Making the Most of Social Media Management Software

Let’s face it: the social media movement is not only upon us…it’s become an integral facet of the business world. A study released last year by Altimeter Group shows that an average large company (over 1,000 employees) manages nearly 200 social media accounts. That makes sense as any given company will have numerous departments creating content to be distributed to consumers. With all of these sites, posts, tweets, check-ins, pins, views, links and the like (oh, that’s right – “likes”), many brand managers turn to social media management software to coordinate, maintain and manage all of those messages. The use of software doesn’t make social content a guaranteed hit with consumers, but the right social management software can assist with content optimization, streamlined workflow and so much more to ensure efforts are worthwhile.

ROI: Waste Not, Want Not

In any business situation including social media, time is money. Social media marketing can really put you ahead of the pack when it comes to riding the wave of a trend, getting a message out or responding to consumers in real time. But it only works when the efforts of all team members are coordinated. Too often, I see processes that are uncoordinated and reliant on email and spreadsheets to coordinate content approval from an agency to the brand manager.

If you’ve ever had to scroll down through an email thread that’s been bouncing from department to department, agency to brand, over the course of days, weeks or months, you know that it’s not fun. It also costs everyone time! And if (heaven forbid) mistakes are made along the way, they’re exceptionally difficult to track down. Checks and balances quickly become unchecked and unbalanced!

For agencies…how can you be sure you’re billing the correct amount of hours spent, not only creating the content, but auditing the revisions? Is this email the latest revision or was it this one? Where’s the date stamp? When was this approved? Did legal approve this yet? There are many steps and the agency is on the hook.

And for brands, do you know that the agency is capturing changes that are coming from multiple people at your company? Also, is there a centralized calendar that each division has visibility into for your social voice? How about coordination with your other media outlets…might be nice to sync these all up.

Getting (And Staying) On The Same Page

Step number one is commitment that every employee, agency or business division wants to cooperate in social together. Step two is finding the right software to centralize your process. Step three…use it! Time will only be saved if everyone works together. Process changes are rough, but I’ve seen some massive shifts in the companies that have adopted and use social management software day-to-day. Content creation, approvals and visibility are only the beginning of the time savers. For global corporations, think about the internal sharing of content to countries and other agency partners across the world. Can the agency for your brand globally help mold the brand voice? Yes it can, by creating the content and allowing the country specific agencies to then repurpose and craft the regional and cultural tone. Same message, targeted voice.

Your other time save comes with analytics. At Expion, we offer Marketing Insights Technology to integrate multiple social streams in real-time, creating highly visual analytics to discover patterns, breakouts and trends. The consolidation of those 200+ accounts Altimeter mentioned in their report are more powerful if you can look at them all in one place. Bigger data means you have the ability to make smarter decisions if it’s processed quickly to reveal trends and consumer shifts in opinions. Analytics have the same concepts of visibility for global scale, as well. Don’t you think that the Canadian team would like to know how they stack up in social against Japan and France, as well as what the overall global “scorecard” looks like?

There’s an ocean of activity in the social business world. Don’t get swept under by the tide of archaic means of managing it. Embrace change, even though it will be difficult at first. In a very short time, everyone will be in sync and your efforts will be rewarded by insights you didn’t know were possible.

Erica McClenny is the Senior Vice President of Client Services at Expion, a social media management system company that helps businesses connect with customers through engagement. Her passion lies in educating executives about the functions and nuances of social media channels while collaborating with marketing and IT departments to build successful strategies. Follow her on Twitter @ericamcclenny and learn more about Expion’s social software at www.expion.com.