Four Tools You Must Have To Manage Your Social Media
If you’ve ever woken up in a panic, remembering that mission-critical social media post that you forgot to share due to your busy schedule, or you feel like you spend too much time each day managing your social media accounts, we get it. We’ve been there too!
There have been incredible technological advances that have allowed us to find our life partners by swiping, get food by tapping, and track each step we take so we can achieve our fitness goals. Why shouldn’t social media management be made easier with technology? (Hint: it already has been!) Check out these four tools you need to use to manage your social media.
Loomly
Loomly is the preferred scheduling tool for Ptak & Co and many of our agency partners too. We’ve used Sprout, Hootsuite, Later, Buffer, and native scheduling on Facebook and Twitter, but we keep coming back to Loomly time and time again. Why? We love:
Loomly’s user experience. Easy to use, drag and drop uploads, and simple forms to schedule posts are what Loomly is all about. Adding location tags, comments with hashtags and tagging other accounts is simple and straightforward. You can even add a custom channel to push your content to the right place at the right time.
Loomly’s price point. Whether you’re a big agency or company, or a smaller freelancer, Loomly has pricing that you can afford. Ptak & Co subscribes to the Standard tier, and we can schedule out multiple client accounts quickly and easily.
Collaboration is king. It’s easy to add team members, clients or agency partners as users to your Loomly account, meaning your remote-work team can get everything done from one place. If you choose to add clients, they can easily leave feedback or even make direct edits on scheduled or saved social media posts.
Quickly diversify. If you have unique content calendars for each social media channel, you can easily tailor your scheduled posts with just a few clicks rather than scheduling each separately - saving you time and ensuring no channel is neglected!
We truly believe the best platform for scheduling is the one that you will use and find easy to use. We encourage you to explore the many options available before making your final selection! Most of the platforms offer free trials, so you can explore with no risk.
Keyhole
So you have mastered creating your content calendar and scheduling. But how do you know what is working? The built-in social media analytics on each platform is a great jumping-off point, but we often have more questions than these tools can answer on their own. This is why we love Keyhole:
Deconstruct the conversations. Keyhole was designed to help marketers deconstruct the conversations happening around their hashtags, brand name and influencer partners quickly and efficiently.
Saves reporting time. If you’re doing social media marketing for your own company, you may not spend time on reporting - since you’d probably be the one creating it AND reading it! Keyhole gives you on-demand reporting so you can see what’s doing well - and what isn’t - in just a few clicks. If you’re an agency, you can save yourself tens of hours each month by using their custom report templates instead of building out your own manually.
Nostradamus level prediction capabilities. Keyhole has some crazy computing power, which they use to predict your campaign’s effectiveness over the next 24 hours, 7 days, and 30 days using real-time data.
ROI calculations built in. Social media is scrutinized for its return on investment more heavily than traditional channels. Swerve on the haters with real-time metrics tracking, performance and ROI calculations.
1Password
We once made the mistake of giving a brand new hire the passwords to over 30 client accounts - only to realize quickly that they were not the fit we thought, so we terminated them. We then had to spend hours changing passwords, texting and phoning clients to let them know we had to secure the accounts and provide them with new passwords. It was embarrassing and time-consuming, to say the least.
Learn from our rookie mistake and secure your internal and external passwords with 1Password. This paid tool gives you peace of mind for only $6.00 a month. Why do we love it?
The vaults. Keep client accounts separated into their own vault, giving access only to those who really need it.
No more messy and unsecured spreadsheets. Stop listing your usernames and passwords in a spreadsheet! Not only is it risky, it gives access to people who may not need it. You can access any account password in your vault through your web browser or cell phone with a single button tap - saving you time and creating more security.
It goes beyond just passwords. 1Password allows you to store loads of data, including secure notes, memberships, outdoor licenses, wireless routers, passports, documents, bank accounts and more.
We love the peace of mind that comes from knowing our sensitive data is securely stored with 1Password.
Asana
The team at Ptak & Co works out completely remotely, thanks to the global changes brought on by COVID-19. We have always used Asana, but it has become a critical tool for our internal and external successes. This project management system isn’t the most robust on the market, but it is free and helps us keep everything on time and on target. We love Asana for:
User experience. Whether you love visual boards, a to-do list, or you need a group brainstorm, Asana has plenty of pre-made templates that will do the trick. If you’re more of an A-type personality, Asana lets you craft the perfect workspace layout for you.
Streamline your operations. We love a process - it’s one of the three Ps, after all! Asana helps us streamline operations with their templates for agendas, company goals and milestones, work requests and even employee onboarding.
Custom teams. Not every team member needs access to everything, so Asana allows you to easily coordinate who sees what into simple teams.
Looking for more hot tips and takes on social media and digital marketing? Check out our post on How to Create Evergreen Content. There’s even more to discover in our communities on LinkedIn and Instagram.