account audit.

In today’s technology-driven world, social media makes it easier for companies, especially small businesses with limited resources, to unlock consumer insights to drastically enhance the company’s ability to increase revenue. With our clients’ wants and needs always in mind, we strive to find high quality resources, while keeping within the client’s budget parameters. This is why for many of our clients we have been using several different social media app platforms. While they all offer similar features and pricing, we tend to use Hootsute for clients who are small, new to social media, or have a minimal budget. Until recently, Hootsuite offered a free version; however, now their free plan limits the number of posts that can be scheduled in advance. Since our company’s process is to help clients plan a content schedule a month in advance, it is more efficient to use a platform that has the capability to schedule thirty days out and still offers the lowest price possible.

With the change in Hootsuite’s pricing, additional social media platforms have been reviewed to determine if upgrading to Hootsuite’s pro plan ($19/month) provides the most benefits to clients, or if a better alternative exists. Ultimately, we decided to utilize Buffer (link to company website) (at their “Awesome” plan level for $10/month) for many clients that previously used Hootsuite.

What follows is a quick review of the features of some of the top platforms and their corresponding pricing levels.

Buffer
Buffer strives to get the most out of each social media post by optimizing the time of day the post goes up to increase the opportunities for fans and followers to view the post. Users can also request Buffer to upload their social media posts automatically; so that they can enter their posts for a given time period and not have to log back in each day to upload them. One of Buffer’s unique features, and what sets it apart from competitors, is its browser extension and downloadable mobile app. With these add-ons, users are able to make updates anytime, anywhere.

Buffer offers users a free fourteen day trial to begin. If you are satisfied and want to continue using this platform, the pricing levels are:
• Individuals – free for one social media account
• Awesome – $10/month for up to ten social media accounts
• Small – $99/month for up to twenty-five social media accounts
• Medium – $199/month for up to fifty social media accounts
• Large – $399/month for up to 150 social media accounts

Hootsuite
Possibly the best known of the social platform companies, Hootsuite offers an extended thirty day trial to reel customers in. Hootsuite offers users many similar features found on other platforms including: scheduling, content curation, analytics, and social media topic monitoring. Hootsuite is unique to offer the ability for posts and comments to be delegated to specific team members. They also provide the ability to host social media contests across multiple networks and platforms.

Hootsuite’s plans include:
• Professional – $10/month for up to ten social profiles (1 user)
• Team – $99/month for up to twenty social profiles (up to 3 users)
• Business – $499 for up to fifty social profiles (up to 10 users)
• Custom solutions at the Enterprise level are also available

Agorapulse
AgoraPulse is another marketing software platform that allows clients to run in-store promotions, generate coupons, and identify engaged users. AgoraPulse manages social media messages with an inbox feature that captures customer’s questions and comments so that customers are well-served. Many international and billion dollar companies, such as Volkswagen, Pepsi, Yahoo, and McDonald’s, use this platform to monitor social media responses. In a comparison between AgoraPulse and Hootsuite, users reported high satisfaction ratings: 100% satisfaction rating with AgoraPulse to Hootsuite’s 99%.

AgoraPulse is a little more expensive than most other platforms for less social media accounts, but all plans include: scheduled posts, Chrome extension, mobile app, content queue, drag and drop content scheduling, evergreen content management, automated moderation, and Facebook ROI calculator.

Package costs are:
• Small – $49/month for up to three social profiles (1 user)
• Medium – $99/month/month/month for up to ten social profiles (up to 3 users)
• Large – $199 for up to twenty-five social profiles (up to 6 users)
• Enterprise – $299/month for up to forty social profiles (up to 12 users)

MavSocial
If the client needs to interact with other potential clients using visual content MavSocial may be the marketing software best suited to their needs. MavSocial offers users a Digital Library that coordinates with other important features. These features provide brand-based permissions and the ability to add stock images acquired through the platform. This platform is used across a wide array of company sizes and industries. They serve small to medium sized businesses, as well as large enterprises in a number of areas: educational agencies, financial services, healthcare, hospitality, retail, and eCommerce. This makes them very flexible to meet the client’s particular needs. MavSocial supports both infrastructure work and campaign-based social media marketing. This means that the platform is able to create, publish and monitor social media marketing and also rise to the challenge of supporting a complex social media campaign. When a company uses this platform for a campaign, they are able to measure the performance with the platform’s reporting functionality. MavSocial also has many custom scheduling features that can be personalized to meet the user’s needs.

MavSocial offers a free trial and the following pricing options:
• Small Business – free for up to two social profiles (1 user)
• Advanced – $19/month for up to ten social profiles (1 user)
• Pro – $59/month for up to fifty social profiles
• Agency – $199/month for up to fifty social profiles (up to 3 users)
• Customization is available

All of the social media scheduling apps reviewed in this article were designed to alleviate some of the stress and time it takes to manage across multiple social media accounts. These apps also provide customer analytics that can be used to create engaging social media campaigns. When analytic data is available, businesses can direct their marketing efforts to effectively increase customer engagement and revenue.

Because each platform provider offers similar features and pricing packages, we discuss the specific needs of each client in order to choose the platform that works best for them and their budget. If you’re ready to drive business growth by implementing strategic social media marketing initiatives, fill out a Contact Form and one of our Social Media Advisors will be in contact with you within 24 hours.

Month: July 2017

4 Social Management Software Platforms Reviewed