Keeping Up With Social Media: Social Media Aggregators
In today’s internet marketing world, regardless of the industry you work in, Social Media is at the front of everyone’s mind and it is clearly a “must-have” as part of the overall marketing mix. Companies big and small are racing to establish their presence in all the major social platforms hoping they can reach 1 million “likes” on Facebook, or get as many “followers” on Twitter as possible. At first glance, igniting your presence throughout the plethora of social platforms seems quite easy; however, the truly challenging task lies in the constant upkeep of this effort. Being involved in every platform out there is great, but there is nothing worse for a company than having a bunch of accounts that are inactive. It simply sends a message that you are irrelevant and dead in the space.
So how do we solve this dilemma? Thankfully, this maintenance problem was identified immediately as many companies fell into the same trap. Companies found themselves with profiles on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, Klout, SnapChat… (the list goes on and on) but were failing to keep up with the necessary updates. More importantly, they did not dedicate the needed resources to carry on these activities.
Enter HootSuite. “HootSuite is a social media management system for businesses and organizations to collaboratively execute campaigns across multiple social networks from one secure, web-based dashboard. Launch marketing campaigns, identify and grow audiences, and distribute targeted messages using HootSuite’s unique social media dashboard.” (HootSuite, 2013).
Part of the problem in managing such a large amount of social media profiles is simply navigating to the site, having to remember credentials, and reposting content over and over again. The process becomes tedious, and bottom line, there simply isn’t enough time in the day to keep up! HootSuite allows you to centralize activities for Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ (Yes, Google+ is becoming very popular), and Twitter all under one roof. Through one common dashboard, you can now keep all of these channels up to date without having to go back and forth among platforms. As with most services today, it is completely cloud based and accessible from anywhere so this provides added flexibility to the user.
But having a robust social media presence doesn’t end at posting content on an on-going basis. It is equally important that social media monitoring is brought into the mix. As your presence grows, conversation around your company will also increase so it is very important you proactively monitor all your channels to make sure you avoid any potential crisis situations as well as guide your users in their contributions. Here is where HootSuite also provides tremendous value. Through their dashboard, you are able to set customized feeds from different platforms so you can see any conversations revolving your brand, or keywords that could potential relate to your company; it allows you to keep have a constant check on the “pulse” of your company and how you are trending across platforms.
Social Media can be an incredibly powerful tool for any business regardless on the industry; however, you have to be ready to provide dedicated resources to this initiative and have a long term content strategy to maintain your presence alive. No one likes to see a “Press Room” or “News” page on a website full of outdated, old or stale content. Similarly, no one likes to see a Facebook profile that hasn’t been updated in months. This ends up hurting your company image more than anything. Social media aggregators, such as HootSuite, can help you with this, often times, daunting task.