No one can ignore the power of social media in creating and sustaining a successful business. The problem is that there are so many different platforms, and managing all of them requires a team that most small business owners cannot afford.
The good news is that there are tools for small business social media management which are inexpensive and easy to set up. Read on to find out what your options are and choose the one that’s most appropriate for your business needs.
Buffer
When you want to share some exciting news about your business, or a photo or video, it can be incredibly time consuming to post it on each individual platform, like Pinterest, Instagram and Twitter. Buffer is a great resource that can automatically share content on a multitude of platforms, and offers both free and paid plans.
You can add all of the content at a time that is convenient for you, such as early morning or evening, and then create a schedule to stagger the posts to be shared at optimal times. After the content has been shared, Buffer will offer analytics of how well each post performed.
Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a great resource to help you with social media that may take may take some time to learn to navigate, but it’s well worth it. Although there are limited free features, you will have to pay for most services.
Hootsuite lets you to add content and store it in their Cloud, that will allow your team to share it when the time comes. However, the tool’s main benefit is its comprehensive analytics, which allows you to analyze conversations and results across channels and compare them. You can even utilize demographics to filter conversations about your brand by location, language, etc.
Agorapulse
Calling itself a Hootsuite alternative, Agorapulse offers some great features. It analyzes your social media platforms 24/7 and alerts you in real time when something needs your attention. Plus, you have the ability to automate the moderation process by creating certain rules.
This tool helps you maintain good relationships with your audience by storing all of the interactions you have had with your followers, such as their comments, likes and messages.
Plus, you can compare your page to that of your competitors to give you an idea of what is working or not for them and help you improve your social media reach.
Feedly
The main point of creating social media pages is to engage with your target audience. However, most businesses don’t have enough information to come up with several posts a day, and different ones across various platforms at that! However, that is what’s needed to keep the public interested.
An easy way to fix this challenge is to share other interesting and relevant content that your followers would enjoy. This is where Feedly comes in—instead of subscribing to dozens of other sites or platforms and perusing their content, this Feed Reader collects content from various sites and presents it to you in an easy to read format. You can then instantly share it on your social media!
There are many great tools and resources that can take your social media management to the next level and help you engage with current and potential customers. The truth is that it may take a financial investment to set up accounts with some of these resources, which is why a small business loan can help. IOU Financial is committed to helping small businesses grow and thrive; contact us today to learn more.
