Its time once again for our monthly round-up of social media tools that could help you to manage your organization’s social media efforts. The 3 tools we will be discussing this month will all be focused around managing your incoming messages from social media in one unified location. “How can I reduce the time I spend on social media?” is one of the most common questions we receive from our students. Unified social media communication software platforms, sometimes referred to as “social media inboxes” can help.
A reminder that NISM is a vendor-neutral organization that does not promote any single platform over another. Rather our goal is to help you choose the best mix of social media tools for your organization or client.
HUBSPOT
Part of what makes HubSpot one of the most actively used web marketing automation tools on the market today is their understanding that individuals who are operating as social media strategists often need a tool that can not only provide a single unified place to manage social media interactions, but can also help them to show their management and leadership that web and social media marketing has a real effect on the bottom line.
With HubSpot’s Social Media Inbox feature you will not only be able to integrate the conversations taking place on your main social media accounts into one, easy to monitor location – they will also help you prioritize your conversations, and allow you to keep a history of your communications with each of your community members.
It is an excellent tool, that can be enhanced further as you increase your subscription level. Subscriptions for HubSpot will start at $200 per month, and may require additional training to get started.
HOOTSUITE
Another actively used tool among practicing professional web and social media strategists is Hootsuite. Just as HubSpot provides a wide array of tools and resources in addition to he unified social media inbox, Hootsuite has additional features and plugins that can allow you to streamline your team’s workflow, quickly pinpoint customer service opportunities and get valuable data about your social media engagement.
Small businesses and consultants may also appreciate the fact that Hootsuite offers pricing plans that begin from $0.00 per month, which can help in situations where budgets are tight. However, it also provides features as your organization grows that are powerful enough to manage large communities as well.
All in all Hootsuite is a versatile software that is built to help unify your social media communications and streamline your online engagement across the board.
CLOZE
A software with a very specific purpose – to make social human again. Cloze is a free web and mobile application that takes your email inbox, and social media conversations (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) and puts them all into one single inbox where you can respond and interact as you would on each platform. It will also automatically help to prioritize your messages to help you organize the messages from the people who are most import to you to help cut through the clutter. There are also features included where you can share specific messages with those on your team and bookmark messages to be responded to later.
Cloze does not have all of the features you will find with HubSpot and Hootsute, and that is not its goal. What it does well is provide you with a powerful social media inbox that can provide you with relevant content that you can review and respond to – all in one place.
What is your favorite tool to help manage your time on social media?
You might be interested looking at MavSocial http://www.mavsocial.com- it helps people save time and be more efficient in managing all their social media visual content (images, videos etc). All content (owned, licensed etc) is uploaded into the cloud, fully tagged with meta data for searching, access and repurposing etc – images can then be enhanced with the inbuilt photo editor and then published to major social media networks
There is a free version available.
Full disclosure – i am one of the founders