Whether you own a small business or have a dedicated marketing team working for you, you may feel like you simply don’t have the time, money, or proper resources to maintain a consistent and engaging presence online. But like it or not, social media has proven to be one of the most effective business tools for connecting with both current and potential customers — and it’s here to stay.

Networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn allow you to communicate directly with your audience, which helps you spread brand awareness and can even turn your customers into brand advocates!

Benefits of social media suites for small businesses

It may seem overwhelming for one person to keep up with the 24/7 social media world while running a small business or managing a business’ broader marketing strategy. As a result, many small businesses turn to social media suites to help them manage their social presence.

In a survey conducted by Statista, about 50% of small-business owners said they planned to use social media as part of their marketing strategy in 2019. At the same time, however, the majority of small businesses said they only spend about two hours of their week on marketing efforts.

n a survey conducted by Statista, about 50% of small-business owners said they planned to use social media as part of their marketing strategy in 2019. At the same time, however, the majority of small businesses said they only spend about two hours of their week on marketing efforts.

If you can relate to these statistics, consider investing in a social media suite. These comprehensive solutions are popular among small businesses for their ability to handle all aspects of a social media marketing strategy within a single platform. With just one tool, you can manage, monitor and analyze information related to one or more social media accounts.

Let’s say you have business profiles on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Rather than visiting each of these websites individually to post content, you could connect all three of these accounts to your social media suite and then plan, schedule and publish content to all three of your feeds.

But getting your content out there is just one piece of a social media marketing strategy. It’s also important to understand your audience and measure how well you’re doing with the members of that audience. Thankfully, social media suites provide social media analytics tools, allowing you to track the performance of your campaigns, determine successful marketing tactics, identify trends, and understand audience demographics.

Another major feature provided by most social media suites is social media monitoring. Businesses use these tools to track mentions of their brand across social networks, promoting brand advocacy by thanking customers for sharing positive experiences and managing brand reputation by quickly responding to negative feedback.

The bottom line

There are many social media products on the market that can help businesses manage their social media feeds. Likewise, there are just as many products that provide solutions for social media monitoring or analytics. The reason so many small businesses prefer social media suites is because they offer management, monitoring and analytics within a single product. Some social media suites even provide capabilities for managing your social ads or engaging in social customer service.

By providing so many features within one product, social media suites reduce costs and limit the amount of time you spend learning how to use the software.

Choosing a social media suite

If you’re in the market for a social media suite, there are a few things to consider. First and foremost, you should think about your business’ social media marketing strategy and what problems you hope a social media suite will solve. Is social advertising part of your strategy? Do you need robust management capabilities, or are you more interested in highly detailed reports?

It’s important to consider which social networks you’ll need to manage. Many social media suites will support the most popular networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and LinkedIn. If you want to manage accounts on Tumblr or YouTube, however, you may need to seek out more specialized products.

Finally, keep your budget in mind and ask yourself if there are any other integrations you want your social media suite to support.

Source: learn.g2.com