What Are Social Media Posting Tools and Content Management Tools?
You're on a bunch of social media channels, right? I mean who isn't these days?
I bet you have business channels too? Instagram personal account, business account, Facebook profile, business page, groups, Twitter and all the others too. It can all get so complicated to keep track of it all!
Never fear though - that's where social media posting tools and content management tools come in!
So, what do these tools do?
In a nutshell, they give you a single place to log in and see ALL your social channels in one place, AND help you to plan out your content for your business.
Sounds good, right? But how do they work?
Scheduling
Here is a glimpse into my scheduled posts in agorapulse
I love scheduling! It lets me plan a chunk of time in my day to plan content for myself or my clients at once.
These tools let you plan your content for each social media platform in advance and schedule it to go out at whatever time works best for your business. It's such a time saver and I couldn't do my job without it. It frees me up for the rest of the week to engage and respond to any changes fast.
Best Time to Post
What's a good time to post?
Well, that's another piece of the puzzle that social media posting tools can help you with.
Once the tools start to see engagement on your posts, they can tell you when the most effective times are for your particular business and help you to maximise your reach and social impact.
Brilliant, right?
Engagement
We all know that engagement is a huge part of growing on social media platforms.
Imagine if you could respond to comments on all your social media channels from one place? Wouldn't that make it so much easier to respond quickly AND make sure you're not missing anything?
Indeed! And that's what social media posting tools can help you with.
Curation
Are you looking for industry related content for your social media channels?
Some posting tools allow you to add RSS feeds for monitoring and easily share content with commentary right out of the interface.
Many social media posting tools also come with a browser extension that allows you to share any content from the web simply by clicking the extension, choosing your platforms and boom! Instant curated content!
Social Listening
You want to keep up-to-date with your industry and your competitors, right?
Some tools let you build custom lists using filters made up of hashtags, keywords, usernames and RSS feeds so you can stay right on top of current trends in your industry and create content around those trends as they're happening.
Approval
If you're a social media manager for a client, maybe you need content to be approved before going out?
Many tools come with this workflow built in as an optional feature.
Mobile
Many social media posting tools come with mobile apps. I can only speak from the iOS side as I'm an iPhone guy. It's great as you can share into the app using the iOS share sheet and the select what platforms you want the post to out to, add commentary, hashtags etc. and boom. I do this All The Time from Lightroom Mobile into Buffer. It works a treat!
Reporting and Analytics
All the tools come with some level of analytics and reporting. Agorapulse has superb reporting built in, allowing you to see what's working and what's not very easily and quickly.
Buffer's reporting is very good too, but it's an add on to their Publish platform. But maybe it's only the Publish component you need, making it a strong choice.
Packages and Trials
Pretty much all the posting tools come with various price points depending on what your needs are. You might even get by with a free Hootsuite plan - that gives you three social media channels, 30 scheduled posts and 1 user. Buffer has a similar offering and is a service that I use myself. Its iOS integration is superb, as is its integration with the Chrome browser.
In short, you'd be crazy NOT to be making use of the features that these tools offer. They will simplify your workflow and make you look good to your customers and clients by being on top of it and crushing it with your content!