You know that there are tons of reasons to use them. From saving time, increasing productivity to social media automation, social media tools are no longer a luxury for marketers. As a matter of fact, it is now very important especially when it comes to leveraging social media.
However, what are the criteria you should be defining when it comes to choosing the right social media tools?
Let’s dive in further to find the top tips I used to choose the best social media tools.
How To Choose The Best Social Media Tools?
1. Features
Critical, ladies and gentlemen.
Features are important because this is the primary reason for you to use the tool. Understanding the features that the social media tool can offer is vital. You need to ensure that you have a strong understanding of what the tool can offer and how you can leverage this.
Let’s take an example of Buzzlogix (the review I did recently).
It offers awesome artificial intelligence within the social media tool to ensure that users like us are able to leverage the true power of social media.
Imagine this. With proper usage and understanding, you can easily be on top of your competitors in no time!
2. Integration
I love integration because, with integration, it helps me to become more productive. Seriously.
Here’s the thing, do you know that there aren’t many tools that actually allows you to integrate well with other social media tools?
Yes, no joke!
Integration is critical because when you have integration, you can increase your productivity multiple folds. You will also be able to get more work done under a short time period.
Take a look at Hootsuite. It has many applications (or apps in short) that you can integrate directly to Hootsuite. Instead of opening a new browser to get the job done, you can easily do that directly on Hootsuite itself.
Plus, you can integrate statistics to Hootsuite to further enrich your entire data. Not bad, right?
3. Social media platforms
In today’s world, there are so many social media platforms that you can choose from. And it gets really annoying, right?
The idea of hoping from one to another is insane. And that is definitely a marvelous way to waste time!
If you are choosing a social media tool, make sure you find the one that can integrate and connect to as many social media platforms as possible.
Make no mistakes as if you overlook on this, it will be extremely challenging and a waste of money too!
Here’s the thing. When you use social media tools, you want to integrate everything under one roof. Instead of having multiple browsers open, having one tool to manage all your social media account is powerful!
And it doesn’t matter if you are managing social media accounts (like Buzzlogix, Hootsuite and Buffer) or simply, an analytical dashboard like Cyfe.
4. Pricing
Let’s face this. Price is what matters most to us all, right?
Don’t worry. I get it. Price is crucial and at times, we aren’t willing to pay as much as $99 or $199 for a social media tool. Of course, if you are running an agency, then that’s a whole different story.
Pricing is critical. When it comes to choosing the right social media tools, you have the option to get free and paid ones. Now makes no mistake.
Both of these are good in their own ways. For example, free social media tools would give you financial freedom (literally speaking). There is no need to pay for anything and you certainly do not need to worry about money!
However, the major disadvantage of having a free social media tool is the functions. Free ones usually come with limitations and for many, this can be really annoying.
Now, how about the paid ones?
Paid ones are often much better. To be honest, when you pay for something, you are pretty much guaranteed for better service and product. This is because the company is obligated to ensure that the tool is constantly updated and you are able to use it. Of course, no one would pay for something that is broken or not updated.
At the same time, paid ones would often offer lesser or no limitation at all. This helps especially when you want to work freely and doesn’t want to be tied down to any limitations which can severely affect your productivity.
5. Ease of use
When choosing a social media tool, make sure you focus on the ease of using it. The truth is, not many social media tools are easy to use. They can be very time consuming to learn and it can be challenging as well!
Confusion is the number one problem that most people fail in leveraging a social media tool. Ease of use would ensure that beginners or newbies are able to use the tool almost instantly and not wasting time on checking through the manual.
Of course, not all social media tools are easy to use. The easiest way is to check whether they provide manual, video and knowledge base to ease the learning process.
Personally, I find having videos are the best because it is going to help you with a ton!
6. Support
Last but not least, support from the team behind the social media tool is critical. When there is support, you know that help is just a click or phone call away.
Throughout my experience using social media tools, it is very common for us to stumble upon a challenge which we would need to get help. In this case, social media tools that provide support would be extremely useful in this moment especially in making the entire experience a pleasant one.
What do you think?
As a recap, there are many factors that you can choose especially when it comes to choosing the right social media tools. However, it is important to ensure that these tools are able to fit your criteria to ensure that you are able to overcome your challenges.
Always remember that go with social media tools that you are happy with, and not social media tools that are just simply popular.
See also: 30 Social Media Monitoring Tools You Need to Try This Year
