How do you make the decision without spending a ridiculously large amount of time, money and brain power?
Most people just give up and sign up for one of the most well-known tools.
Sometimes that can work, but more often than not, many people will find that the tool doesn't actually help them with their needs. But that's after countless hours of time and a lot of money. What a waste! Not exactly a good return on investment.
I'm on a mission. This needs to change!
I want to make the decision easier for you and that's why I put this video together on how to pick the ideal Social Media Management Tool.
What you will Learn
It's tempting to pick one of the famous tools such as Hootsuite, Sprout Social or Buffer. They're all great tools.
But they the right tool for you and your business?
It's important learn...
How to Pick the best tools for your needs
How tools can help you be more efficient and streamline complex workflows.
How to define your needs- publishing, monitoring & managing engagement, measuring success or reporting to a team/client.
What are the best tools for each of these needs and some alternatives?
In the video, I've only included self-service options and not enterprise level tools. They're all affordable.
More Information
After watching the video, you should now be armed with information to make a better decision, but if you need more information or help, do not fear! I've written other guides to help you..
If you need more help, I'd love to chat with you and brainstorm the best tool for you. For more information, check my services. And you can check out this cool Social Media Agency Directory from Agorapulse.
Hi Ian, thank you for this valuable content. What do you think of Eclincher? They seem very all rounded and at a reasonable price. I would greatly appreciate your input.
I will definitely need to try the Twools tool on standalone and WordPress versions. I chose Twitter as the primary social media portal for my website. So this time, I will abandon tweetdeck – I’ve been using it for a couple of weeks, but I don’t like it at all.
Randy BB
HI, you have a lot of useful info. I was wondering what tool you would suggest for managing 7 Instagram accounts. I am a one woman social media business and have reached a point where I’m struggling with the login/logout method for all my client accounts!
It’s tough when you have to manage so many accounts at one time. I assume they are all business accounts? Instagram now only allows scheduling to business accounts – so take that in mind when looking at this. If you’re focussed solely on Instagram, then I’d recommend Later – https://later.com/ – they don’t list prices for managing 7 accounts, but I’d chat with them about that. Managing 5 accounts will cost $49/mth. Or, Agorapulse might work for you. They don’t just support Instagram, but they do a great job with Instagram. Their medium plan costs $79/mth and allows you to manage up to 10 accounts. Hope that helps.
Hi Neil, thanks for letting me know! I’m not sure why it’s not displaying, but I updated the blog post with the new embed code and it now seems to be working. Could you check? Ian
Social media is a strong tool for marketing. As a business that is constantly working to stay relevant in your industry and making sales, you should leverage on this.
I am looking for Facebook tool with following features:
– record sentiments
– dashboard where content can be uploaded
– accept and reject any feed
– discussions on the content can happen real time on this platform
– analysis of posts along with sentiment
– advance analytics management
I am about to work with a customer to supplement their social marketing for just one small division. Before we start I would like to get a picture of the existing social marketing activity of the corporation. What would be the best tool(s) to use? Note that I don’t own any of their on-line assets and don’t want to ask their corporate marketing department for the stats or for permission. So, this is more like an exercise which might be done by a competitor rather than by the organization itself.
Hi Keith, thanks for getting in touch. There are a number of tools that can help here. There is AgoraPulse which I use to help monitor my social activity and competitors. However, AgoraPulse is mainly a social media management tool and although you can add competitors without getting admin access, It’s probably not what you’re looking for.
There is Klear and Quintly which do a great job, but they might be expensive. Klear , in particular does what you need very well. You may be able to use the free trial and see how you get on.
I’d recommend Buzzsumo to analyse their content marketing- they have a decent free version. Hope that helps.
Hi there, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with us. do you know of a tool that allows me to filter my twitter feed based on the amount retweets and favourites. So for instance i can view only tweets from my feed with say 100 favourites or more.
Hi Joeseph. Such a great question! Unfortunately, as far as I know, there isn’t a tool to help you do exactly what you’re looking for. However what are you wanting to achieve? Are you wanting to find your most popular tweets? Or do you want to filter very specifically?
It is possible to build a tool to do what you want though. I’d have to think about it, but it might be possible to add that kind of filter to my Twools app- http://twools.it/ Ian
Hi Ian, Thanks for your reply. I would like to find the most popular tweets in my feed (from the people I follow) and also filter out the noise. its a shame such a tool doesn’t exist. i feel it is very helpful.
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![Choosing the Perfect Social Media Management Tool [VIDEO] by @iagdotme](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%20400%20600'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
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Thanks for the tips … you may have just saved me money and heartache.
Hi Ian, thank you for this valuable content. What do you think of Eclincher? They seem very all rounded and at a reasonable price. I would greatly appreciate your input.
Thank you.
I will definitely need to try the Twools tool on standalone and WordPress versions. I chose Twitter as the primary social media portal for my website. So this time, I will abandon tweetdeck – I’ve been using it for a couple of weeks, but I don’t like it at all.
Randy BB
Thanks so much. I’m looking for something to replace Hootsuite, so I’m really trying to do my research. This was very helpful in my process!
Thanks, Kylie. Glad it helped. Let me know how you get on! Ian
HI, you have a lot of useful info. I was wondering what tool you would suggest for managing 7 Instagram accounts. I am a one woman social media business and have reached a point where I’m struggling with the login/logout method for all my client accounts!
It’s tough when you have to manage so many accounts at one time. I assume they are all business accounts? Instagram now only allows scheduling to business accounts – so take that in mind when looking at this. If you’re focussed solely on Instagram, then I’d recommend Later – https://later.com/ – they don’t list prices for managing 7 accounts, but I’d chat with them about that. Managing 5 accounts will cost $49/mth. Or, Agorapulse might work for you. They don’t just support Instagram, but they do a great job with Instagram. Their medium plan costs $79/mth and allows you to manage up to 10 accounts. Hope that helps.
Hi Ian, lots of amazing content – so thanks for that! Only thing here is I don’t see the video (also checked your FB and TY pages). Is it just me??
Hi Neil, thanks for letting me know! I’m not sure why it’s not displaying, but I updated the blog post with the new embed code and it now seems to be working. Could you check? Ian
Social media is a strong tool for marketing. As a business that is constantly working to stay relevant in your industry and making sales, you should leverage on this.
Hi Ian, Can you provide your inputs for social bakers. thanks.
Hi Ian,
I am looking for Facebook tool with following features:
– record sentiments
– dashboard where content can be uploaded
– accept and reject any feed
– discussions on the content can happen real time on this platform
– analysis of posts along with sentiment
– advance analytics management
I am about to work with a customer to supplement their social marketing for just one small division. Before we start I would like to get a picture of the existing social marketing activity of the corporation. What would be the best tool(s) to use? Note that I don’t own any of their on-line assets and don’t want to ask their corporate marketing department for the stats or for permission. So, this is more like an exercise which might be done by a competitor rather than by the organization itself.
Hi Keith, thanks for getting in touch. There are a number of tools that can help here. There is AgoraPulse which I use to help monitor my social activity and competitors. However, AgoraPulse is mainly a social media management tool and although you can add competitors without getting admin access, It’s probably not what you’re looking for.
There is Klear and Quintly which do a great job, but they might be expensive. Klear , in particular does what you need very well. You may be able to use the free trial and see how you get on.
I’d recommend Buzzsumo to analyse their content marketing- they have a decent free version. Hope that helps.
Ian
Hi there, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with us. do you know of a tool that allows me to filter my twitter feed based on the amount retweets and favourites. So for instance i can view only tweets from my feed with say 100 favourites or more.
thanks in advance!!!
Hi Joeseph. Such a great question! Unfortunately, as far as I know, there isn’t a tool to help you do exactly what you’re looking for. However what are you wanting to achieve? Are you wanting to find your most popular tweets? Or do you want to filter very specifically?
It is possible to build a tool to do what you want though. I’d have to think about it, but it might be possible to add that kind of filter to my Twools app- http://twools.it/ Ian
Hi Ian, Thanks for your reply. I would like to find the most popular tweets in my feed (from the people I follow) and also filter out the noise. its a shame such a tool doesn’t exist. i feel it is very helpful.