Social media management is a time-consuming endeavor when you consider creating social posts, scheduling those posts to each social network, measuring results, listening to and engaging with conversations on social, and more. It’s also more difficult and less effective to try to do all these activities through each platform where your business has a presence.
Fortunately, social media management technology can make your processes more efficient and give you a complete picture of performance across social rather than one-off views by platform. Here are some features to look for:
Social Publishing
Social publishing is the most popular social media management tool, and for good reason. It allows you to post to multiple social platforms from one convenient place. When on your search for social media management technology, be sure that your chosen option includes connectors to the social networks that are important to your business. And be sure that you can also incorporate rich media such as photos, videos and GIFs when posting to each of those networks, so you can create more compelling content.
Social media management technology should also be able to assist you with content curation, which can be a significant time saver. Content curation can help fill your social content calendar and position your business as a thought leader. A robust social media marketing platform should allow you to quickly discover and share articles from around the web that are related to topics that you identify.
Social Listening
With billions of users, social media is a noisy place. It can be difficult to follow along and find the conversations that matter most to your business. A social media marketing platform that contains a social listening component can help.
Rather than logging into each platform to find conversations, social listening functionality allows you to conveniently monitor everything from one place and take the appropriate actions. This includes engaging in conversations that impact your company and responding to individuals who mention your social handles, comment on your posts or directly contact you.
Social Analytics
It might seem like all social analytics are created equal, but the metrics that matter to B2B marketers differ from the ones of importance to B2C brands. When selecting a social media management platform, be sure to consider the type of data that the solution can offer you. Will it allow you to see how social media impacts your sales funnel? Can it help you measure the true ROI of your social activities?
In addition, look for a platform that enables you to measure the effectiveness of your content and optimize for future success. Clicks, likes, mentions and shares can all show your audience’s level of engagement and what’s driving it. These insights will help you answer important questions like which platform is best for your company for lead generation, the best time of day to post and which campaigns are resonating most with your audiences.
Social Advocacy
Many businesses will occasionally remind their employees and partners to share the company’s social posts, but that often isn’t sustained or effective. Instead, businesses should look to create a formal social advocacy program that will expand their social reach and amplify their message beyond their existing audience.
In addition to identifying who your advocates will be and what kinds of content you would like for them to share, also look at how you will communicate with your advocates and inspire them to act. Social advocacy features within a social media marketing platform enable you to deliver targeted content to your advocates for quick and simple sharing. They can also give you insight into who is sharing what and who are your most active advocates.
In addition to these features, to avoid siloed data and to make your data more actionable, it’s important to consider how a social marketing platform will integrate with other technologies that are essential to your business. Two of these key technologies are CRM and marketing automation. To maximize the benefits and performance of each of these systems, ensure that you have a tight integration among all three.
For example, the marketing automation solution has a native integration with Microsoft Dynamics 365, delivering unparalleled access to CRM data for better segmentation, hyper-personalization and marketing success. powered by Oktopost rounds out this marketing technology stack, providing smart, time-saving social features and closing the loop from social click to sale by tracking engagement in Dynamics 365.
This post is an excerpt from our eBook, The B2B Marketer’s Guide to Social Media Success. Download your complimentary copy .
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