Franchise PowerUp 
People spend an average of 2 hours a day on social media. Currently, this exceeds the total time spent on eating and drinking, socializing, and grooming.
As a digital marketer or social media enthusiast, despite being bent on keeping yourself informed of the latest insights and eager to join the conversation to build your brand, you probably don’t want to be stuck behind a keyboard 24/7 managing your social media manually. But with so much to manage, how do you juggle it all?
What you need is a quick, easy and efficient way of handling your social media platforms and integrating these with your overall marketing strategy. That’s where social media management tools come into play. They offer a one stop place to create, post, schedule, and analyze all of your social media efforts – eliminating the laborious task of having to switch tabs between dozens of accounts.
But with plenty of options available in different shapes and sizes, you need to find the right one for your business. Here we look at 3 available tools in the social media management landscape: HootSuite, Buffer and Social Champ.
1. Hootsuite – Manage all your social media in one place
Hootsuite is the one of the oldest and most recognized social media tools in the market.
It has an elaborate, tabular dashboard which allows you to customize “streams” for each social media profile and customize the organization of the tabs in a way that works best for you.
Hootsuite provides a cocktail of features. In terms of publishing, it allows you to target posts, add a location, customize privacy and bulk upload up to 350 posts. With numerous social media profiles connected to Hootsuite, you can pin your favorite accounts for focused monitoring. The tool also allows you to see view draft posts and schedule posts in advance. What makes Hootsuite stand out is the support to engage directly with your audience on multiple platforms through one robust dashboard, as well as the integration of multiple third-party applications.
One of the most essential features of Hootsuite is the Analytics tool that tracks records of multiple kinds of responses on the content posted on the associated social networking sites and analyzes the results in the form of easy to understand charts and graphs with accurate statistics, along with giving a list of the content posted during the last period of time in order identify the reasons for the major spikes and dips in that period’s graph. This helps the users in having an at-a-glance review of their growth trends.
However, Hootsuite misses some important marks. The dashboard is clunky and complicated to use. It may take new users time to understand the overwhelming number of features and divisions. Another heavy drawback is the high cost of analytical reports.
Core Platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, LinkedIn, Instagram (plus a variety of third party integrations).
PROS
- Supports collaboration of large teams
- Allows direct engagement
- Robust and diverse features
- Integration with third-party apps
CONS
- Overwhelming dashboard for new users
- Cluttered and complex interface
- Can’t use own custom short link
- Expensive analytical reports
Best for: Hootsuite is a tool fit for experienced social media marketers and power users – ideal for medium to large businesses. It may not be worth the investment for individuals and small businesses looking for an easy-to- use interface.
2. Buffer – A better way to share on social media
Though not as feature-rich as Hootsuite, Buffer is primarily designed to be a social media scheduling tool that allows users to conveniently schedule and share posts on social media profiles.
In comparison to Hootsuite, Buffer’s strength lies in its simple design and interface, as well as its scheduling and posting features.
Buffer gives users the option to queue posts to be shared later at a pre-scheduled time. After you choose how many times a day you want the post to be shared to a social media platform, Buffer will allocate pre-scheduled slots throughout the day where your content will automatically be shared. Another feature is the Bulk Scheduler that allows a user to queue up to 250 posts.
Buffer also makes it easy to share content directly anywhere from the web through a Buffer Add-On button.
That being said, Buffer does not offer detailed analytics. This tool is more about social media management than analysis. Further, it is more of a listening and monitoring tool than one for tracking conversations or engaging with customers.
Core Platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, LinkedIn, Instagram and Pinterest.
PROS
- Easy-to- use interface
- Specialized scheduling
- Multiple mediums of management – Chrome extension, Mobile Apps and Buffer Button
- Supports Pinterest and Instagram
CONS
- Reporting is limited
- Can’t engage with fans directly
- Doesn’t offer content suggestions
Best for: Buffer is good if you’re looking for a simple and easy-to- use scheduling tool. Where it falls flat is in its ability to provide advanced data analytics and ability to offer other customizable features.
3. Social Champ – The new easiest way to schedule your posts
Social Champ is a new contender in the market. The tool aims to take on well-known heavy weights, and is already being recommended by experts such as Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick. Here we take a detailed look at the features that this new entrant has to offer.
Social Champ allows users to streamline and take control of their social media workflow through a user-friendly interface. It takes inspiration from both Hootsuite and Buffer and offers the best of both. The tool fills in the gap of unique and much-needed features that other ruling tools do not offer.
Social Champ believes in the philosophy of using expert social media strategies that work! One such strategy is repetition that is believed to reinforce call to action, expand reach and increase coverage across platforms. Social Champ’s repeat function allows users to boost their traffic up to 75%, simply by repeating the same content multiple times throughout the day at pre- scheduled slots. The tool also gives you the option of removing prior posts before reposting – while preserving analytics from each post, ensuring no valuable data is lost. It is the only content scheduling tool available with the functionality of automated republishing content.
Content posting and scheduling on Social Champ is easily managed through a social media calendar that provides a quick, visual snapshot of all planned posts.
Another area where Social Champ wins is content suggestions. It allows users to search for quality content from multiple sources based on their interests. Once a user subscribes to their favorite RSS feeds, relevant content is automatically posted on their behalf or moved into a queue to be sent in the future. These posts can be tailored by adding text before or after the auto-generated title.
Another nifty feature is the web browser extension, which similar to the Buffer Button, allows users to post content from anywhere from the web without having to open the dashboard. Moreover, the Analytics tool, similar to that in Buffer, offers a simple and less complicated representation of responses in a table showing the number of likes, clicks and comments while showing the number of the repetitions of the post alongside in order to match the output with your input.
And similar to Hootsuite, Social Champ provides a bulk-upload feature for users to pre-plan campaign messages or schedule messages ahead of time to reach audiences in multiple time- zones. Social Champ also enables users to measure and make smarter decisions with an easy- to-understand analytics section. Furthermore, Social Champ has a more attractive outlook with a vibrant theme that makes it more engaging and fun to use. Within a short span of time, Social Champ has already managed to catch up with key players in the market.
Core Platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, LinkedIn, Instagram and Pinterest.
PROS
- Automated republishing/Repeating function
- Bulk upload from CSV file
- Content suggestion tool allows users to add up to 25 RSS feeds
- Web browser extension allows sharing directly from the webpage
- Easy-to- understand social media calendar
- Low Cost
CONS
- Reporting is limited
- Can’t engage with fans directly
Best for: Social Champ is the perfect tool for small and medium businesses who are looking for unique features to get ahead of the game. Social Champ excels at sprucing up basic features such as posting and scheduling, and providing focused and customizable features to reach your audience.
The Verdict
If you’re looking for a robust tool and don’t mind the heavy investment, go for Hootsuite. If you want a lightweight publishing and scheduling tool, Buffer is right for you. But if you’re looking for something unique to jump ahead and willing to try something new, give Social Champ a try!
Social Champ outshines Hootsuite and Buffer with its unique, data-driven features. Moreover, the tool enables users to create a more focused and compelling presence on social media.
