GUIDE
Selecting a Social Media Management (SMM) Tool
Finding the perfect social media management solution for your business can feel like an insurmountable task. However, it doesn’t have to be.
Get startedThere are a lot of social media management (SMM) tools on the market today, and each tool comes with its own laundry list of features.
This makes the buying process inherently complex and simply searching for “the best SMM tool” won’t necessarily deliver results that factor in your organization’s unique needs.
So to help you find the SMM tool that’s right for you, we’ve broken down the buying process into three simple steps:
- Step 1: Determining your SMM needs
- Step 2: Understanding an SMM tool’s capabilities
- Step 3: Comparing vendors
These three steps are designed to make the buying process less overwhelming and help you become a more informed consumer. Ready to get started? Let’s go from the beginning.
The evolution of social media
The growth of social media has been explosive ever since the first social networks appeared on the scene in the early 2000s.
And, although many individual social media platforms have come and gone over the years, the growth of social media indicates that social networking is no passing trend. In fact, the active global social media population has reached 4.7bn people.
But it’s not only audience sizes that have grown over the past few years. Marketers’ understanding of the strategic implications of social media, and their abilities to reach audiences in new ways, have also expanded in impressive ways. Companies large and small are using social media to attract potential customers, monitor brand mentions, and much, much more.
As social media’s role continues to expand within marketing departments, thousands of organizations have turned to SMM tools to help them execute their social media strategy.
However, finding the right tool can be a challenge, which is why we’ve outlined how to identify an SMM tool that supports your marketing objectives in this guide.
The definition of an SMM tool
SMM tools have evolved over the years from one- and two-trick ponies into complete suites in order to better serve the busy social media managers that use them on a daily basis.
But before we discuss the specific features of an SMM tool, let’s look at its definition:
A social media management (SMM) tool is a software application that allows businesses to manage, monitor, and analyze information related to one or more social media accounts across a variety of platforms.
These tools allow you to complete all those tasks from a single interface.
It’s important to remember that a SMM tool isn’t a magic wand.
They can do a variety of things, but they can’t directly increase your follower base or follower engagement. This is a common misconception around SMM tools, and an issue which often surfaces during the buying process.
However, if a solution can provide actionable insights and make collaboration within your team smoother, users will have more time to dedicate to developing a strategy focused on increasing your follower count or engagement rate.
Step 1: Determining your SMM needs
Evaluating SMM tools can be difficult, especially when most tools appear to have similar functionality. That is why the first step in any buying process involves determining your own organizational needs and challenges. Knowing this information will better prepare you for the conversations you will have with different vendors down the line.
To help you determine whether or not you need an SMM tool, we’ve prepared a list of questions that you should ask yourself before contacting a potential vendor.
Do you need an SMM tool?
If you’re a marketer struggling to manage multiple social media channels, post across multiple social media accounts, and monitor multiple social conversations, then you’re probably overdue for an SMM tool. And if you don’t want to be juggling between different point vendors, then you want to consider simplifying the process of managing all of your social media channels with an SMM tool.
Why do you need an SMM tool?
Try to identify the specific pain points in your current role or organizational setup that an SMM tool could help you alleviate. Maybe you’re struggling to collaborate across departments regarding your social media strategy. Or maybe you’re annoyed by the amount of time it takes to manually log into your social accounts and channels. This will help you identify the type of features you require.
What are the networks that are critical to your social media strategy?
Facebook? LinkedIn? Twitter? Instagram? TikTok? Identify the specific networks that you are currently leveraging, as well as any networks that you are considering using in the future. Not all SMM platforms connect to every social media network, so this knowledge may help you narrow the scope of your search.
How many channels and social accounts do you have?
Do your local markets or franchises have separate social media profiles? If so, how many are there? Take stock of all of the different pages or profiles that your business is using to communicate with customers.
How many people will be using the SMM tool?
Many SMM tools base their pricing structure on the number of users that will require a login. So, think about how many people there are on your team and whether or not other departments or markets need a login.
What do you hope to get out of an SMM tool?
Take a moment to identify the specific benefits or outputs that you hope to achieve through the implementation of an SMM tool. Maybe you want to improve your customer response time on social media. Or maybe you want to begin monitoring keywords, hashtags, and brand mentions. Identifying these goals now will help you sort through the SMM tools that don’t accommodate your needs.
What is your budget?
Most SMM tools require a quarterly or yearly contract, which is why it is important to think about what your marketing budget may look like six or 12 months from now.
Who should be on your buying committee?
Identify the stakeholders within different departments (Marketing, Legal, Finance, etc) that will need to be involved in the purchasing process. It is often a good idea to bring these individuals into the conversation around purchasing an SMM tool early.
Are you planning for tomorrow and not just today?
Take a moment to consider the type of partnership programs that different SMM tools have with the major social networks. These partnerships can serve as an indicator of an SMM tool’s reliability.
The benefits of SMM tools
Marketers are becoming more interested in determining how they can use social media to create value for their business - and SMM tools play a large role in that process. The social media ecosystem is becoming increasingly complex, prompting a large number of companies around the world to turn to SMM tools for assistance. With the ability to manage multiple social media accounts and monitor multiple social conversations, these tools offer busy marketers several benefits.
- Save a significant amount of time: SMM tools can increase your team’s efficiency by eliminating repetitive tasks related to managing multiple social media channels.
- Maintain an overview of your social engagement: SMM tools are able to collect all of the comments, messages, and interactions your brand receives in one easy-to-manage and customizable inbox.
- Monitor relevant keywords and hashtags: SMM tools are able to monitor social media networks for relevant keywords and hashtags, including mentions of your brand where people have forgotten to include a # or @.
- Measure your social performance: SMM tools can help make actionable insights accessible to everyone on your team by collecting and analyzing your social media data in shareable reports.
- Promote team collaboration: SMM tools often have approval flows to ensure workflows between departments are efficient and your branding is consistent.
Step 2: Understanding SMM tools’ capabilities
Once you have outlined your business needs, the next step in the purchasing process is to begin to understand the capabilities of the SMM tools that are on the market.
To help you identify the specific features you may need, we’ve outlined the most desirable features found in today’s top SMM tools. While reviewing the list, make note of the features that are ‘must haves’ and ‘nice to haves’. Knowing the specific features that you’ll need to successfully execute your social media strategy will help you narrow down the list of potential vendors – and could prevent you from making a costly mistake.
General considerations
Setup and onboarding
While this is not exactly a feature, onboarding processes directly relate to how fast your team can be up and running. You don’t want any downtime on your social channels, so always make sure to inquire about the time it takes to connect your existing social channels and get your team set up in the tool.
Usability
Don’t underestimate the importance of user experience. When you open the SMM tool, what is your first impression? Does the tool have an old, clunky appearance or does it have a sleek, modern design? Looks aren’t everything, but an easy-to-navigate user interface can have a significant impact on your workflows. When the tool is intuitive, you’ll be able to navigate through your daily tasks faster and troubleshoot any issues that arise without external assistance.
An intuitive and easy-to-use tool helps to drive employee uptake and confidence. After all, you don’t want the interface to hinder user adoption within your organization – especially when trying to onboard departments that are adjacent to marketing. That’s why it’s important to consider the UX and UI of an SMM tool.
Multiple-platform management
There are many social networks, but your SMM tool should connect to the platforms that are most important to you. Most tools connect to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, but having the ability to publish to platforms like TikTok, LinkedIn, and Google Business Profiles is something that you may also want to consider.
With one way of working across all networks the amount of hours your team spends switching between interfaces decreases, creating space to do more or focus on improving the quality of your posts.
Official partnerships
The major networks have official partner programs that only the most trusted social media management companies are invited to be a part of. Choosing a provider that has these official partnerships can be a huge benefit to you as an end user because it usually means you will have access to the latest features as soon as they are made available by the social networks so you can keep your social strategy up to date with the latest trends. In addition, going with an official partner ensures you’ll always be working to the most compliant and high quality standards.
General user governance
When you have multiple markets or business units representing your brand on social media, an SMM tool can be used to give team members a complete overview of the brand’s social activity. There are so many posts, so many channels and mediums involving stakeholders with a variety of roles and specialties that user roles and approval flows become an essential part of maintaining an efficient workflow.
This point can’t be overstated. It is often necessary to define different access and permission levels within the team. Having an SMM tool with different user roles (Admin, Editor, etc) provides you with the reassurance that team members only have access to the functions and information that are relevant to them.
When there is a clear division of roles and responsibilities, nothing goes out until it's been approved by the authorized people. After all, you don’t want to join the long list of companies that have had to apologize for a rogue tweet.
Access to customer support and learning resources
Sometimes you’ll need a helping hand when it comes to learning the ropes of an SMM tool, which is why it is important to consider what type of training options each provider offers. Maybe there is a customer support agent you can contact 24/7, a library of articles and videos that can provide answers to commonly asked questions, or even an Academy dedicated to upskilling users of all knowledge levels
Resources like these will enable you to grow adoption and scale a solution internally, help you to increase ROI by getting the most out of a solution, and ensure you can get back to what you were doing quickly if you run into a problem.
API integrations
An API (application programming interface) is the mechanism that allows one backend system to communicate with another.
When looking for an SMM tool, look for one that can be easily integrated into your existing systems.
APIs are always changing, which is why you should also consider the strength of the partnership between an SMM tool and a social media network.
Having an SMM tool with open APIs allows you to more easily monitor the touchpoints along your customer journey and then apply that data to create the ultimate customer experience by segmenting, targeting, and analyzing the rich user data available to you through the tool.
Content publishing considerations
If you’re natively posting to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and TikTok multiple times a day, you won’t have much time for other tasks. And if you don’t want to be at your computer 24/7, then a social media management tool that can help you streamline the posting process by removing the need to shift between platforms is essential.
By using a platform capable of publishing to all the major networks, you will save a lot of time and hassle. With an SMM tool, posts can be composed and scheduled across several channels in just a matter of clicks. And most SMM tools allow you to schedule content in advance – meaning you don’t have to wake up at 3am to make sure your post is optimized for other timezones.
Content calendar
As multi-tasking social marketers ourselves, there is one truth we would stake it all on: you can’t truly compete nowadays without a digital content calendar.
The basic function of a content calendar is to provide a shared overview of your content schedule. That visibility allows everyone on your team to see what’s going out when and on which channel. In this regard, the calendar serves as a gathering place where employees from different departments can focus their efforts on the same goals.
A content calendar is one of the basic prerequisites for SMM tools today. But not all of them may be able to integrate with your Digital Asset Management (DAM) or cloud storage software.
Approval flows and collaboration
Speaking of collaboration across teams, it’s important to take a moment to appreciate the importance of having the right approval flows in place.
With the right SMM solution you can share content with your colleagues for feedback or send your content for approval directly to your manager before it’s published.
Keeping this workflow and all the feedback in one place saves users from infinite email or Slack threads which can slow down the whole process.
Ad publishing
Algorithm changes have meant that organic reach can be limited for brand pages going forward. Targeted ads are therefore looking more important than ever.
If you want to stand out in today’s competitive social media environment, check whether or not the SMM tools you are evaluating allow you to directly publish ads on different social media channels. Additionally, some SMM tools allow you to use targeting techniques like Facebook custom or lookalike audiences. These features allow you to target the right people and ensure your ad spend is based on the most up-to-date user data.
Using a platform to centralize and simplify your social media advertising activities will enable your business to stay on top of all of your social media campaigns, as well as to compare different campaigns on different platforms to see what works best.
Label management
Governance functions like label management systems are effective ways to keep track of your campaigns, posts and interactions with followers and their profiles. Without some form of labeling system, it may become difficult to track the performance of a specific campaign or post – especially if it was a few years ago.
Not only do labels save you a significant amount of time by allowing you to filter through your content, but they also help you to keep a watchful eye over the content being scheduled by different departments or markets.
Uploading multimedia content
Today, brands can’t ignore the influence that Reels, carousels, and TikTok videos have on social engagement.
So when evaluating an SMM tool, you also have to consider whether or not the tool allows you to post images, videos, and GIFs. Most SMM tools allow users to upload multimedia content, but each may have their own restrictions when it comes to file size.
More advanced SMM tools may allow you to store videos and images within them. This extra storage capability, sometimes known as a content library, eliminates the need for you to constantly move, download, upload, and save imagery. Again, this is just one more way that an SMM tool can save you and your team time.
Community management considerations
Social engagement capabilities
Missing important notifications? The best way to stay on top of all of the questions and comments coming in via social media is through a unified social inbox.
For one, there is the convenience of having an overview of your incoming comments across all social channels. But it’s not only comments on posts or direct messages that you can see – some SMM tools also notify you when you receive reviews, comments, shares, likes, direct messages, and mentions on your posts or ads.
Staying on top of your notifications has never been more critical for brands: 90% of customers have already used social media to reach out to brands directly for customer service. And 81% of consumers won’t recommend a company to a friend if they don’t get a reply from them on social media, according to Twitter.
Template responses and automation
In social media management, nothing beats the value of a quick and crisp reply.
But quick replies aren’t just appreciated, they’re now expected: 42% of customers expect a response within 60 minutes, and 32% expect a response in just 30 minutes.
Being able to upload response templates to your SMM tool allows you to cut down the time it takes you to respond to incoming messages. With this feature, you can draft official responses and templates for different situations or scenarios, so whatever the social comment, the reply will always reflect your business’s personality.
On top of templates, on some platforms you can use rules and labels to automatically assign particular messages or comments to the most relevant colleague or team.
Done right, your replies and the customer service you provide through them will go a long way toward cementing lifelong customers.
Social media monitoring considerations
Marketing teams of all sizes can leverage the wealth of data that’s out there on social media to better understand brand health, deal with crises, and learn about the broader market they operate in.
Social listening
Effective social media listening involves filtering through millions of messages generated each day to unlock actionable insights. This means checking the status updates of your brand followers and looking for common trends, or sifting through all the available data to get a feel for what people are saying about a particular topic relevant to your brand. Customers and prospects may often be having conversations without your involvement.
Effective use of social listening tools will help you find these conversations and provide you with opportunities to engage. The more you tune in, the better you will be prepared to connect with your community or handle a social media crisis. Plus, social listening allows you to keep tabs on the buzz around your competition and generate competitor analyses.
Some tools will allow you to set up alerts when there are particular changes in the data so you can take advantage of opportunities and deal with emerging issues as soon as they begin to arise.
Many SMM tools will offer social listening as a separate add-on and you may have to pay for each user. Having a listening tool integrated with the rest of your suite that everyone can access can help you foster a more data-driven strategy and lets you feed insights from listening directly to where you will need to take action. For example, by setting up streams identifying untagged conversations on Reddit or forums which your customer engagement team can proactively follow up on.
Sentiment analysis
A few SMM tools provide listening capabilities that allow you to gauge the sentiment of your mentions based on whether they are positive, neutral or negative. This feature can help you manage your brand’s reputation and identify brand evangelists. The number of languages covered by sentiment also varies by tool, so check what languages are available.
Measurement considerations
Analytics
Analytics enable you to measure the impact of your social media activity, helping you identify your top-performing content, figure out the best times to post, and pinpoint trends in your follower growth.
So when accessing an SMM tool’s analytics capabilities, check that it is able to pull in some social metrics from the platforms that are essential to your social media strategy. An SMM tool should be able to provide you with all (or at least the majority) of the metrics that Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram provide.
Reporting
Knowing what’s working and what’s not on your social channels is difficult when you can’t easily digest the data. Being able to access clear, up-to-date reports is an essential part of helping you optimize your social media strategy.
Additionally, having reports that can easily be shared across your organization will help you prove the value of your activities to your superiors or your clients. So when evaluating SMM tools, make sure that you can export reports in a variety of formats, such as XLS, CSV, PDF, JPG or PNG. With default or template reports, you can pull together the data you need in just a few seconds.
It's a good idea to inquire about hidden fees associated with reports. Some SMM tools place a cap on the number of free reports you can create or download.
CRM integrations
Merging social data with your business’s existing CRM software allows you to gain a better understanding of the individuals interacting with your brand online. Not all SMM tools have social CRM capabilities, but those that do can help you learn more about the individuals interacting with your brand across your different social media channels.
With this type of detailed information, you can ensure that you reach the right audience with the right messaging and timing. Furthermore, you can use this information to craft target audiences and tailor your social ads to their buying behavior with customized offers.
A CRM integration will also allow you to better connect up your social media strategy with your customer service workflows in tools like Salesforce Service Cloud. This lets you create cases within your social tool when customers reach out to you on these channels and follow up and track where you usually handle customer support tickets.
Additional considerations
Geo-targeting
Today’s consumers expect personalization when it comes to, well, just about everything.
Having an SMM tool that is capable of targeting your content based on country, city, or town can help you distribute content to relevant audiences.
Mobile options
Being able to manage your social media channels on the go is a necessity for today’s busy social media managers and community managers. Having a mobile-optimized version of the SMM tool or an app is crucial to ensuring your workflows are as efficient as possible and that you are able to respond to an emergency situation at a moment’s notice.
Link shortener
Link shorteners allow you to condense the length of URLs (which can be over a hundred characters long) into more manageably-sized links. These shorter URLs are ideal for social media platforms, especially Twitter where every character counts.
Link shorteners can include tracking parameters that can be connected to Google Analytics in order to monitor the post’s performance and metrics such as click-through rate. This data is invaluable to have as a marketer because it shows where customers are coming from, when they are engaging, and what interests them.
A few SMM tools allow you to integrate your own branded vanity URLs to help boost brand recognition and increase customer engagement on your published posts.
Link in bio
Link in bio is an essential tool for social media managers because it enables you to direct followers and potential customers to relevant website pages or ecommerce stores outside of social media platforms. Choosing a platform that enables you to create your own customizable link in bio pages can be very valuable as it will allow you to keep all things social under one roof. In some platforms when you publish a post you can also choose to automatically feature it in your link in bio page, making this flow much smoother.
Step 3: Comparing vendors
Now that you’ve taken the time to evaluate your priorities when it comes to social media in general (Step 1) and understand the features within SMM platforms (Step 2), you’re in a much stronger position to evaluate different vendors (Step 3).
Using your list of ‘must-have features’ as a guide, you’re ready to begin researching potential vendors. During this process, your objective will be to try to learn as much as you can about each of the vendors that meet your specific requirements. This knowledge will help you identify the one SMM tool that is perfect for you.
Reviewing SMM tools
Identify potential vendors
You can’t make an informed buying decision without having a complete overview of all of your options. So jump on your favorite search engine (once you finish reading this of course) and begin making a list of the names of the SMM tools that you come across online.
Research your options
Once you have a solid list of SMM tools, visit each company’s website. While reading about each company, make sure to compare your list of ‘must haves’ against the tool’s list of features. This exercise will help you narrow down your list of potential vendors, as many might not be able to accommodate all of your specific needs.
After this initial screening process, check to see what other offerings the remaining vendors on your list promote on their websites. What customer success and support services are they able to provide? Is there an academy to learn from? A community of users to network with and get support from?
Cost may be one factor that you use to eliminate potential vendors from your list, but not all SMM tools list prices on their websites. To get an accurate quote for your organization, you may have to reach out directly to the vendor.
Contact vendors
If you still have questions about the tool or would like to have a demo, then don’t hesitate to reach out to the vendor.
Demos are a critical part of the buying process, as they provide you with a much clearer understanding of how the tool works and whether or not you would enjoy using the tool. During a demo, you’ll also have the opportunity to ask questions about the tool, the company, and the purchasing process.
Read 3rd-party reviews
While you are talking to different vendors and observing product demos, remember to also read online reviews. A review from a peer can provide you with an unbiased analysis of the tool’s performance.