Handling various networks at the same time, on the other hand, can be challenging and actually cannot be achieved without certain social media management tools. These tools let users promptly reply messages on social, monitor all social accounts in one place, schedule posts in advance and analyze online activity.
Expert social media managers in Nigeria understand the importance of not just having the right tools but learning how to manage them effectively. But what kind of marketing software, dashboards and publishing tools are these gurus actually using?
Jovago.com, Africa’s No.1 online hotel booking portal reveals some of these tools below:
Bit.ly
Bit.ly is simply a URL shortener that takes a long web address and turns it into something much shorter. Most of the social networks (especially twitter) have a limited number of characters for each post and a shorter URL used across all your social networks makes for easy tracking from one dashboard.
Bit.ly does not only shorten your URLs though, it also offers an analytics and tracking service. The tool has both free and paid accounts.
Hootsuite
Possibly the most popular social media management tool for businesses people, HootSuite can be used to execute campaigns across multiple social networks, including Facebook and Twitter, from one web-based dashboard. It is an essential tool for managing social media, tracking dialogues and gauging campaign results via the web or mobile devices. HootSuite offers free, pro and enterprise solutions.
Perfect for promoting any Instagram account, Iconosquare lets you manage your existing community while simultaneously assisting with its growth by measuring likes, comments and followers. Its optimization analysis records the time your followers get online and measures them against interaction at the time you post. It has a slew of other features, including the ability to run and monitor contests.
Buffer
A smart and easy way to schedule content across social media, Buffer is the ultimate tool for publishing on social media, and it offers great analytics services too. The free plan exhibits the number of link clicks, likes, retweets, comment or shares depending on the platform, while the ‘Buffer For Business’ plan allows you to view and export analytics for updates posted from the platform.
Another popular web app for social media management, Tweetdeck is a Twitter-focused managing tool, with a clean and responsive interface which makes it easy for users to engage with streams and posts swiftly. It is extremely flexible, as it allows you to add all the Twitter streams you are interested in. You can even set up notifications to ensure you respond to comments or questions in real time when you connect with Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Foursquare, Google Buzz and more. Unlike HootSuite, which operates within your Internet browser, TweetDeck can be installed as a separate program on your hard drive as a desktop application.
