What active social media professionals look for in the tools they use
How many stories have you heard about the major impacts of social media? The interesting aspect is that major impacts can be for better or worse.
For instance, consider all the pieces of content that go viral and propel individuals into a stage of stardom because they were savvy enough to use social media correctly. Now think about the opposite; those who took irrational actions online and paid the consequences. The moral here is that social media can make or break an organization or individual.
For digital publishers unaware of the options that await them within social media tools, we’ve decided to list some functionality that social media practitioners recommend having in the social media tools they use daily.
Social media software functionality requirements
#1 – Analytics: Are you using a tool that embeds analytical data? Keeping track of your tweets should be a major focus for online editors publishing a lot of content on Twitter. Specific data that should be recorded in social media analytics includes how many links are clicked and the amount of clicks they receive, the amount of retweets, favorites and how many times audience members have engaged with your content. Apps like Hootsuite and SproutSocial are third-party apps that can create custom reports for you, while WordPress plugins like CoSchedule offer per-post social analytics, with extended analytics through bit.ly.
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#2 – Hashtag Monitoring: It’s crucial to stay on the beat of your most relevant topics. Setting a column in your social media tool that allows you to track a variety of hashtags allows you to see what competitors are posting and if questions are being asked on the topics you can supply answers to.
#3 – Keyword Monitoring: Like hashtag monitoring, watching how keywords are being used on Twitter can open new conversational directions. Your brand should always be added as a keyword phrase so you can monitor any positive or negative comments made about your company. In addition to handling the social media concerns of your company, you’d be able to keep an eye on any public relations issues that can possibly arise online.
#4 – Scheduling: The aspect of scheduling is hugely important. With this ability you can operate on a specific Twitter publishing schedule and push content even when you’re not available. Without this functionality, companies would have a hard time pushing content during the weekends or holidays when employees aren’t working.
#5 – Efficiency: Having a tool that incorporates all of these functionalities greatly increases social media efficiency. We’ve been using HootSuite for our primary social media tool because it does incorporate all of the functionality we require to efficiently operate through the social media landscape.
Is there other social media functionality that you require in your daily endeavors? What tools do you recommend and what are the reasons? We’d love to read your thoughts in the comments section below.
