By Darren Gilbert

In fact, working in social media and not using any management tools is unheard of. After all, how else are you going to manage and control everything? The short answer is you're not.


Pick the right platform

Picking the right platform isn’t about choosing the best one on the market. After all, what is good for one person is bad for another. Rather, it’s about what platform works for your brand. After all, it would be dangerous to say that there is one platform can do everything.

“I have worked on both Sprout Social and Hootsuite, but [I] far prefer the latter,” says Megan Hollis, Head of Strategy and Social Media at Techsys Digital. “Hootsuite has great analytics and insights, [which] makes monthly reporting a breeze. Gone are the days of clients simply wanting to ‘gain likes’ on Facebook – they are not always a true reflection of social success.”

For Georgia Chennells, Senior Social Media Strategist for Quirk, Sprout Social is her platform choice. “We have a small team of community managers and find it a good fit for us. [However], it depends on your team, which social media channels you use and how deeply involved you are with your brands’ online activities.”

“What we like about Sprout is its clean layout, diverse community management functionalities and great customer service,” adds Chennells.

Have your goal in mind

Regardless of which platform you pick, when you do, keep you specific goal in mind. What do you want to get out of it? Do you want to generate more traffic to your website? Do you want more sales? Something else?

Writing for Hootsuite’s blog, Susan Murphy co-founder of Jester Creative says, “Get focused on what you really want to do with social media, and it will make deciding where to start much easier. Also, really think about what kind of value you want to add to the communities you become involved with online.”

“Think about the kinds of people you’d like to meet, and the conversations you want to have,” adds Murphy. “If you’re clear on these things from the outset, then you’ll be able to jump in already having some things to talk about.”

Know the ‘dangers’ of not using a platform

“I would liken it do driving a car while only looking out of the windscreen,” says Chennells. Essentially, you are going to be limited in what you see and what you can do. “You’ll manage okay,” continues Chennells, “but [you] won’t be able to go very fast.” Whereas if you make use of various management tools, you will become more efficient and operate at a faster pace.

On top of that, not using any social media management tools will play with your sanity. “With such a vast amount of queries coming in and the volume of content going out, it makes sense to manage your social media sensibly,” says Hollis. “It leaves you feeling more in control of what is happening on your pages.”

“Social media management tools assist [you] to make sense of data and in turn offer rich insights and actionable social CRM strategy to [your] clients,” adds Hollis.

What are your thoughts? Do you have any particular social media management tool that you swear by? Tell us below.