3 Social Media Management Tools
/Hootsuite, Buffer, Edgar, eClincher, Sprout Social...oh my! Goodness, it seems like new social media management tools pop up every day. Okay, not that often but there's a lot of them out there - old and new ones!
I'm in the process of trying two new ones right now. (If you're a part of the Facebook Group, you may have noticed some of the daily posts coming from Edgar or eClincher). Here's a quick review of the one I used to use and the two I'm currently testing out. This isn't a very in depth review of them - I'll post more in depth reviews about each one later!
This appealed to me because it was free and for what I needed to do, the free option was perfect.
My problem with Hootsuite?
It was such a pain to have to go in every month and keep loading up my posts because after they're posted once they're gone.
Off the top of my head, I know Hootsuite currently works with these social media platforms:
- Facebook profiles
- Facebook pages
- Facebook groups
I haven't looked in awhile but I know they offer integration with quite a few social media platforms. Something I should probably look at again ;-)
I've been drawn to this social media management tool for several months now, ever since I first learned about it from one of my Virtual Assistant clients who had me do some work in her account. Unfortunately, I wasn't willing to invest (at $49 a month for the option I needed, I wasn't sure it would be worth it) in them...until now.
The more I started tracking time I was spending on having to upload things into Hootsuite, I started to realize that the $49 a month was worth it. So I signed up on March 12th and spent 3 hours loading all the content into the library, setting up categories, setting up the schedule, etc.
3 hours may seem like a long time but the awesome thing? That content never has to be loaded into Edgar again! They reuse all the content in my libraries.
SWEET!
In other words, it's pretty much a load it up and 'forget about it' sort of thing.
I love how user friendly the interface in Edgar is. It's easy to set up categories (to keep content organized), scheduling is easy, connecting social media accounts is easy.
Currently Edgar works with:
- Facebook profiles
- Facebook pages
- Facebook groups
- LinkedIn company pages
They offer a 30 day guarantee so even though you have to pay the $49 to sign up, if at any time during those first 30 days you decide the software isn't for you, they'll refund your money.
One thing I wish I had thought about before spending all the time I did setting things up, to only load a few things because I am not 100% positive I'm going to keep using them. So if in this 30 day "trial" I decide to leave them, I'll have lost all that time I spent setting everything up.
I don't know how long this one has been around but I just heard about it on Sunday so to me, it's brand new. This one also comes with a hefty monthly price tag but comes in a little cheaper than Edgar - $40 a month.
They offer a free 14 day trial so I signed up for that yesterday (March 14th). They also offer the same thing that draws so many people to Edgar - the ability to load content and have it reused over and over.
One thing about eClincher that far outweighs Edgar is they offer more social platform posting abilities.
Currently eClincher works with:
- Facebook profiles
- Facebook pages
- Facebook groups
- Google+
- Google Analytics
- Youtube
- Blogger
- Feedly
Clearly, eClincher offers way more social media platforms than Edgar which is why so many people have been drawn to them.
So far, at quick glance and first attempt to set things up - eClincher interface is not very user friendly at all. Edgar definitely beats them in this department!
In the end, I'm sure I'm going to end up with eClincher or Edgar but I'm still not 100% sure. Hootsuite still appeals to me just because it's free but man, the time it takes to post all the content I need to post every single month - it really is a pain.
In closing, the one thing I want you to remember is that just because something works for one person doesn't mean it's going to work for you. You have to decide what fits your needs best and go with that. Be sure to choose something that you're going to actually use!
Now it's your turn - I want to hear from you: are you using a social media management tool right now? If so, what one? What are the pros/cons to it?
