It’s really important to define early on, which features you really need from a social media tool. ContentCal, however, is one example of a tool that helps marketers with the entire process of content creation. While there are a few available scheduling tools that seek to make content creation more visual, approachable, and un-intimidating, it’s ContentCal’s flexibility that gives it the edge on the competition with features that allow you to work in the way that you prefer. If you’re thinking about your long-term goals, you need to be making use of a social media tool that comes with analytics. You need to regularly check in with your content performance to assess which posts are receiving the best engagement and helping your channels grow. If you don’t want to waste your time and energy on ineffectual content, then you need to maintain an awareness of your results in order to improve for the future. While social media networks Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn are able to provide analytical information within the platform, a social media tool that can pull all of the important information together in one centralized location will save hours of time and make it easier to compare results across multiple accounts. Your usual social media tools are often built for bigger businesses and brands but if you’re looking for something to help you manage approvals, minimize risk (eliminating embarrassing typos), manage multiple accounts, and communicate with your team (or clients) on upcoming content, then you need to factor in these requirements. Take ContentCal for example. And finally, for the best teamwork, you also need shared visibility over the content plan.
2 hours a day can achieve some decent follower growth, 4 hours a day could massively raise your brand awareness, and 8 hours a day? Well, your social channels would be thriving.
But let’s face it, who has the time to pour 70% or more of their day into social media management? Certainly not a lot of us.
Now, we’re probably not the first people to recommend you try a social media tool. In fact, we’re probably not even one of the first ten. But if there’s one thing you should take away from this blog, it’s the importance of finding the right social media tool.
So, without further ado, here are the key questions you need to be asking when seeking the perfect social media tool…
1. Does it make your life easier (now, and in the future)?
At the end of the day, if it’s not going to make your life easier, then there’s just no point. When selecting a social media tool you should be looking for something reliable, easy to understand, and simple to start using from the moment you sign up. While it’s easy to follow the crowd and sign up to the most popular social media tool to pop up on your Google search, you need to be realistic about whether you really need so many fancy features that you’ll probably never fully understand or use.
For each new tool you discover, you need to ask yourself; are you really going to use this tool to its full potential? Are you willing to spend hours of time in training sessions with an account manager learning how to use the tool? If the answer is no, then your search is not over.
It’s really important to define early on, which features you really need from a social media tool. Perhaps you’re an agency looking to streamline client approvals, or seeking a more visual interface to help with content ideation. Decide what you need, and focus on finding a tool that ticks all of your boxes.
2. Does it help you with the entire content creation process from start to finish?
This question might actually be hard to answer until you start. While you may enjoy using the first social media tool you try, you might not realize what you were missing out on until you try your hand at a completely different tool with different priorities and functionalities. As a result, it’s important to test out a number of different tools before deciding on the right one for you. Although they may not advertise it, if you ask for a free trial, you’ll more than likely get one.
When choosing your tool, think about the content creation process step-by-step and make sure your new social media tool fits the bill in every department. Does it help make the process of content creation less overwhelming? Does it help you plan out your content before you come to write it? Does it allow you to change your plans easily? Does it help you work with others? Does it let you check on progress? Does it keep you organized? Etc. etc.
It’s pretty common for social media tools to be too focused on the end goal; scheduling and publishing your content. As a result, many people are turning to the likes of spreadsheets for the sake of planning, alongside using a social media tool to schedule the content when they could be using a tool that fills both shoes. And furthermore, agencies managing multiple clients are sure to struggle using spreadsheets to show content and…
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