Hootsuite and Engagor
Each Friday will be dedicated to a review of some of the social media tools available. The review will include an overview of each tool, pros and cons, and Visibly Media’s official recommendation.
This week’s article focuses on two social media scheduling tools: Hootsuite and Engagor.
Hootsuite is a web-based scheduling application for scheduling posts to your social media platforms. With a free account you can manage up to five (5) profiles. By the word “manage”, you can:
- Schedule posts/status updates by date and time,
- Monitor up to 10 streams of Twitter information, including:
- Direct Messages (DMs)
- Mentions (@yourname)
- Lists
- Hashtags.
- Respond directly from Hootsuite,
- URL shortener (ow.ly),
- Post and respond through a mobile app,
- Follow up to 2 RSS feeds,
- Access up to 3 free analytics reports.
There are two pay versions called Pro and Enterprise. The Pro version offers plenty for most business owners. Inside the Pro version you can manage up to 100 social media profiles – perfect for social media managers. Along with the basics of the Free account, you also can follow an unlimited number of RSS feeds, include up to 9 team members on your account, and access up to 10 analytics reports. The Enterprise version upscales more for large companies, governments or organizations. I recommend starting with a free trial before registering for an account. For more information click this link.
Engagor is another web-based management application used to manage your social media profiles and engagement in real time. This program:
- Monitors conversations on the web,
- Offers real-time customer engagement using their own CRM,
- Provides analytics and reporting on campaigns, profile, and online reputation.
At this writing I have not received my free 14-day trial yet so I can fully test this program. I will give an update as soon as I have access, as well as an overview of pricing and the goodies included.
The takeaway:
Take advantage of scheduling and monitoring software. Those businesses that use tools like these are more successful in their customer engagements because they are more aware of customers’ needs, complaints/compliments (a.k.a. sentiment), and questions. The scheduling portion allows more time to be spent in front of your customers while giving your brand the consistent, timely visibility to your followers.
Remember:
people are becoming more social online and will use their preferred social media channel to not just follow, but to connect with you — usually when they’re dissatisfied or upset. Approximately 67% of customers will expect a response within their social media channel within 24 hours, while 42% will expect it within 1 hour.
Ready to learn a new social media platform? Connect with me by phone, social media or click this link and let’s get you up to speed!
Be strategic. Be visible. Be found.
