We recently evaluated some of the social media tools we use for a single client. The problem: too many social media tools do a lot of the same things, but unfortunately they don’t do all of those things well, which often means you have to use a variety of tools to get all the features/functionality you want. In this case, we often find ourselves using six tools to get the insights we feel we need for this one account (and this doesn’t include traditional tools like Google Analytics, Marketo, etc.). We’re not alone in this endeavor. Many social media teams find themselves relying on multiple tools to gain the insights needed to learn what works/what doesn’t and to provide insightful comprehensive data to clients.
Since we did the work, we thought we’d share our insights in a two part blog series. Please note, this is not an official review or endorsement of any platform or solution. We’ll quickly look at six platforms: Bitly, Sprout Social, Hootsuite, AdStage, Simply Measured and Buffer. We evaluated them at their basic level (that could be free or paid) and did a simple pros & cons (not quite Jimmy Fallon-style). Obviously there are tons of other social media tools and platforms that are available (heck, we use a lot, but this was just a sampling from one client).
