When you hear the term "social media management", you might think of it as one of those jobs only marketing professionals should care about. However, even ordinary citizens can utilize (and should utilize) these tools. These application will not only help you organize your social media profiles but can give you advantages in the future.
Many Filipinos are hooked with social media. Most of the time, they are doing social media just for fun. Playing games, sharing jokes and fun times, chatting with friends, and meeting new people. What many people don't realize is that these social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ can be your gateway to opportunities.
Here are some areas of your life that a good social media presence can be really powerful.
Creating a professional profile for potential employers.
I once got a project offer because the client liked the things I publish on my blog and on my Facebook page.
Many potential employers now search your name on the internet in order to get to know you better. If you are a college graduating student or a young professional who wants to show your good image online, social media profiles can give you advantage for they can easily be ranked for your name and you have full control over what people can see in your profiles.
Networking opportunities.
The reason why these social media sites were developed in the first place is to connect with other people. You can find potential business leads, referrals, prospect clients, and many others.
Build a name for yourself.
Do you want to be known as a photographer? Artist? Blogger? Financial expert? Sharing relevant content on your social media profiles can help in building your authority on a certain craft.
There are still many things you can do with social media and managing it properly can give you loads of advantages.
Below are my top 5 social media management apps you can use to manage your profiles.
Hootsuite
The free version allows you to manage 5 social media profiles and 2 RSS feeds simultaneously. You can check your social stream, update your status, check mentions, and private messages. You can even schedule posts.The following social networks can be managed with Hootsuite:
- Facebook Profile
- Facebook Pages
- Facebook Groups
- Google+ Pages
- LinkedIn Profile
- LinkedIn Groups
- LinkedIn Companies
- Foursquare
- WordPress.com
- Mixi
Advantages:
- You don't have to access multiple websites and type your login details for each since you can access your most used social networks via Hootsuite.
- Ability to schedule manually or automatically a month's worth of tweets, Facebook statuses, etc. When you use the auto scheduling feature, Hootsuite will determine the optimal time for you to post based on your social history.
- If you have a blog, you can set Hootsuite to automatically send your latest blog post via RSS to any one of your social media network.
- Web-based.
Disadvantages:
- The free plan only allows 5 social media profiles and you can't connect your personal Google+ account.
- There is no option to set your preferred time for auto schedule. It is algorithmic but you have the option to manually edit the time and date when necessary.
- There is no limit on how many posts you can schedule, however, since it is a third party app, limitations imposed from the social networks will prevail. For instance, Facebook is known to have issues with
Hootsuite if you schedule in very short time intervals. This will cause some of your scheduled posts to not to be published.
Social media does not sleep, eat, or take a break. If you want to maintain an active social media presence while you are away, Hootsuite can be very helpful.
Bufferapp
Bufferapp is another tool you can use to schedule your social media posts. The free plan allows you to connect up to 4 social media accounts, but is limited to the following networks only:
- Facebook Profile
- Facebook Pages
- Google+ Pages
- LinkedIn Profile
- LinkedIn Groups
- LinkedIn Companies
- App.net
Advantages:
- Bufferapp can be a little tricky at first, but once you figure out how it works, you will definitely love it. This works by auto scheduling posts but unlike Hootsuite, you have the freedom to specify which times you want to post per social network. This means, you have a different schedule for Twitter and another one for Facebook.
- You can post 25 times in a day per social network.
- You can choose to schedule posts only on certain days. Example, everyday, week days only, week ends only, TTH, or MWF.
- Browser plugin available.
Disadvantages:
- You can manage 4 accounts only (free plan) and Google does not allow third party apps to connect to your personal Google+ profile.
- 10 links or posts only (free plan).
Personally, I use buffer to share interesting articles I come across while browsing the internet. Although most of these articles have easy sharing options, I prefer to share them on a later time in order not to flood my news feed.
Paper.li
Paper.li on the core is a content curation tool. The reason why I included it on this list is because it can be used to manage the content the people you follow in Twitter and Facebook shares.
You can't be on these social networks all the time because you also need to work, attend classes, or spend time with the family. If you don't want to miss important links, videos, and images shared by your network, you can use Paper.li to collect these for you and email it to you as a daily digest. It is like having your own personalized newspaper everyday.
Twitter in particular is a fast paced social network and it is impossible to keep up with the updates of the people you follow. This is very helpful if you follow prominent people in your industry and you want to be constantly updated.
Advantages:
- You have the option to create a daily, morning + evening, or weekly digest.
- You can create multiple papers.
- Easy sharing, embed, and subscription options.
Disadvantages:
- There is no option to combine your Twitter and Facebook feeds. They are separate.
There are plenty more of things you can do with Paper.li but we will just leave them for now since the focus of this article is social media management.
Bit.ly
Bit.ly is a URL shortener. When you register for an account with them, you have access to statistics on how many clicks a link you shared received. This can be very useful in Twitter where you have the 140 character limit.
Although Twitter is now good at minimizing links, Bit.ly doubles as your personal bookmark. Imagine needing to find an important link you shared the other day but have to go through a crazy amount of tweets? Bit.ly's dashboard have a search facility to help you find links easily. You can also see other bitlinks shared by people in your network.
Advantages:
- Cleaner, shorter, and customizable links.
- Access to click statistics.
- Bookmark features.
- The bitmark bookmarklet makes shortening and sharing URLs easier.
Disadvantages:
- Can be very tedious for some people.
See also: 7 Things You Didn't Know Bitly Could Do
IFTTT (If THIS then THAT)
Using this tool, you can automate just about anything. This tool supports a total of 172 channels. The things you can do with this app is endless. I suggest you check it for yourself or see the following resources below:
20 Cool IFTTT Recipes To Automate Your Online Activities
All the New Stuff in IFTTT for iOS, and What You Can Do with It
Automate All The Things: How To Get Started With IFTTT
5 Unusual IFTTT Recipes You May Not Have Thought Of
11 Top IFTTT Recipes to Activate Now
The 101 Best ifttt Recipes
These 5 are my top social media management tools. There are still other tools out there that also have awesome features. If you know of other helpful tools, please do share in the comments section below.
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