One such tool is Hopper HQ, a simple-to-use social media management platform that offers essential analytics without overwhelming its users. For businesses whose primary focus isn’t social media but still want to keep track of their performance, Hopper HQ is the perfect solution.

For brands that are looking for more detailed data on their social media performance may need a more complex tool like Hootsuite or Sprout Social. However, this comes with a pricier budget which may be out of reach for smaller businesses.

Why Use a Social Media Reporting Tool?

Social media reporting tools offer several benefits to businesses:

1) Data-Driven Decisions

One of the greatest advantages of using social media reporting tools is the ability to make data-driven decisions that can successfully grow your business. Instead of relying on intuition or guesswork, businesses can gain detailed insights into their audience’s behavior, content performance, and overall account growth.

These tools track key metrics such as likes, comments, shares, follower demographics, and engagement rates. Some more complex tools can even provide social listening and competitor monitoring features so that you can keep an eye out for what works best for them. By leveraging this information, companies can refine their marketing strategies, focusing on what works and improving areas that don’t perform as well. The result is a more targeted and effective social media presence that aligns with business goals.

2) Time Efficiency

Managing multiple social media accounts across different platforms can quickly become overwhelming and hard to keep consistent. Social media reporting tools simplify this process by centralizing all key performance data in one dashboard, rather than jumping between different apps and manually logging results.

Saving time on data collection allows marketing teams to focus on other important tasks, such as content creation, community management, and campaign optimization. By automating reporting and consolidating data, businesses can run their social media operations more efficiently, ultimately improving productivity

3) Better ROI Tracking

Another significant benefit of social media reporting tools is their ability to track return on investment (ROI) in their efforts more accurately. With a clear view of which posts, campaigns, partnerships, or channels are performing best, businesses can determine where they’re getting the highest value for their efforts.

By analyzing key metrics such as conversion rates, website clicks, bounce rate, and engagement, businesses can easily see which social media activities are driving revenue and which are not. This allows for more informed decisions on how to allocate resources—whether that means investing more in high-performing platforms, adjusting underperforming campaigns, or scaling back where the ROI is low. With better ROI tracking, businesses can fine-tune their budgets and strategies, ensuring that every dollar spent on social media has the greatest impact.

What to Look for When Purchasing a Reporting Tool

Choosing the right social media reporting tool depends on several factors:

1. Budget
   Some tools offer comprehensive analytics but come at a premium price, while others are more affordable but might lack advanced features. Align the tool’s pricing with your budget.
2. Purpose
   Consider what you need the tool for. Is it for tracking engagement, audience insights, or growth over time? Some tools focus on one aspect, while others provide a more holistic view.
3. Usability
   The complexity of a tool matters. If your team isn’t tech-savvy or social media isn’t your primary focus, look for tools that offer simplicity and ease of use.

1) Hopper HQ

Hopper HQ stands out as a user-friendly social media management tool that provides all the essential analytics without overwhelming users. Ideal for businesses that want to track their channel performance but don’t see social media as their main focus, Hopper HQ offers three key benefits:

1) Understand Your Audience:

One of the key benefits of using a social media reporting tool like Hopper HQ is the ability to gain a deeper understanding of your audience. This feature allows businesses to access detailed insights about their followers, including where they are located, their age demographics, and when they are most active online. By understanding these crucial data points, you can tailor your content strategy to better meet the preferences and behaviors of your audience.

2) Discover High-Performing Content:

Hopper HQ makes it easy for businesses to identify which content resonates best with their audience by offering detailed performance metrics at a glance. With Hopper HQ’s reporting tools, users can track essential metrics such as reach, saves, likes, comments, and overall engagement rates for each post. These insights help you quickly identify which types of content are most effective at engaging your followers, allowing you to optimize your content strategy.

3) Measure Your Account Growth:

Hopper HQ provides powerful tools to track and measure your social media account’s growth over time, giving businesses clear visibility into their progress. With Hopper HQ, you can easily monitor key growth metrics such as the number of new followers, profile views, website clicks, and more. This data helps businesses understand how their audience is evolving and how well their social media strategies are driving traffic and engagement.

2) Buffer

Buffer is a well-known social media scheduling and reporting tool that has been a favorite among small businesses and individual marketers for its simplicity and efficiency. Its user-friendly interface allows you to schedule posts across various social media platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. While Buffer shines in content scheduling, its reporting features are more basic compared to other tools on this list. Buffer is ideal for businesses that want straightforward social media management without delving too deep into analytics.

Key Benefits of Buffer:

• Simple and Intuitive Interface: Buffer is incredibly easy to use, making it a great option for beginners or teams with limited social media experience.
  
• Affordable Plans for Small Businesses: Buffer offers budget-friendly pricing tiers, making it accessible for small businesses or freelancers who don’t need highly advanced analytics.
  
• Basic Reporting for Key Metrics: Buffer provides essential metrics like engagement, follower growth, and post-performance, which is enough for businesses that don’t require in-depth reports.

3) Hootsuite

Hootsuite is one of the most comprehensive and widely used social media management platforms available today. It offers an array of features, from scheduling posts to monitoring multiple social accounts, and it provides advanced reporting capabilities. However, Hootsuite is on the higher-priced side, and not all analytics features are available on its lower-tier plans. For example, team productivity data, which tracks how efficiently your team manages social media, and ad data, which helps monitor paid social campaigns, are only accessible on higher plans. While Hootsuite’s advanced features make it a powerful tool for large organizations and agencies, smaller businesses might find its pricing and learning curve a bit steep.

Key Benefits of Hootsuite:

• Comprehensive Social Media Management: Hootsuite allows users to schedule, monitor, and report on multiple social media platforms from one centralized dashboard.
• Advanced Analytics for Higher Plans: For those on premium plans, Hootsuite offers in-depth analytics, including performance tracking, team productivity reports, and ad campaign data.
• Customizable Reports: Users can tailor their reports to show specific data points and metrics, making it easier to track progress toward business goals.

4) Sprout Social

Sprout Social is a premium social media management tool designed with larger teams and businesses in mind. It offers robust analytics, powerful customer relationship management (CRM) tools, and features that help streamline communication across platforms. Sprout Social excels in providing detailed audience analysis, content performance tracking, and the ability to manage customer interactions directly through its interface. However, its pricing can be quite high compared to other tools, and some smaller businesses may find it more than they need. Additionally, while its reporting features are excellent, smaller businesses might find the cost prohibitive, especially when compared to less expensive alternatives that still offer basic analytics.

Key Benefits of Sprout Social:

• Comprehensive Audience Insights: Sprout Social provides detailed data on follower demographics, behaviors, and engagement patterns, allowing businesses to better understand and connect with their audience.
• Advanced Reporting Features: Users can create customized, in-depth reports that highlight performance metrics across multiple social media platforms, offering a holistic view of social strategy effectiveness.
• Built-In CRM Capabilities: Sprout Social’s CRM tools make it easy to track customer interactions and manage relationships, making it especially useful for businesses with a strong focus on customer support and engagement.

5) Socialbakers

Socialbakers is an AI-powered social media management tool that excels in providing deep insights and analytics, making it a strong choice for businesses looking to optimize their social media strategy with data-driven decisions. Its AI-driven features help analyze audience behavior, content performance, and even competitor strategies. Socialbakers is particularly suited for larger companies or agencies that manage multiple accounts and require detailed reports on customer demographics, influencer partnerships, and paid campaign performance. However, the advanced features come at a higher price, and their complexity might be overkill for smaller businesses or those with less experience in social media analytics.

Key Benefits of Socialbakers:

• AI-Powered Insights: Socialbakers leverages artificial intelligence to deliver detailed insights into audience behavior, helping businesses create more targeted and effective content.
  
• Competitor and Influencer Analysis: The platform allows users to monitor competitors and track influencer partnerships, offering unique data that can give brands a competitive edge.
  
• Comprehensive Analytics Dashboard: Users get access to a centralized dashboard that provides a clear, holistic view of social media performance, including both organic and paid efforts.

6) Agorapulse

Agorapulse is a well-rounded social media management tool that offers an intuitive interface and solid reporting features, making it a favorite among small to mid-sized businesses and agencies. With Agorapulse, users can schedule posts, monitor social media conversations, and track performance metrics across multiple platforms. One of its standout features is its social inbox, which consolidates messages and comments from all social accounts in one place, making community management more efficient. While Agorapulse offers useful analytics, its reporting capabilities are less advanced compared to other high-end tools, making it a simpler but effective option for businesses that don’t require extensive data analysis.

Key Benefits of Agorapulse:

• User-Friendly Interface: Agorapulse is easy to navigate, making it ideal for teams that need a straightforward tool to manage social media without a steep learning curve.
• Unified Social Inbox: The platform’s social inbox brings all messages and comments from your social profiles into one dashboard, improving team efficiency in handling customer interactions.
• Affordable for Small to Mid-Sized Businesses: Agorapulse offers cost-effective pricing plans that deliver solid features without overwhelming users with unnecessary complexity.

7) Sendible

Sendible is a versatile social media management tool designed for agencies and larger teams managing multiple clients or social accounts. It offers a range of features, including content scheduling, client management, and analytics, making it a strong choice for agencies that need to streamline their workflow. Sendible also allows users to manage social media, blogs, and email marketing campaigns all from one platform, providing a more integrated experience. However, while its reporting features are comprehensive, they may be a bit complex for smaller businesses or individual users who only need basic analytics. Its pricing can also be on the higher side for teams with limited needs.

Key Benefits of Sendible:

• Multi-Channel Management: Sendible allows users to manage social media, blogs, and even email campaigns from a single platform, making it an excellent option for agencies managing multiple clients.
• Client Collaboration Tools: It provides unique features like client approval workflows, helping agencies maintain smooth communication and deliverables for their clients.
• Customizable Reports: Sendible’s reporting tools are robust and fully customizable, allowing users to tailor reports based on client needs or specific performance metrics.

8) Zoho Social

Zoho Social is an affordable and straightforward social media management tool that integrates well with other Zoho products, making it a great option for small businesses already using the Zoho ecosystem. It provides essential features such as content scheduling, social media monitoring, and basic reporting. Zoho Social’s analytics, while not as detailed as some of the premium tools, still offer valuable insights into post performance, audience demographics, and engagement. It’s a cost-effective option for businesses that want to manage social media efficiently without breaking the bank, though larger organizations or agencies might find its reporting capabilities somewhat limited compared to other tools.

Key Benefits of Zoho Social:

• Affordable and Accessible: Zoho Social offers a range of pricing plans that cater to small businesses, making it a budget-friendly option without sacrificing essential features.
• Seamless Integration with Zoho Suite: For businesses already using Zoho’s suite of products (such as CRM, email, and finance tools), Zoho Social integrates smoothly, creating a more connected business ecosystem.
• Basic but Effective Analytics: While it doesn’t offer the advanced reporting features of more expensive tools, Zoho Social provides enough insights for businesses looking to track performance without needing in-depth data analysis.

9) Iconosquare

Iconosquare is a specialized social media analytics tool, primarily focused on Instagram and Facebook. It provides in-depth insights into content performance, audience behavior, and engagement, making it a top choice for brands that rely heavily on visual platforms. Iconosquare offers detailed metrics such as follower demographics, post reach, and engagement rates, which help businesses refine their social media strategy. While it excels in providing data for Instagram and Facebook, its support for other platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn is more limited. This makes Iconosquare perfect for businesses focused on visual content, but not as suitable for those needing comprehensive analytics across all social networks.

Key Benefits of Iconosquare:

• Detailed Instagram and Facebook Analytics: Iconosquare offers highly specialized insights for Instagram and Facebook, providing brands with a deep understanding of their content performance and audience.
• Competitor Tracking: Users can monitor competitor accounts, comparing performance metrics to help them stay ahead of the competition in their niche.
• Content Calendar and Scheduling: In addition to analytics, Iconosquare provides a content calendar and scheduling feature, making it easier to plan and post content efficiently.

10) Later

Later is a visual content scheduling tool primarily designed for Instagram, though it also supports other platforms like Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and Pinterest. Its focus on visual content makes it a top choice for businesses and influencers who prioritize aesthetics and need an intuitive platform for managing their Instagram presence. Later’s drag-and-drop calendar and visual media library make planning and posting content easy and organized. However, while Later does offer some basic analytics, its reporting features are not as robust as other tools, making it more suitable for users focused on content scheduling rather than in-depth performance tracking.

Key Benefits of Later:

• Visual Content Scheduling: Later’s intuitive drag-and-drop interface and media library allow users to easily plan, schedule, and post visually compelling content, particularly for Instagram.
• Instagram-Focused: Later provides features like Instagram grid previews and hashtag suggestions, tailored specifically for maximizing Instagram engagement.
• Affordable for Small Teams: Later offers budget-friendly plans, making it accessible for small businesses and individual influencers who need a simple yet effective scheduling tool.

Conclusion

Social media reporting tools are essential for businesses aiming to improve their online presence and marketing strategies. From tracking engagement to analyzing content performance, these tools provide critical insights that can shape a brand’s success. Hopper HQ stands out for businesses that want to keep social media reporting simple yet effective, making it a great option for companies whose primary focus isn’t social media.

Don’t miss out—try Hopper HQ for free today and take the first step toward understanding and growing your social presence!

The post Social Media Reporting Tools: The 10 Best to Pick From appeared first on Hopper HQ.

Complementing a competitor analysis tool with a social media scheduling tool like Hopper HQ gives you a complete hold of your social media strategy. With the power to monitor your competitors, as well as, plan, create, and schedule posts effectively, your business can stay organized, on top of trends, and ahead of the competition.

Why Should You Buy a Social Media Competitor Analysis Tools?

Here are three compelling reasons why you should integrate social media competitor analysis into your strategy:

Identify Market Trends:

By using competitor analysis tools, you gain a real-time overview of how your competitors engage with their audience. These tools reveal what’s working in your industry and help you adapt to trends faster, ensuring you’re never left behind.

Improve Your Content Strategy:

Competitor analysis tools allow you to see which types of posts are driving engagement for others in your niche. You can analyze the content that garners the most likes, shares, and comments, and apply these insights to fine-tune your own content, delivering more value to your audience.

Benchmark Your Performance:

These tools allow you to compare your social media performance with your competitors, giving you valuable metrics like follower growth, engagement rates, and post reach. This helps you set realistic benchmarks and goals for your own social media efforts.

The Top 10 Social Media Competitor Analysis Tools

1) Unmetric

Unmetric is a comprehensive social media analytics platform designed for businesses looking to benchmark their performance against competitors. This tool offers detailed insights into competitor strategies across platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

Using AI-driven analytics, Unmetric helps brands uncover what’s resonating with their audience and their competitors’ followers. Its powerful reporting features allow you to track key metrics such as engagement rates, response times, and content performance, all while helping you discover top-performing posts. One standout feature of Unmetric is its ability to provide predictive insights into how future posts might perform, enabling brands to make data-backed decisions before they even publish content.

By using Unmetric, brands can pinpoint the best times to post, identify content trends, and adapt their strategy based on competitive analysis. This platform is ideal for marketers focused on improving their social media ROI by learning from their competitors.

2. Klear

Klear, bought in 2021 by Meltwater, is initially known for its robust influencer marketing capabilities, also offers a powerful competitor analysis feature. It allows users to track and analyze competitors’ performance across the most popular social media platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter.

Klear provides deep insights into follower demographics, engagement patterns, and influencer partnerships, giving businesses a full understanding of their competitors’ strategies. One of Klear’s standout features is its ability to identify competitors’ influencer partnerships, which is critical for brands looking to leverage influencer marketing and not waste time with influencers who are already partnered up.

Additionally, the tool breaks down engagement data into easy-to-understand metrics, allowing users to compare their social media presence against leaders in their industry. This tool also offers sentiment analysis, so you can see not just how much engagement a competitor’s content is generating, but also how audiences are responding emotionally. Giving a detailed picture of what works and doesn’t.

3. SEMrush

While SEMrush is predominantly known for its SEO and digital marketing capabilities, it also offers a few social media features like competitor analysis. SEMrush’s Social Media Toolkit allows users to track the performance of competitor accounts on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

What sets SEMrush apart is its holistic approach to competitive analysis; it not only tracks social metrics like engagement, follower growth, and post frequency, but it also integrates those insights with website traffic data and search engine rankings. This means you can see how your competitors’ social media performance is driving web traffic, conversions, and SEO success.

You can track up to 20 competitors and gather insights into their engagement rates, follower and subscriber counts, publication frequency, post types, and more. This tool also offers social media listening, which helps track brand mentions and competitor sentiment across your desired platforms. By combining these social and digital marketing analytics in one tool, SEMrush gives users a comprehensive understanding of how their social efforts align with their overall online presence.

4. BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo is knownn as a content discovery and analysis tool, to help track content engagement, trends, and identify outreach opportunities across social and search. You’ll be able to see what types of content are performing best in your industry, showing you which posts are generating the most social shares, backlinks, and engagement.

By tracking competitor content across platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and Pinterest, BuzzSumo provides insight into what kind of topics, formats, and posting strategies are resonating with your target audiences. One of the platform’s standout features is its ability to identify the influencers and creators who are sharing your competitors’ content, helping you tap into the same networks or less saturated ones to help boost your reach.

Additionally, BuzzSumo offers alerts that notify you when a competitor publishes new content, allowing you to stay on top of industry trends. Its content-driven analysis makes BuzzSumo particularly useful for brands looking to refine their social media and content marketing strategies.

5. Brandwatch

Brandwatch is a leading social media platform that provides several services including in-depth competitor analysis through advanced sentiment analysis and real-time monitoring. The tool allows users to track both mentions and the moves your competitors do across multiple social media platforms, blogs, forums, and news sites.

Brandwatch’s AI-powered analytics help identify key trends and themes emerging around competitor brands, giving you a full picture of how their audiences are responding to their content and campaigns. One of the standout features of Brandwatch is its ability to segment audience data based on demographics, sentiment, and even specific interests, allowing for a deeper understanding of how different audience groups are interacting with competitors.

Additionally, Brandwatch’s visual reporting tools make it easy to compare your company’s social performance against your main competitors, highlighting where you stand in terms of engagement, reach, and overall share of voice. This tool is ideal for brands looking to go beyond simple metrics and gain deeper, more actionable insights into their competitors’ social strategies.

6. Rival IQ

Rival IQ is a social media analytics platform that focuses on tracking social media trends and strategies. It’s also well-equipped for competitor benchmarking and industry performance tracking. The tool offers detailed insights into how your competitors are performing across the social channels Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and LinkedIn.

By automating the process of finding competitors’ social media accounts and gathering insightful data like engagement rates and audience growth, Rival IQ saves businesses significant time and effort. It also provides historical data, allowing you to track changes over time and identify seasonal trends or successful campaigns that competitors are running or have run.

Rival IQ also provides hashtag analytics and sentiment analysis, helping brands understand which types of content resonate most with their audiences. It offers essential insights, suggestions, and data analysis to improve social media performance, helping marketers develop thoughtful strategies and track their effectiveness.

7. Emplifi

Emplifi, previously known as Socialbakers, offers a suite of analytics tools, including social media competitor analysis tools, that make benchmarking easier and more insightful. Known for its robust social media reporting, Socialbakers enables users to track and analyze competitors’ performance across platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Emplifi provides real-time social insights by sharing social posts across various platforms, helping brands stay updated on emerging trends and competitive movements. You’ll be able to compare the performance of your profiles with those of your competitors using key metrics like engagement rates, follower growth, and post reach across channels your desired channels.

You can also analyze paid social media campaigns, making it easy to track competitors’ paid and organic social strategies side by side. This tool is particularly useful for large-scale enterprises with complex social media strategies who want to track the effectiveness of competitors’ ads and organic content, allowing brands to optimize their campaigns more effectively.

8. Phlanx

Phlanx is mostly known for its influencer marketing features, but it also offers a useful engagement calculator that can be leveraged for competitor analysis. You can gather data for YouTube, Twitter/X, Instagram, and Twitch with insights into post performance and more for each competitor. There is a limited set of insights that are free, but most features require a paid account.

By tracking key metrics such as follower count, engagement rates, and post frequency, Phlanx helps brands compare their social performance with competitors across Instagram, Facebook, Twitch, YouTube, and Twitter. Its engagement calculator allows users to see how their competitors’ engagement metrics stack up, providing valuable insights into how your target audiences interact with competitor content.

Phlanx also provides a tool to track and analyze brand collaborations and influencer partnerships, giving you the chance to look into how your competitors are leveraging influencers in their campaigns. This feature is particularly beneficial for businesses that rely heavily on influencer marketing as part of their social media strategy.

9. NetBase Quid

NetBase Quid is a consumer and market intelligence platform that provides real-time social analytics and competitor tracking through advanced AI and natural language processing. Businesses can monitor competitors’ social media presence and track public sentiment across multiple channels, including blogs, forums, and news sites.

NetBase Quid goes beyond simply tracking mentions and engagement; it also provides a detailed breakdown of sentiment, showing how competitors are perceived by their audience. With NetBase Quid you can monitor your competitors’ activities and strategies. This is done by analyzing competitor mentions, sentiment, and engagement, companies can benchmark their performance and uncover potential areas for improvement.

NetBase Quid’s reporting capabilities also include visual representations of competitive positioning, helping brands identify market gaps and areas of opportunity. This tool is ideal for brands that want a 360-degree view of their competitors’ social presence combined with deeper audience insights and market trends.

10. Talkwalker

Talkwalker is a leading social media analytics tool that helps businesses with analytics, social listening, and influencer marketing. It allows you to identify business opportunities, analyze what your competitors are doing, and monitor your marketing initiatives.

This tool can help brands identify key trends and discussions around competitor content, revealing valuable data about what’s driving engagement and sentiment. Talkwalker’s customizable dashboards allow users to track competitors’ social performance in real-time, tracking critical metrics like share of voice, audience sentiment, and overall brand health.

Talkwalker’s image recognition technology can track visual mentions of competitor logos or products, offering a deeper understanding of how competitors’ brand assets are being used and perceived across social channels. For brands seeking comprehensive social listening and competitor insights, Talkwalker is a must-have tool.

The Top 5 Free Social Media Competitor Analysis Tools

For businesses on a budget and may not be able to afford the tools mentioned above, here are a few free alternative tools you can consider.

1) Social Searcher:

This is a tool designed to track brand mentions across various popular social media platforms as well as non-social sources like blogs and websites. With this tool, you’ll be able to search for mentions of your own brand or those of your competitors as well as analyze basic sentiment. However, its capabilities are somewhat limited compared to premium tools, making it best suited for small businesses or startups that want basic competitor monitoring without a high price tag.

2) Followerwonk:

A Twitter analytics tool that helps you explore your competitors’ Twitter followers and identify engagement patterns. One of its strongest features is its competitor analysis feature. This tool helps users compare social authority, track follower growth, and even identify the time of day when competitors’ followers are most active. Moreover, the tool offers insights into follower bio keywords and locations, allowing brands to adjust their content and targeting strategies accordingly.

3) Google Alerts:

While not specifically designed for social media, Google Alerts can notify you whenever your competitors are mentioned online, including on social platforms, blogs, forums, and news sites. Users can set up customized alerts based on competitors’ brand names, product names, or industry-related keywords, and receive email notifications whenever new content is published that matches the criteria.

Although Google Alerts doesn’t offer the in-depth metrics found in dedicated social media competitor analysis tools, it’s valuable for keeping track of overall brand visibility, online reputation, and competitor activities.

4) Quick Search (by Talkwalker):

Quick Search is the free version of Talkwalker’s powerful social listening platform. This tool allows users to quickly search for mentions of competitors across social media, blogs, news sites, and forums. Quick Search provides an easy-to-use dashboard for monitoring brand mentions, hashtags, and industry trends in real time, giving users a snapshot of competitors’ online presence.

In addition to tracking mentions, Quick Search allows users to identify trending topics and measure brand sentiment, helping you understand how your competitors are perceived by the public. Its visual representation of data, including word clouds and engagement graphs, offers quick insights into key areas of interest.

5) Sociograph:

This is a free tool designed specifically for analyzing Facebook pages. It provides in-depth insights into competitor posts, including engagement metrics such as likes, shares, and comments. With Sociograph, users can compare their own Facebook performance with that of competitors, identifying which of their content generates the most engagement and in turn using it for their own profiles.

One of Sociograph’s notable features is its ability to generate detailed reports on engagement metrics for competitor pages, offering insights into what kind of content works best. The tool also provides historical data on post-performance, allowing users to analyze content strategies over time.

Why Use Hopper HQ with a Social Media Competitor Analysis Tool?

While competitor analysis tools help you monitor what’s working in your industry, combining that information with a scheduling tool like Hopper HQ amplifies your effectiveness. Here’s why:

1) Strategize and Schedule Ahead: Once you’ve identified what’s working for your competitors, Hopper HQ allows you to plan and schedule similar types of content in advance. You won’t need to scramble to respond to trends in real time because your posts will already be queued up.

2) Maximize Engagement Times: By using insights from competitor tools, you can identify peak engagement times. With Hopper HQ’s advanced scheduling features, you can ensure your posts go live when your audience is most active, increasing visibility.

3) Consistency is Key: One of the best ways to stay competitive is through consistent posting. Hopper HQ enables you to keep a steady stream of content going, ensuring you never miss an opportunity to engage with your audience while tracking your competitors.

Conclusion

Incorporating social media competitor analysis tools into your strategy provides a comprehensive view of the social media landscape, allowing you to benchmark your performance, adapt to market trends, and enhance your content strategy. Combining these tools with a robust scheduling platform like Hopper HQ allows you to streamline your efforts and maintain a consistent, effective presence online.

Ready to take your social media game to the next level? Try Hopper HQ for free today and see how pairing it with a competitor analysis tool can transform your strategy.

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The post The Top 15 Social Media Competitor Analysis Tools (Free & Paid) appeared first on Hopper HQ.

Buffer is a widely used social media management platform. It’s a versatile platform designed to enhance your content creation, scheduling, and analytics. 

In this review, we’ll outline in detail everything you need to know about Buffer. We’ll delve into the tool’s features, pricing, user experience, and who this software is ideal for. After reading, you’ll be equipped with all the information you need to know about Buffer to decide if it’s a great fit for you and your team.

What is Buffer?

Buffer is a powerful social media management tool designed to help individuals and businesses manage their online presence across multiple social media platforms. At its core, Buffer allows you to schedule and publish content on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google Business Profile, TikTok, and Mastodon. You can also create engaging posts and plan your social media calendar on this social media management tool.

However, Buffer goes beyond simply scheduling posts. It offers a wide range of features that help streamline your workflow, analyze performance, and grow your audience. There are also features like hashtag suggestions, Pablo image creation tool, and team collaboration capabilities, that make Buffer an all-in-one solution for managing your social media presence. 

Buffer started as a Startup Sprint project in 2010 to solve a problem Joel Gascoigne (the founder and CEO) was experiencing — he wanted to space out when his tweets were sent. The idea gained hundreds of users within the first few months and eventually grew to add social networks, to go beyond purely publishing to social media into analytics, engagement, and scheduling.

Today, Buffer remains a popular choice for individuals and businesses, offering a comprehensive social media management suite that helps users save time, optimize their presence, and achieve their online goals.

What is Buffer used for?

Buffer isn’t just a basic scheduling tool – it’s your one-stop shop for streamlined social media management. Whether you’re a solopreneur juggling multiple platforms or a team managing a brand online presence, Buffer empowers you to plan, publish, analyze, and engage more effectively.

Using Buffer gives you access to a centralized dashboard where users can manage all their social media accounts in one place. This eliminates the need to juggle individual platform dashboards, saving time and ensuring consistency. It also integrates with popular social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google Business Profile, TikTok, and Mastodon. 

Buffer simplifies the process of monitoring and responding to comments, messages, and mentions. The tool also has a clean and user-friendly interface which makes it easy to use. The interface is free of unnecessary elements allowing you to focus on essential tasks without distractions. Whether you’re scheduling posts or analyzing data, you can get started without having extensive training.

Buffer serves as a comprehensive social media management tool, enabling both individuals and teams to efficiently schedule, analyze, and publish content across various platforms. Acting as a central hub, Buffer streamlines workflows and optimizes time usage. Additionally, the platform facilitates advanced planning by allowing users to queue social media posts in advance, ensuring a consistent and engaging online presence.

Buffer Overall Rating

In this section, we’ll be giving our overall rating of Buffer based on different criteria.

Here you can quickly analyze how well Buffer performs in regard to the following subtopics, which were chosen based on what businesses and specifically marketing teams require.

We chose to compare Buffer against Hopper HQ which is known for its accessibility and ease of use. A viable alternative to Buffer for those who may not have the budget or the resources to fully leverage the tool.

Features	Buffer	Hopper HQ
Pricing
Content creation and planning
Publishing and scheduling
Analytics
Team collaboration
Customer support

Buffer Pricing:

……the cost is quite high, but it’s understandable given the features of their product. Even with a premium version, having access to only eight accounts as a brand manager can be very limiting and unhelpful for companies or organizations that need to reach multiple platforms at once.

Dario G.

Buffer offers a free plan that gives you access to limited features. The free plan lets you connect up to  3 channels. You can link your social media profiles from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Google+. You can also create and schedule your posts in advance. The free plan allows 10 scheduled posts per channel at any time. You also have access to Buffer’s landing page builder where you can build a landing page to showcase links to your most important pages.

The base subscription plan for Buffer is the Essentials Plan. This plan costs $6 monthly per channel. Adding more social media channels to this plan will cost $6 per channel. The Essentials Plan gives you access to custom schedules and a social media calendar to manage campaigns and social media content. There’s also access to Buffer AI assistant that helps you brainstorm new content ideas.

To access more premium features, you will need to consider the Team Plan (which is $12/month per channel) or the Agency Plan (which is $120/month for 10 channels). These plans are more suited for a mid-sized team or marketing agencies.

One major downside of Buffer pricing is that it’s not ideal for businesses with a large team and multiple social media accounts. This is because you’ll be charged based on the number of social media accounts you have which can drive up your subscription cost.

Content Creation and Planning:

Buffer is equipped with features that make it easy for you and your team to effectively plan and create content.

A good example is Buffer’s Content Calendar—a content calendar is a powerful tool for social media marketers and content creators. The content calendar helps you plan, organize, and visualize your content strategy. You can map out your content for weeks, months, or even a year in advance. This strategic planning ensures consistency and alignment with your overall marketing goals. 

Seeing your content laid out in a calendar format makes it more manageable. The visual aspect minimizes the perceived difficulty of your work and keeps you motivated. A content calendar simplifies decision-making. When you know what’s coming up, you can allocate resources, create content, and engage with your audience more effectively. 

Another example is Buffer’s dashboard which serves as a central control panel for managing your social media presence. When you log in to Buffer, you’re greeted with a centralized dashboard that allows you to access all your connected social media accounts from one place and switch seamlessly between profiles and platforms.

The dashboard displays your scheduled posts in a calendar format. You can easily spot busy days, gaps, or patterns in your posting frequency. In the calendar view, you can drag and drop posts to different dates. Reschedule content effortlessly by moving it around and making real-time adjustments. 

Publishing and Scheduling:

Buffer is the very useful tool for social media management, here we can manage all social media channels in on account no need to login everywhere, in jsut one login can post schedule, publish and manage posts.

Yasharth

Buffer, the versatile social media management tool, simplifies publishing and scheduling content across various platforms. Buffer provides a centralized dashboard where you can manage all your connected social media accounts in one place.

You can easily schedule and publish content to social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Google Business Profile—all from one simple dashboard.

With Buffer, you can create unique, custom social media schedules for every profile you own. You can use the social media management platform’s calendar to schedule content in advance. With this calendar, you can also schedule major campaigns, product launches, and announcements well in advance.

Analytics:

I like the analytics offered by this application which are very helpful and aslo to see how each post is performing.

–Felicity M.

Buffer’s analytics and tracking features provide valuable insights to help social media managers measure performance, refine strategies, and optimize content. The tool has a unified dashboard for multiple platforms and the analytics dashboard integrates data from Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

You can track key metrics and insights – like shares, comments, likes, and clicks on your posts. Not only that, you can track reach and understand how many unique users saw your content. Buffer also lets you monitor your follower growth, impressing, and overall content performance. 

With Buffer, you can also track your audience demographics and learn more about your target audience. The tool gives you information like age, gender, location, and other insights about your target audience. You can also build fully customized reports within Buffer and export these reports to share with your team, managers, or stakeholders.

Team Collaboration:

Buffer’s simple permission levels allow you to choose who can post to each of your social media channels. You can assign different roles and permissions to team members based on their responsibilities. The tool also supports approval workflows which you can use to approve or reject posts with just a simple click.

Using Buffer also lets you and your team members collaborate on ideas. The tool has a dedicated Ideas space within Buffer where you can brainstorm, ideate, and collaborate effectively to keep everyone aligned.

On Buffer’s Team plan, you can add as many team members as you’d like. Each team member has their login and can be assigned different roles and permissions.

Overall, using Buffer lets you collaborate seamlessly with colleagues, whether you’re a small team or a large organization.

Customer Support:

They don’t READ my messages, and certainly don’t address my issue. I’ve submitted two tickets and had multiple email exchanges with various staff in an attempt to get a simple matter resolved, which never resolves.

Patti Nash

Buffer employs different channels to provide customer support to their users. The Buffer Help Center offers a wealth of information to customers looking to troubleshoot any problem they run into. With the help center, they can easily do this without talking to a customer support agent. The help center contains answers to common questions, guides, and access support documentation.

If you ever need to talk to a customer care agent, Buffer offers live chat support as well. In addition, Buffer hosts a weekly Twitter chat called #bufferchat. Here, you can engage with Buffer’s support team, ask questions, and discuss best practices for social media management.

Buffer Alternatives Comparison

If you’re considering an alternative to Buffer, Hopper HQ is an ideal social media management tool for you for different reasons. 
When it comes to pricing, Hopper HQ offers a better value compared to Buffer. Buffer charges you $6 monthly per channel. This means brands with multiple social media 

Hopper HQ simplifies social media management with a multiple subscription plan that gives you access to a wide range of powerful tools. For just $16 per month, users gain access to a comprehensive set of features. 

With Hopper HQ, you get access to AI-powered assistance for tasks such as image resizing and automatic caption generation. You also get access to analytics tools that help you keep track of your content performance. Hopper HQ also supports other platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts.

Summary:

Hopefully, this Buffer Review article has helped you better understand the capabilities and weaknesses of Buffer as a social media management tool. Like all tools, it had its strengths, like using social accounts rather than social sets, allowing you to only pay for what you need.

But also it comes with its weaknesses like lacking the bulk scheduling feature and having limitations in regards to analytics and customer support. If Buffer ends up not being the tool of choice, we hope we provide enough alternatives to help you make a decision.

Try Hopper HQ today to get started with social media scheduling!

The post Buffer Review: A Comprehensive Analysis appeared first on Hopper HQ.

However, the emergence of social media scheduling for restaurants has introduced a transformative solution, reshaping how they manage their online image and overcome challenges.

The Realities of the Restaurant Industry

Much like other fast-paced environments, the restaurant industry thrives on timeliness and trends. Restaurateurs are constantly orchestrating a symphony of flavours, ingredients, and dining experiences. In this bustling realm, setting aside time for crafting captivating social media content can easily take a backseat. Moreover, as the culinary world places immense emphasis on presentation, high-quality visuals are pivotal to showcasing dishes effectively.

In the midst of this whirlwind of culinary creativity, finding the bandwidth to curate and maintain an enticing social media presence can become a conundrum. Restaurant owners are often caught between the allure of the kitchen and the call of the online audience. While perfecting recipes, managing staff, and ensuring top-notch service, dedicating time to curate and post engaging content can become a tightrope walk.

The Pain Points of Inconsistent Social Media Presence

Inconsistent social media engagement within the restaurant industry yields its own set of challenges. From missed opportunities to engage with potential diners to weakened brand identity, the consequences are palpable. A sporadic online presence not only hampers recognition but also leaves followers unsatiated, leading to diminished engagement and fewer reservations.

1)Highly Competitive Plate:

Restaurants operate within a fiercely competitive space. Inconsistent posting can lead to missed opportunities to engage with potential patrons and showcase mouthwatering offerings. Such inconsistency can result in reduced visibility, leaving restaurants lagging behind competitors who consistently tantalize their audience with their culinary delights.

2) Nurturing Brand Identity:

Restaurant businesses heavily hinge on cultivating a distinct brand identity. Haphazard social media efforts can dilute brand recognition and undermine the distinctiveness of a restaurant’s image. Conversely, a consistent social media strategy reinforces brand personality, allowing potential patrons to recognize and savour a restaurant’s offerings.

3) Growing Engagement:

Beyond brand identity, maintaining regular online engagement is the secret ingredient to fostering audience interaction. An inconsistent posting rhythm can lead to waning engagement rates, leaving followers with an unsatisfied palate for content. In an era where patrons crave instant gratification and interactive experiences, failing to maintain a steady online presence can leave restaurants struggling to satiate their audience’s appetite for connection.

Unleashing the Benefits of Social Media Scheduling

In the dynamic realm of restaurants and food service, maintaining a captivating online presence can be as challenging as crafting an Instagram-worthy dish. Enter social media scheduling, a game-changing strategy that empowers restaurants to thrive amidst the complexities of the industry. This contemporary approach offers a spectrum of advantages that enable restaurateurs to navigate the demands of consistency and engagement with finesse.

Ensuring Mouthwatering Consistency: Just as patrons expect consistent dishes from their favourite eateries, a steady flow of online content is key. Social media scheduling allows restaurants to plan and arrange posts in advance, ensuring an uninterrupted digital presence even during busy hours in the kitchen or bustling service times.

Savvy Time Management: Restaurant operations demand dedicated attention. Social media scheduling frees up precious time by automating content posting, letting restaurateurs focus on culinary excellence, customer satisfaction, and trend-spotting in the food scene.

Visual Temptation: A sumptuous plate presentation is the first step to tantalizing taste buds. Scheduling tools often feature visual planners, enabling restaurants to visualize their content arrangement across platforms. This ensures a visually appealing feed that resonates with hungry online audiences.

Savouring Maximum Reach: Just as timing is crucial in preparing dishes, the timing of social media posts influences their reach. Scheduling tools empower restaurants to post at optimal times, ensuring their culinary creations appear on the screens of potential diners when they’re most engaged.

Repurposing your content: Creating fresh content for every platform can be time-consuming. Social media scheduling tools allow restaurateurs to repurpose content across platforms, extending its impact and ensuring a consistent brand message resonates with followers.

Detailed Insights: Just as chefs refine their recipes, restaurants refine their social media strategy using insights. Scheduling tools often provide analytics that reveals post engagement, audience demographics, and more. This data-driven approach helps tailor content for better results.

Elevating the Social Media Experience with Hopper HQ

Introducing Hopper HQ, a premier social media scheduling tool tailored for restaurants. This culinary ally offers features like bulk uploading, visual planning, analytics, and collaboration. Hopper HQ understands the unique needs of the food service industry, making it a must-have for restaurateurs on their journey to maintain a consistent and engaging online presence. Just as a well-crafted menu delights patrons, Hopper HQ elevates the digital palate of restaurants, ensuring that every online dish is served with perfection.

In the competitive world of dining, a consistent and engaging social media presence is the secret recipe that sets restaurants apart. Social media scheduling tools offer a lifeline to address the time constraints, inconsistency, and engagement hurdles that restaurateurs often encounter. By embracing these tools, dining establishments can experience the benefits, focus on their culinary craftsmanship, and ultimately elevate their success on both the digital and dining fronts.

Try out our 14-day free trial and start streamlining your social media efforts so that you can focus on your core tasks and ultimately elevate your success!

The post Social Media Scheduling for Restaurants: A Recipe for Growth appeared first on Hopper HQ.

The demands of property showings, client interactions, and administrative tasks often leave little room for crafting and posting content on social media platforms. However, the advent of social media scheduling tools has revolutionized how realtors can manage their online presence, offering a streamlined solution to the challenges they face.

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The Realities of the Real Estate Industry:

The real estate industry thrives in a fast-paced environment, where timing can make all the difference. Realtors are constantly on the move, navigating a sea of properties, contracts, and clients. In such a scenario, allocating time for creating and posting social media content can often become a low priority. Additionally, the visual nature of the real estate business demands high-quality imagery to showcase properties effectively.

In such a bustling arena, their days are often characterized by a relentless hustle – from arranging property showings and negotiating contracts to communicating with clients and collaborating with colleagues.

Amidst this whirlwind of activity, finding the time to curate and maintain a robust social media presence can be an uphill battle. Realtors are essentially pulled in multiple directions, responding to the demands of clients while striving to keep pace with the market’s ebb and flow. The urgency of responding to emails, scheduling viewings, and attending meetings frequently takes precedence over crafting and publishing thoughtful content on social media platforms.

The Pain Points of Inconsistent Social Media Presence:

The repercussions of inconsistent social media posting can be significant for realtors. Missed opportunities to engage potential clients, weakened brand identity, and limited audience interaction are among the key challenges. A sporadic online presence can lead to a lack of recognition and reduced engagement from followers, diminishing the impact of realtors’ efforts.

1) Highly competitive space:

Firstly, the real estate market is highly competitive, with numerous realtors vying for the attention of potential clients. An inconsistent posting schedule can result in missed opportunities to engage with potential buyers and sellers. This lack of engagement can translate into reduced visibility, causing realtors to fall behind their competitors who have managed to cultivate a more consistent and active online presence.

2) Relies on Brand Credibility:

Moreover, the real estate business heavily relies on building a strong brand identity and establishing trust with clients. A haphazard approach to social media can erode brand recognition and dilute the distinctiveness of a realtor’s image. A consistent social media strategy, on the other hand, reinforces a realtor’s brand, helping potential clients recognize and remember their services more easily.

3) Constant engagement is necessary:

Beyond brand identity, consistent online engagement is essential for fostering audience interaction. An inconsistent posting schedule can lead to reduced engagement rates, as followers may disengage due to infrequent updates. In an era where clients seek instant information and engagement, failing to maintain a regular presence can hinder a realtor’s ability to connect with their audience on a meaningful level.

Unleashing the Benefits of Social Media Scheduling

In the face of the challenges posed by the real estate industry’s demands, social media scheduling emerges as a strategic solution that can revolutionize how realtors manage their online presence. This modern approach offers an array of benefits that empower real estate professionals to effectively navigate the complexities of maintaining a consistent and engaging social media presence.

Ensuring Consistency: One of the most significant advantages of social media scheduling is its ability to ensure a steady flow of content, regardless of a realtor’s busy schedule. By planning and scheduling posts in advance, realtors can maintain a consistent online presence even during times when their attention is focused on property showings, negotiations, or client meetings.

Time Management: Social media scheduling liberates realtors from the time-consuming task of manually posting content on various platforms. This automation enables them to allocate more time to their core responsibilities – showing properties, building client relationships, and staying attuned to market trends.

Visual Planning: Visual appeal is a cornerstone of the real estate industry. Scheduling tools often come equipped with visual planners, allowing realtors to preview how their content will be displayed on their social media profiles. This feature ensures a cohesive and visually pleasing feed that resonates with their target audience.

Maximizing Reach: The timing of social media posts plays a pivotal role in reaching the widest audience. Scheduling tools empower realtors to post content at optimal times, ensuring their messages are more likely to be seen by potential clients who are actively browsing their feeds.

Content Repurposing: Creating content from scratch for each platform can be time-consuming. Social media scheduling tools enable realtors to repurpose their content across different platforms, extending the lifespan and impact of their posts. This not only saves time but also ensures consistent messaging across all channels.

Analytics and Insights: To fine-tune their social media strategy, realtors need insights into how their content performs. Scheduling tools often provide valuable analytics, allowing realtors to gauge post engagement, audience demographics, and other metrics. This data-driven approach helps realtors refine their content strategy for better results.

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Leveraging Social Media Scheduling Tools:

Enter Hopper HQ, a leading social media scheduling tool tailored for realtors. With features such as bulk uploading, visual planning, analytics, and collaboration, Hopper HQ addresses the unique needs of real estate professionals. It’s a powerful ally in the quest for a consistent and engaging online presence.

In the competitive realm of real estate, a consistent and engaging social media presence can set realtors apart. Social media scheduling tools like Hopper HQ offer a lifeline to address the time constraints, inconsistency, and engagement challenges that realtors often face.

Try out our 14-day free trial and start streamlining your social media efforts so that you can focus on your core tasks and ultimately elevate your success!

The post The Power of Social Media Scheduling for Realtors: Streamlining Success appeared first on Hopper HQ.

In this article, we’ll explore the best practices and tools for providing excellent social media customer service, so you can ensure your customers are happy and your brand’s reputation stays intact.

Why social media customer service matters?

Social media has revolutionized the way customers interact with brands, with customer service becoming a critical component of the social media sales funnel. In fact, it can have a significant impact on your brand’s reputation and customer loyalty.

According to a survey, 83% of customers who have a positive experience with a brand’s social media are likely to recommend the brand to others. However, it’s important to remember that those who have a negative experience, are also likely to share their views within their network. This means that negative interactions on social media can quickly spread and damage your brand’s reputation.

Social customer service is a crucial aspect of modern customer service, and it can have a significant impact on your brand’s reputation and customer loyalty. By supporting your customers on social media, you can turn satisfied customers into brand advocates and even attract new customers.

Best tips for social media customer service

1. Respond promptly:

Responding to customer inquiries and complaints in a timely manner is crucial for providing effective social media customer service. Customers expect quick responses on social media, with 42% of consumers expecting a response within one hour. Delayed responses can lead to frustration and negative sentiment towards your brand.

2. Personalize interactions:

Personalizing social media interactions can help to create a more positive customer experience and build brand loyalty. Using a customer’s name, for example, can make the interaction feel more human and less robotic. Personalizing responses can also help to build rapport with customers and make them feel valued.

3. Use a friendly tone:

The tone used in social media customer service interactions can greatly impact how customers perceive the brand. Using a friendly and empathetic tone can help to defuse tense situations and make customers feel heard and understood. On the other hand, using a confrontational or dismissive tone can worsen the situation and damage the brand’s reputation.

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4. Provide helpful solutions:

Providing helpful solutions to customer inquiries and complaints is key to effective customer service in general. This means not only acknowledging the customer’s issue but also providing actionable steps to resolve it. Customers appreciate when brands go above and beyond to help them, which can lead to increased loyalty and positive word-of-mouth.

5. Monitor social media mentions:

Monitoring social media mentions of the brand is crucial for providing effective social media customer service. Brands should actively monitor social media channels for customer inquiries and complaints, as well as mentions of the brand in general. This allows brands to respond promptly and address any issues before they escalate.

6. Continuously improve:

Continuously improving social media customer service is essential for meeting evolving customer expectations and staying ahead of competitors. Brands should regularly gather feedback from customers and analyze metrics such as response time and customer satisfaction to identify areas for improvement. Additionally, brands should stay up-to-date on social media trends and best practices to ensure their approach remains effective.

Brands with great social media customer care

One of the best ways to learn about effective social media customer service is to look at examples of brands that are doing it well. Here are some of our favourite real-life case studies:

KLM:

The Dutch airline, KLM, is known for its excellent social customer care. They have a dedicated team of social media agents who respond to customer inquiries and complaints on social media within 1 hour. KLM also personalized its social media interactions with customers by using their first names and signing off with the initials of the agent who handled the interaction. This personal touch helps to create a more positive customer experience and build brand loyalty.

Zappos:

Zappos, the online shoe retailer, is known for its customer-centric approach to social media customer service. The company has a dedicated social media team that responds to customer inquiries and complaints within minutes, 24/7. Zappos also goes above and beyond to surprise its customers on social media. Such as, by sending personalized thank-you notes and gifts to customers who mention the brand on social media. This approach has helped to create a loyal following of customers who appreciate the brand’s commitment to exceptional customer service.

JetBlue:

JetBlue, the American airline, has won numerous awards for its social media customer service, including a “Social Media Genius Award” from Convince & Convert. The company’s social media team is known for its humour, empathy, and quick responses to customer inquiries and complaints. JetBlue also uses social media to proactively provide information and updates to customers during weather-related disruptions, which has helped to build trust and loyalty with its customers.

Nike:

Nike, the global sportswear brand, has used social media to provide personalized customer service to its customers. The company has a dedicated social media team that responds to customer inquiries and complaints on social media within hours. Nike also provides product recommendations and personalized training plans to customers based on their fitness goals and interests. This personalized approach has helped to create a more engaging and positive customer experience, which can lead to increased loyalty and sales.

Consequences of poor social customer service

Customers expect instant and helpful responses from brands on social media, and failing to meet these expectations can have significant consequences. By understanding these consequences, brands can efficiently use social media to help their customers.

1. Damaged reputation:

When negative comments or complaints go unanswered on social media, they can quickly spread and harm your brand’s reputation. Customers may see the lack of response as a sign of poor customer service, which can result in a loss of trust and loyalty. In addition, as previously mentioned, customers who have a negative experience with your brand on social media are more likely to share that experience with their followers and potentially with a wider audience. This can lead to a tarnished brand image and potentially lost business.

2. Missed opportunities:

Social media provides an opportunity to engage with customers and potential users in a meaningful way. Failing to respond to customer inquiries or complaints on social media can result in missed opportunities. To address customer needs, provide helpful information, and potentially turn dissatisfied customers into loyal ones. By being responsive on social media, brands can demonstrate that they value customer feedback and are committed to providing excellent customer service.

3. Decreased customer satisfaction:

Social media has become an important channel for customer support, and customers expect timely and helpful responses from brands on these platforms. Failing to meet these expectations can lead to decreased customer satisfaction and potentially lost business. Customers may feel ignored or undervalued if their inquiries or complaints go unanswered, and this can impact their perception of the brand as a whole.

4. Increased costs:

Failing to address customer needs and complaints on social media can lead to increased costs. This can be because of handling customer issues through other channels, such as phone or email. This can also result in increased staff workload and potentially decreased productivity. By contrast, effective social media customer service, coupled with a virtual call center,  can help to reduce the workload on other customer support channels and lead to cost savings over time.

To summarize

Social media customer service is becoming increasingly important for businesses that want to build strong customer relationships and maintain a positive brand reputation. By following these best practices, not only will businesses provide exceptional customer care but also delight their customers. It will also, help drive business success like it did for brands like KLM, Nike and Zappos. With the right approach and mindset, social media can be a powerful tool for building long-lasting relationships with customers.

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The post Social Media Customer Service: Best Practices and Examples appeared first on Hopper HQ.

However, not everyone knows that AI in social media helps gain a competitive edge when creating marketing campaigns.

In a world where the popularity and power of AI are growing each day, it only makes sense to jump on the bandwagon and make it work to your advantage! Read on to explore how AI can be used to scale your marketing effort in social media and drive your business value with our insights.

What Is AI?

Before we dive in, let’s first answer the question of what AI is. While most of us have heard of it or even used it, not everyone completely understands it. Nonetheless, it’s much less fanciful than many people think. 

AI is the ability of a computer program or a machine to recreate human thought patterns to complete tasks and learn, thus reducing the effort on the human part. To accomplish those goals, researchers study how our brain thinks and, based on the outcomes of this study, develop intelligent system models. 

Machine learning (ML) is a sub-field of AI that is a way to create problem-solving systems. It’s a bit limited in capabilities, but when it comes to predicting outcomes, the accuracy of ML is hard to beat. 

So how do researchers study the brain? In case you ask, they don’t connect electrodes to neurons or anything like that. What they do is collect data. This explains why almost every organization is now so desperate to collect data on the activity of their users.  For example, they can order react native app development services, collect arrays of user data, and feed it to the machines for delivering even a higher level of user experience.   

AI in Social Media?

When it comes to social media, they owe their existence to AI technology. Take, for example, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, or LinkedIn. These platforms constantly track the behavior patterns of users. Offering them profiles and ads they are most likely to engage with. 

Similarly, Amazon’s algorithms effectively increase engagement by using view history to find more content you might be interested in.

However, not only are platforms themselves using AI. AI offers lots of advantages to social media users, too, making it a hidden gem for influencers and marketing specialists.

One simple application of AI in social media is its ability to help you identify and track posts that include mentions. This not only keeps you informed about current trends, but also enables you to establish a strong and effective online presence. By closely monitoring these posts, you can gain valuable insights that will inform and enhance your overall social media marketing strategy

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How Can AI and ML Help You Supercharge Social Media?

Now that you know how big an impact AI has on pretty much any aspect of business and marketing. Let’s take a closer look at how you can leverage it for your social media marketing strategy.

Create and Manage Social Media Content

Content has never been in such demand as it is today. It’s at the base of everything: 

• Launching a new e-commerce website that needs product descriptions;
• Post a job offer;
• Writing an ad to sell your phone. 

By creating compelling content, you can differentiate yourself from your competitors and attract the target audience.

Marketers are constantly generating content to distribute across various channels. Not only that, but they are also responsible for managing it and tracking its performance. This can be a huge amount of work if you have to deal with multiple accounts. 

To make this job easier, companies use regular social management tools for the automatization of scheduling and monitoring processes. (Check out Hopper HQ the social media scheduling tool) However, with AI, you can up the ante and take your social media content to a whole new level. 

First off, many tools can be used to auto-generate posts. Some of them, like copyAI, can even include hashtags and shortened links so there’s no human effort. Besides, some tools can auto-schedule your posts, enabling you to create and share posts in bulk. This would normally take a big chunk of your work time. 

By and large, AI offers lots of advantages for content creation, making it a smart weapon in the arsenal of any marketing manager or business. AI can find employment not only in social networks but also in the creation of content for the website blog. For example, when digital transformation in the insurance industry, this is a frequently used tactic.

More Accurate Insights for Increased Revenue

Social media is a great tool to analyze customer behavior. The only catch is, it relies on such a big volume of data. No man on earth would be prepared to process that information manually. That’s where machine learning (ML) comes into play. 

With ML, you can accurately process all those thousands of random conversations that happen every day. As well as scaling your social media analysis to any amount of data you want. As a result, you’ll be far ahead of your competitors. And your marketing efforts will most likely pay off in increased revenue.

Let’s look at some examples of how you can harness the potential of ML for improved social media strategy. 

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Engaging Words, Headlines, Videos, and Images

The ability of ML to recognize language patterns, images, videos, and even metadata makes it a useful tool for categorizing posts. However, this isn’t the only strength of ML. Its biggest advantage is that it can detect new topics and trends that haven’t been covered yet, thus giving you a source of inspiration. 

On top of that, AI technology comes in handy when you need to create a catchy headline or find powerful words to appeal to your audience. Unlike humans, it can crawl through trillions of posts virtually in minutes to pick out the most effective parts that people are explicitly looking for. 

What about visual platforms like Snapchat, Pinterest, and similar that have only a little bit of text? That’s where ML shines again. Where most traditional tools are helpless, ML algorithms have no difficulty recognizing things like faces, logos, and objects, making it easy for you to track what people are sharing about your brand on social networks. 

Use AI-based Social Monitoring or Listening Tools

While almost every brand claims to listen to customers, only those who use AI-based social media listening tools do so. If you’re not using them yet, now is the time to start. 

There are many goals you can accomplish with social media listening tools, but the most important one is that you can hear what people think about your product and brand and translate this voice data into actionable insights. Sprinklr, Mention, and SentiOne are just a few of the tools you can try.

Find the Most Relevant Posts and Reduce Costs

Writing just for the sake of writing is rarely a good idea, especially given the cost and effort it involves. This is why every future-oriented business will benefit from AI implementation. AI algorithms can analyze how existing content aligns with current trends and customer interests, and give you ideas for the next most relevant posts. 

Plus, AI can do all the marketing work for you, determining the most effective content strategy, including:

• What keywords to use; 
• When to publish; 
• How often to publish; 
• Which channels to use for content distribution. 

So you can save time and further reduce costs.

Use Content Creation Software

Today there is such a choice of content creation tools that everyone, regardless of their marketing initiatives, will be able to find the most suitable one. So, whether you’re looking to create a quiz or infographics to post on your Facebook account, or you need a powerful social media ad for an upcoming product release, AI-based content creation software has you covered. 

Using content creation software also allows you to save money and time that you’d otherwise spend creating and resizing your creatives. It only takes one good ad, and AI will automatically tweak it so you can distribute it across different social media channels.

Finally, many AI-powered tools can write Instagram and Facebook social media ads for you, sparing you the need to hire professional copywriters.

Multilingual Analysis

From time to time, it’s important to perform a sentimental analysis. Sentimental analysis is a great tool to determine what people feel about your product or service and fine-tune the marketing strategy accordingly. For example, if the overall impression of your brand is low, you can take a step back to analyze the reason. If it’s high, you can consider going public.

But what do you do if you have an international user base? If you don’t have a multilingual team who can assess the emotion behind every social post correctly, you should resort to the use of ML. 

Luckily, there are tons of tools like: 

• MonkeyLearn, 
• Lexalytics, 
• Brandwatch, etc. 

These are designed to conduct multilingual analysis in more than one language.

Image and Video Recognition

The diversity of content on social media presents a challenge for traditional social media management tools, as they struggle to capture both text-based and multimedia content. However, AI overcomes this challenge, and is able to handle a wide range of content with ease.

How Can AI in Social Media Help You Identify Visuals?

Visual AI, or computer vision as it’s also known, can identify images and videos in more ways than one. What it does is it teaches machines to “see” images the same way people do so they can recognize an object and pinpoint its location and orientation in the image. 

Visual AI comes in especially helpful when it comes to categorizing objects. Not only will it provide you with information on how many objects there are in an image, but it will also label them all correctly, by making a quick comparison with the images it has in its library. 

It may sound a bit futuristic, but in fact, many of these tools are already widely used. Facial recognition function, QR code scanning, and visual search are just a few examples worth mentioning.

Understand What Your Audience Means

The purpose of a social post is to attract an audience. That said, you don’t want to attract just any audience if your marketing campaign is focused on conversion optimization. That’s where ML comes to your rescue. 

Unlike traditional tools that segment audiences according to static attributes, ML allows you to expand your reach by targeting people based on predictions of their future behavior. As a result, you can attract those users who are the most valuable to your business. 

One example widely used in digital marketing is programming advertising.

Utilize ML for Sentiment Analysis

As we’ve already mentioned, it’s important to measure the effectiveness of your marketing effort by conducting sentiment analysis. If the people you are targeting have a low opinion of your product or service or are not interested in it, your marketing campaign will fail. 

However, with the use of ML, you can monitor those trends and make timely adjustments.

Find New Audiences, Trends, and Topics

If you notice that people come to your brand but then leave without taking any action, chances are they haven’t found the answers they were looking for. To increase engagement and reach new audiences, you can use AI. It will come up with new topics for the content as well as add specific details to ensure that it keeps your audience highly engaged at all times.

Track Global Brand Mentions

While marketing encourages creativity, it often boils down to testing techniques that have already been proven to work. So why not take a peek at global brands? AI allows you to go the extra mile. Not only can you find all world-known brands by simply entering relevant hashtags but you can also highlight posts that offer the most value to you.

Identify Relevant Influencers and Engaging Accounts

Sometimes, all it takes to liven up your social media account is to find the right influencer. But where do you look for one? You can take advantage of AI-powered influencer research platforms. These platforms will guide you to the best one based on an analysis of their account activity and your marketing goals. 

You could go in the footsteps of McFedries. McFedries produced an artificial avatar Li Miquela and create your own AI influencer. With technology, the sky’s the limit!

Analyze in a Smart Way

If you are struggling with structuring your efforts on social media, AI can lend you a helping hand. Here are a few examples of how it can be used to leverage social media advertising and drive outcomes. 

Make Accurate Predictions

Marketing requires a deep understanding of customer behavior patterns. This is why marketers spend a lot of time analyzing data. However, they often don’t have access to the same level of tools as AI, which can generate more accurate predictions

AI nails this job. Whether it’s social media or any other channel you use to distribute the content. AI can help you predict LTV and extend it, by giving you insights into how the user experience can be improved.

Prioritize Content on Your Website

With all of the insights AI can give you, it should be easier for you to give users what they want by focusing on the topics they’re looking for. Likewise, you’ll never have difficulty understanding what posts don’t perform well. As AI will always provide you with up-to-date suggestions through the lens of business capabilities.

FAQ

What is Artificial Intelligence (AI)?

In layman’s terms, artificial intelligence is the ability of a computer to think like a human and learn. This is achieved through constant training based on the data collected from multiple sources. 

What are the benefits of AI in social media?

The benefits of AI are numerous. The most important one of them is it can help you save a lot of marketing costs while notably accelerating revenue. 

For example, rather than hiring a copywriter, you can use AI to generate posts at a frequency you want and optimize them for various social media platforms. 

If you want to improve your digital marketing strategy, you can take advantage of AI programming advertising. This will let you reach the audience most likely to be interested in your ad. 

How is social media using AI?

Social media is using AI extensively. From showing users an ad that will most likely grab their attention to listening to their conversations and processing visuals. There is tons of data that social media processing with AI every day. Even such services as Netflix use AI technology, which allows it to come up with visuals that are most likely to captivate the viewer.

TRY HOPPER HQ FREERefreshingly Simple Post, Story + Reel Scheduling

Visually plan all your social channels. Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook + LinkedIn.

Try Hopper HQ Now

The post AI in Social Media: How to Use AI to Supercharge Your Social Media Marketing appeared first on Hopper HQ.

In your search for the right social media management tool, you might have come across Sprout Social. However, SproutSocial may not be your first choice depending on your business’s varying needs and budget constraints.

You might be looking for Sprout Social alternatives to know your options or maybe it’s just not the right tool for you and your team. 

Some of the known disadvantages of Sprout Social are:  

• User-based pricing makes the tool expensive for most teams 
• Limited social listening features
• Features like trend analysis for Twitter keywords and hashtags are only available on the professional plan at $149 per user/month.
• Complicated to use

In this article, we’ll share a few of our favorite SproutSocial alternatives. We’ll have an option for every type of company or team, from small teams to enterprises.

1) Hopper HQ: Optimal for time efficiency

Hopper HQ has a straightforward user interface and setup process. It supports scheduling for Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube Shorts, and Pinterest at a more affordable price than Sprout Social and other alternatives. 

Hopper HQ also has a Mobile app where you’re able to use most of the features available on the desktop version, but straight from your pocket. This means that you can post, schedule, and upload images on the go, from wherever you are.

Features	Sprout Social	Hopper HQ
Pricing	€249 per month	$16 per social bundle/month
Supports images, videos, and carousel posts	Additional cost per added user	unlimited
Free trial
Free version
Customer support
Analytics and reporting	Advanced analytics not available for all plans	Advanced analytics available for all plans
@mentions
Alerts/Notifications
Automated publishing
Calendar Management
Drag and drop grid planner
Image Editing
Multi-Account management
For small businesses	too expensive for small businesses
Instagram Reels auto posting
Social networks	Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin & Pinterest, Youtube	Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, Pinterest  Twitter, Facebook & YouTube
Supports images, videos and carousel posts
TikTok to Instagram content repurposing (no watermark)
first comment scheduling and auto-posting
Hashtag suggestions
Bulk upload
CSV Upload
Easy to use and intuitive interface	User friendly	User friendly
Best time to post
Mobile app
Capterra Review Score	4.4	4.7

Hopper HQ vs. Sprout Social

1) Budget Friendly rates:

Hopper HQ is a great alternative for teams that are limited in their budget. Social Sprout, on the contrary, is priced at a point that only enterprises and larger organizations can afford. It will only cost you $16 a month to use Hopper HQ and all its available features. While the starting price for Social Sprout is $249 a month, it does provide more complex features like a social media inbox

2) Shares all the essential features:

Yes, Sprout Social has more advanced capabilities but Hopper HQ is better suited for social media teams that are looking for an intuitive alternative to save time and keep a consistent social media presence. Creating, planning, and scheduling are easily done on Hopper HQ’s easy-to-use user interface. While Sprout Social, because of its complexity might be hard to navigate. 

3) Ideal altnernative for SMEs’

Hopper HQ provides more tailored support for SMEs, with resources and features specifically designed for smaller-scale operations. Its scheduling flexibility and advanced analytics are particularly beneficial for SMEs looking to maximize their social media impact efficiently. Overall, Hopper HQ’s targeted approach makes it a more suitable choice for SMEs seeking a focused and efficient social media management tool.

4) Prompt customer support

Hopper HQ stands out by offering equal and immediate support to all users at no extra cost. Whether it’s via email, in-app chat, or through their social media channels, assistance is readily available. Additionally, Hopper HQ boasts a comprehensive help center, providing extensive insights into its capabilities. The platform also hosts weekly webinars, open to all, for an in-depth exploration of the app’s features. In contrast, Hootsuite’s support options are less varied and might incur additional charges.

2) Social Champ: Best alternative for agencies

Social Champ is a great Sprout Social alternative if you manage several projects simultaneously or work within an agency. It provides all the basic features of scheduling, planning, and team management but also shares features about content ideation and recycling. Making it easier to build a content calendar and repurpose previously successful posts.

Key Features:

• Bulk Scheduling
• Content Suggestion
• Auto RSS
• Social Media Calendar

Supported Platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, Google My Business and TikTok

Pricing: Provides a free plan with limited features and no access to Twitter, then the cheapest plan starts at $26 a month.

Social Champ vs Sprout Social

Social Champ, unlike Sprout Social, provides a free subscription, but again, this comes with limitations like needing to be able to schedule posts on your Twitter profile. Also, you can only have one user and schedule 15 posts at a time. If you have more active social media accounts or work as a team, you’d have to purchase their paid subscriptions. 

On the first paid plan at $26 a month, you can gain access to unlimited scheduled posts, and 12 social media accounts instead of 3, and you may have one extra user. However, on the Sprout Socials Standard plan, you’d benefit from an all-in-one social inbox, review management, and other CRM features. 

Social Champ also utilizes a social media calendar to keep track of published, scheduled, and draft posts. However, it is not as visually aiding as the Hopper HQs’ calendar which seamlessly shows the posts on each day.

3) Buffer: Best for tracking detailed analytics

Buffer stands out as an excellent alternative to Sprout Social, especially for those who prioritize analytics in their social media strategy. It offers robust tracking capabilities, including the ability to monitor Shopify performance, assess the impact of specific hashtags, evaluate overall profile performance, and more. Buffer is a compelling choice for users who want detailed insights into their social media activities.

Key features:

• Content creation features
• Calendar and Scheduling tools
• Shop grid
• Scheduling recommendations
• URL shortener

Supported Platforms: Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Mastodon, YouTube, Google Business Profile and Pinterest.

Pricing: Buffer offers a freemium subscription, then, pricing starts at $6 per social channel a month. 

Buffer vs. Sprout Social

Buffer offers a freemium subscription, a feature not currently available on Sprout Social. Like in Social Champ, this plan has limitations in terms of accessible features. For instance, it lacks channel analytics, you can only connect up to 3 social channels, and limits users to 10 scheduled posts per channel.

The first paid subscription tier of Buffer includes access to analytics and publishing tools like first comments and a hashtag manager. Interestingly, Sprout Social’s initial subscription plan also offers these same features, however, for a much higher price due to all the other complex features it provides.

It’s important to note that if you opt for all available channels on Buffer, it can result in a monthly expense of around $54, potentially making it costly for many agencies and small businesses.

Additionally, to access team management features, one would need to opt for the Team subscription, priced at $12 per month for each social channel. The same goes for Sprout Social, to access their team and workflow features, you’d need to invest in their second plaid plan at $399 a month

4) Meet Edgar: Great for content recycling

MeetEdgar, often simply called Edgar, is well-known for its unique content recycling capabilities that help maintain a constantly fresh presence on your social media profiles. This tool allows you to categorize your content, ensuring you always have something interesting to post. It has proven particularly effective for entrepreneurs and freelancers.

Key Features:

• Automatically repurposes content
• Ability to Categorize your content 
• Unlimited scheduled content 
• Tracks history and performance data
• Monday to Friday customer support 

Supported Platforms:  Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Business Profile 

Pricing:  The cheapest subscription, the Eddie annual plan, starts at $24.91 on the yearly plan and all plans have a 7-day free trial.

MeetEdgar vs Sprout Social

With the Eddie plan from MeetEdgar, you gain access to unlimited scheduled posts and the option to include up to 20 team members. While Sprout Social only offers unlimited scheduled posts on their second plan at $399 a month. If you wish to add team members to Sprout Social, you’d have to add a starting price of +$199 a month to your subscription. 

However, there is a limitation with MeetEdgar’s basic plan – you can connect to just 5 social accounts, which is similar to Sprout Social’s standard plan.

For those prioritizing automatic content publishing, you’d have to consider one of Edgars’ more costly plans. Under MeetEdgar’s Eddie plan, automatic posting is capped at 10 times per week. To increase this to 1,000 automation per week, you would need to upgrade to their second-tier plan, priced at $41.58 a month.

5) PromoRepublic: Best for tailored solutions

PromoRepublic Is an all-in-one local market platform with which you can choose a solution perfectly tailored to your business. It provides solutions for social media management, review management, and local SEO. If you’d like to find a tool that centralizes these tasks for you, it would be a top social sprout alternative to consider. 

Key Features:

• Graphics editor
• All-in-one social inbox 
• iOS and Android mobile apps
• Link shortener
• Comprehensive reporting

Supported Platforms:  Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google My Business 
Pricing: PromoRepublic offers a 14-day free trial and subscriptions start at $45 a month.

PromoRepublic vs. Sprout Social

PromoRepublics pricing is categorized by type of business to help users find the right plan for them. The first plan, labeled “Small Businesses” provides 10 social accounts but only one user. This is assuming that there will be only one or very few marketing members. The next plan is for agencies and provide 30 social media accounts, with 10 users for $79 a month. The third plan is a custom plan which you’ll have to contact their team to inquire about. 

Like Sprout Social, PromoRepublic offers a social media inbox, review management as well as features to boost posts on your Facebook accounts. PromoRepublic however, provides local SEO features that are currently not supported by Sprout Social. 

If reporting is essential for you, then you’d have to opt for their Agency plan as their initial paid plan only provides basic social media tracking. The same goes for utilizing their approval workflows, which seems to be the case for most tools except Hopper HQ.

6) Friendsplus.me: The cheapest alternative to consider

Friendsplus.me is a social media management tool and one of many Sprout Social alternatives that offer basic features for a fair price. It provides essential features like post-scheduling, analytics, and multi-platform integration, providing a practical solution for those seeking effective social media management without a hefty investment.

Key Features:

• Provides a browser extension 
• Has a mobile app available 
• Zapier integration
• Link shortening 
• Bulk Scheduling 

Supported Platforms: Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest

Pricing: Provides a free plan and then pricing starts at $7.50 a month 

Friendsplus.me vs. Social Sprout

Friendsplus.me provides a free plan where you’ll have access to 2 queues, 5 social media posts per queue, and one additional team member. In this plan, you won’t be able to connect your Pinterest accounts or benefit from their bulk scheduling features. 

In friendsplus.me, the main difference in subscription plans is the number of queues and social media posts per queue that you’re given. On their first paid plan, for $7.50 a month, you have an increase of 5 queues, 500 posts per queue, and 10 team members. You’ll then be given access to Pinterest and bulk scheduling. 

Like Postify and other tools mentioned in this blog post, friendsplus.me is a simpler alternative to Sprout Social, which is reflected in the price difference. This platform is a great choice for larger teams who are still limited in their budgets.

7) Postify: Best for the basics

Postify serves as a practical and budget-friendly substitute for Sprout Social, especially for those only present on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. It’s particularly appealing to individuals and small businesses due to its affordability and an array of fundamental features such as a social media calendar, scheduling for Instagram stories, bulk import capabilities, post previews, and a social inbox.

With its blend of essential tools and an easy-to-use interface, Postfity emerges as a convenient and approachable choice for managing social media effectively.

Key Features:

• Content Scheduling and automatic posting 
• Invite team members and assignment tags
•  All social inboxes in one 
• Live support every day of the week 
•  AI content for Description, hashtags, and images 

Supported Platforms: Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter 

Pricing: Postify has only one type of subscription plan that starts at $41 a month, you can also use their 14-day free trial.

Postify vs. Sprout Social

Postify only provides one subscription plan which can be purchased either monthly or Yearly with a slight discount. In this plan you’ll have unlimited social profiles, collaboration, and scheduled posts, making it a great alternative for small businesses with many social accounts or agencies juggling many clients. 

Like Spout Social you’ll also have access to a social media inbox and well as AI assistance in content creation. Postify provides AI aid for captions, hashtags, and images. However, if you’re in search of a tool that provides a more robust analytics solution, then Postify may not be the right option for you. 

Postify, compared to Sprout Social is a more straightforward solution that provides all the essentials for social media scheduling but may lack other social media aspects like CRM features, social listening, and so forth.

8) Loomly: Great for branding and content creation

Loomly is a social media scheduling tool focusing on branding and content creation within a team. It provides team management features on all its subscriptions making it a good fit for collaboration. 

For those in search of a tool with AI capabilities, Loomly may not meet expectations. Despite its array of beneficial features, it lacks support for artificial intelligence and does not include in-app image editing functionalities.

Key Features:

•  Scheduled analytics report 
•  Slack & Teams integration
•  Automate team workflow
•  Custom Branding 
•  FAQ, chat, and email support 

Supported Platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter  Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google Business Profile, YouTube, Snapchat, and TikTok
Pricing: The basic plan starts at $32 a month while the premium subscription starts at $277 a month.

Loomly vs. Sprout Social

Loomly apart from the variety of social platforms you can connect to, on their base plan, you’ll be able to connect 10 social media accounts. Which is double what you are offered on the basic Sprout Social account. 

Loomlys’ biggest downfall when compared to Sprout Social is the fact that it doesn’t yet support AI assistance, while it’s provided on all Sprout Social subscription plans. Regardless, Loomly still has a lot to offer. For example, you can benefit from its media studio where you can edit, crop, add filters, and more to your visual content. 

For team collaboration features, Loomly allows you to use approval workflows on their initial plan, this is considered part of their core features. However, to build custom workflows you’d have to opt for their Advanced plan at $131 a month. Sprout Social on the other hand, only provides access to workflows on their Professional plan for $399 a month.

9) SocialOomph: Ideal for blog scheduling

SocialOomph is a social media management tool that also allows you to schedule blog posts, both on WordPress as well as Tumblr. It connects to social media channels that not many other tools connect to—for example, Discord, Bluesky, and Mastodon.

SocialOomph is also an interesting Sprout Social alternative to consider because of its unique self-destructive post feature. With this, you can have outdated posts automatically deleted after a specific period of time.

Key Features:

• Self-destructing posts
• Webhooks for post-creation
• Blog post scheduling
• AI-Generated Social Posts
• Team Collaboration

Supported Platforms: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Mastodon, BlueSky, Discord, WordPress, Tumblr

Pricing: Provides a free plan with limited features or paid plans starting at $25 a month.

SocialOomph vs. Sprout Social

On the SocialOomphs free plan, you’ll only be able to connect one social media account but you’ll have unlimited posting for it. Other conditions are that you can only post 3 posts per hour and you’ll not have access to their AI Assistance. 

When you move towards their paid plans, their basic one for $15 a month, gives you access to everything available on the freemium plan plus one blog, access to personal and team areas, and free support. Although you have access to collaboration features, you’re not allowed to add extra team members in this plan. 

If having access to a social inbox is important for your team, then SocialOomph may not be the ideal Sprout Social alternative to look at as it doesn’t support this feature on any of its plans. This tool also doesn’t provide other features found on the basic Sprout Social plan like review management and other CRM tools.

10) Agorapulse: Best for CRM features

Agorapulse is a comprehensive platform that not only schedules social media content but also provides social CRM features. It allows businesses to handle incoming messages from various social media channels directly within Agorapulse, enhancing time management and efficiency. The user interface is straightforward and user-friendly, making it easy to navigate. Additionally, Agorapulse offers tools for analyzing competitors, giving users an edge in their social media strategy.

Key Features:

• Spam Management 
• Comment monitoring 
• Automated Inbox Assistant 
• Social Media ROI reports
• Social Listening Instagram & Youtube 

Supported Platforms: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest, Google My Bussiness, X (a.k.a Twitter) 
Pricing: Provides a minimal free account then, pricing starts at $49 a month billed annually.

Agorapulse vs. Sprout Social

On the Agorapulse free plan, you can only schedule 10 posts a month, and you are provided access to basic analytics. If you decide to opt for their standard plan, you’ll be able to schedule unlimited posts, use their social inbox, draft posts, and track more in-depth reporting, although still limited compared to the next paid plans. 

On all Agorapulse plans you’re limited to having 10 social media profiles and to add additional ones you’d need to pay a fee of $11 per account. For Sprout Social, however, if you purchase their professional plan, you’ll have unlimited social profiles. 

If you’re looking for a tool with team collaboration, then you’d have to consider Agorapulses’ second paid subscription at $87 a month. Then, you’ll be able to assign and prove posts as well as leave comments on them. These features are only available from the Sprout social professional plan and higher. 

11) Brandwatch: Best alternative for enterprises

Brandwatch is a popular Spout Social alternative for enterprises that are seeking a tool that includes more features than just social media scheduling. This is a good option if you and your company are looking for a more complete tool that also provides solutions for consumer intelligence and influencer marketing. 

Key features:

• Digital asset library to store content
• Audience profile cards
• All-in-one social media inbox
• Social listening features
• Created automated ad campaigns 

Supported Platforms:  Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest, Tumblr, X (a.k.a Twitter), Whatsapp
Pricing: Brandwatch pricing is not made available to the public, but pricing is said to start at $800 a month.

Brandwatch vs. Sprout Social

From all the Sprout Social alternatives mentioned in this article, Brandwatch probably supports the most solutions compared to the rest. Apart from its social media management suite, you can also benefit from its consumer intelligence suite, to gather insights on your target audience or their influencer marketing platform to find ideal individuals to create successful partnerships with. 

With Sprout Social, you can also gather intelligence about your consumers, however, even though not having influencer marketing, you can benefit from its personalized customer care features to provide the necessary support to help boost your sales cycle. 

As Brandwatch is not as transparent as the other tools mentioned in regards to pricing and a full list of supported features, it’s not an easy feat to compare it to Sprout Social. What we can say is, that both tools are more enterprise-oriented and the pricing surely shows it. From what reviews mention, Brandwatch is likely to be more expensive than Sprout Social.

Wrap up

As we wrap up our exploration of Sprout Social alternatives, we’ve seen a diverse array of tools like Buffer, MeetEdgar, Friendsplus.me, Postfity, Loomly, and SocialOomph. Each of these platforms offers unique features and capabilities, ensuring that there’s a social media management tool to fit the specific needs of any company, whether it’s for detailed analytics, content automation, or efficient scheduling.

In your quest for the ideal social media management solution, consider giving Hopper HQ a try. It stands out as one of the best alternatives to Sprout Social, offering a blend of user-friendly design and powerful features.

Sign up today to experience Hopper HQ for free and discover how it can transform your social media strategy.

Related Articles:

• Top Hootsuite Alternatives
• Top Later Alternatives
• Top Buffer Alternatives

The post Top 11 Sprout Social Alternatives (2024) appeared first on Hopper HQ.

Managing social media accounts can be challenging for marketers, brands, agencies, and organizations. Luckily though, social media management tools like Hopper HQ help you plan, schedule, organize, and direct your social media marketing strategy efficiently. 

Hootsuite is one of the most known social media management tools on the market. Although Hootsuite offers a range of subscription plans, you may want to consider Hootsuite alternatives for various reasons like; 

The high pricing of Hootsuite plans
Hard to get over the steep learning curve 
Support isn’t available for all plans 
Team collaboration is only provided on higher plans

Let’s take a look at Hootsuite and discover some of the most popular social media scheduling tools that are considered the top Hootsuite alternatives.

1) Hopper HQ: Best for Ease of Use and Value

Hopper HQ is a visual-first social media management tool known for its ease of use and great value, making it a great Hootsuite alternative. It offers an array of enticing features to help social media and marketing teams with planning, creating, and team collaboration.

With only one subscription plan, you’ll have access to AI assistance like image resizing and caption generation, as well as, bulk scheduling, team collaboration features, and more. Making it a perfect fit for agencies and SMEs.

l was looking for a more cost-effective option than Hootsuite. Hopper HQ is actually better and much easier to navigate. The Bulk edit and drag and drop calendar are easy peasey.

Dean

Hopper Key Features:

Features	Hopper HQ	Hootsuite
Platforms	Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Pinterest, YouTube shorts	Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Pinterest, YouTube shorts
Free Trial
Price	$16	$108
Users	Unlimited	1
Additional Users	Unlimited
Visual Grid Planner
Approval Workflows
AI Assistance
Analytics and Reporting
Bulk Scheduling
CSV Upload
Cross-channel Scheduling
Mobile App

Hopper HQ vs Hootuite

Competitive pricing:

Hopper HQ is one of the most cost-friendly social media scheduling tools when compared with Hootsuite (if not the cheapest). The cost to use Hopper HQ is just $16 a month while, for Hootsuite, it’s a hefty $99 a month. Although in Hootsuite you can connect 10 social media accounts, Hopper HQ only offers one subscription type, meaning you’ll gain access to all the features available without needing to pay more.

Speedy support:

At Hopper HQ, all users are valued the same and get prompt support whenever needed and for free. You can reach out through email, by chatting within the app or you can get in contact through their social media profiles as well. You can also find a detailed and informative help center, where all Hopper HQ knowledge is shared. There is also a weekly webinar demo of Hopper HQ, where anyone can join and deep dive into what the app can do. Hootsuite on the other hand, does not provide such variety and may charge you.

No Learning Curve:

Hopper HQ stands out for its elegant and easy user interface, which greatly simplifies the process of scheduling and autoposting social media content. With just a few intuitive steps, users can efficiently manage their social media posting schedules. The clean and well-organized design ensures that navigating the platform is a breeze, making it easy to upload, schedule, and manage posts across various social media platforms.

The Best for Small Businesses

Hopper HQ offers cost-effective, efficient, and user-friendly solutions that cater to the needs of agencies and SMEs. Whether it’s managing multiple clients or optimizing social media strategies, Hopper HQ’s features and analytics, combined with its affordable price, make it a valuable tool for businesses looking to enhance their online presence on a low budget. While brands that use Hootsuite tend to be larger with bigger marketing budgets.

2) SocialPilot: Best for Facebook Analytics

SocialPilot is a social media automation tool and a good potential alternative to Hootsuite. It is a versatile tool with scheduling and content customization prowess. It effectively handles all the social media marketing needs of businesses and agencies and is considered one of the best Facebook analytics tools. 

Key features:

• Content scheduling abilities
• Bulk scheduling 
• Flexible content calendar 
• Analytics with automated report generation 
• Social inbox for multiple social platforms 
• Team and client approval workflow

Supported platforms: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, Google My Business, YouTube and TikTok

Pricing: SocialPilot’s basic pricing starts at $30 a month.

Hootsuite vs. SocialPilot

If we were to compare SocialPilot to Hootsuite, the first major difference would be pricing. Although not as cheap as Hopper HQ, Social Pilot is still over $70 less than Hootsuite’s basic subscription.

However, in both plans for the cheapest subscription, you’ll only be able to have 1 user, which can be limiting for for agencies and companies with a slightly bigger marketing team. With this in mind, it makes sense why both Hootsuite and Socialpilot don’t provide workflow management in these basic plans. So for team collaboration features you’d need to purchase a more expensive subscription

It’s also important to note that, even though SocialPilot is significantly cheaper, Hootsuite does provide analytics on their basic plan, while on SocialPilot you don’t. If analytics is an important aspect of your social media strategy, yet you’re price sensitive, Socialpilot might not be the best choice for you.

3) Buffer: The Right Choice for Social Media Integrations

Buffer can be considered the leading alternative to Hootsuite when it comes to extensive integration capabilities. Buffer offers a comprehensive solution that is ideal for businesses and individuals seeking to interconnect their social media management with a wide array of third-party services.

Key Features:

Possibility to create a sales landing page
Connects with Google Business profiles
Integrate with popular apps like Zapier and MailChimp
Provides a social inbox and replies to comments

Supported Platforms: Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Mastodon, YouTube, Google Business Profile and Pinterest.

Pricing: Freemium subscription or starting from $6 per social channel

Buffer vs Hootsuite

Buffer provides a freemium subscription which is not currently available on Hootsuite. However, as expected, there is a limit to which features are accessible. For example, it does not provide you with channel analytics, you can only connect up to 3 social channels and you’re limited to 10 scheduled posts per channel.

With their first paid subscription, you’ll gain access to analytics as well as publishing features like first comments and a hashtag manager. However, you can find the same features on the first subscription plan of Hootsuite.

Keep in mind that if you choose to use all the channels available on Buffer, you will have a monthly cost of about $54. Which can become unaffordable for many agencies and small businesses. Also, for team management features you’d have to purchase the Team subscription which is $12 a month per social channel.

4) StatusBrew: Best for Reporting

On the fourth, we have Statusbrew, renowned for its ability to handle large-scale engagements through its unified inbox. Today, we’ll focus on its reporting capabilities and how they compare to Hootsuite. Statusbrew offers customized reporting templates for social media, customer support, competitor analysis, and more, supported by 230 KPIs and metrics. For those who want to delve into data without spending much time on setup, this tool is worth considering.

Key Features:

• Easily digestible white-label reporting templates
• Options to share reports in PDF, CSV, or live link formats
• Community management and social care features
• Automations for publishing, engagement, and reporting
• Custom integration with HubSpot, Salesforce, and Zendesk

Supported platforms: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Google My Business, WhatsApp, Pinterest, App Store, Play Store, and Line.

Pricing: Provides a 7-day free trial then pricing starts at $69 a month

Hootsuite vs. Statusbrew

With Statusbrew, you get the flexibility to work with your team without worrying about a hefty price tag. Their premium plans offer 8 user seats and 15 social profiles, along with features like sentiment analysis and social listening, which Hootsuite provides on much higher plans. You can build automations based on sentiment and phrases to automatically hide, delete, or reply to comments, thus securing your brand’s reputation.

Statusbrew helps your brand operate faster on social media with minimal effort. The tool offers comprehensive features to improve your social media strategy. However, if you prioritize employee advocacy, you may prefer Hootsuite.

5) Meet Edgar: Best for Repurposing Content

MeetEdgar, also known as Edgar, is a popular social media scheduling tool popular for its content recycling features that keep your profiles evergreen. You can organize your content into categories so that you can always have something to post about. It has shown to be a good fit for entrepreneurs and freelancers. 

Key features:

Repurposes content automatically 
Categorization of content 
Automation with unlimited scheduled content 
Tracks history and performance data for everything you post
Monday to Friday customer support 

Supported Platforms: Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Business Profile 

Pricing: The cheapest subscription, the Eddie annual plan, starts at $24.91 on the yearly plan

MeetEdgar vs. Hootsuite:

With MeetEdgars’ basic plan, the Eddie plan, you will have access to unlimited scheduled posts and up to 20 team members. Although you also get unlimited scheduled posts on Hootsuite, for you to add team members you’d have to purchase the Team subscription for over $260. Keep in mind that this only gives you access to 3 users rather than only one. 

Even though you may have access to more users on MeetEdgar, you’ll only be able to connect 5 social accounts on their basic plan, while with Hootsuite´s initial plan, you’re allowed to connect up to 10 accounts. 

If your main need for a social media scheduling tool is the achieve the autonomy of having content automatically published, Hootsuite might still be the best option. On the Eddie plan, you’ll only be able to automatically post 10 times a week. For 1,000 automations a week, you’ll need to purchase their second plan at $41.58 a month.

6) SproutSocial: Best Tool for CRM Features

Similar to Hootsuite, Sprout Social is a versatile tool capable of handling various aspects of social media marketing. It connects several social media platforms, allowing for centralized management from one unified interface.

Beyond social media platforms, Sprout Social also incorporates numerous additional app integrations, including Canva and Bitly. Collectively, these integrations assist users in significantly expanding the scope of their marketing activities.

Key Features:

All in one social inbox
Review Management 
Tasking and social CRM tools
Paid promotion tools for Facebook 
Profile, location, and keyword monitoring 

Supported platforms:  Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, TikTok, WhatsApp, and YouTube.

Pricing: The standard SproutSocial subscription starts at $249

Sprout Social vs Hootsuite

Sprout Social is possibly the tool with the closest pricing to Hootsuite. Although their initial plan is pricier than that of Hootsuite, it does offer a lot of features. This is a great alternative for larger companies who have the budget to spend on martech. 

Sprout Social is great for brands that are well-established and keeping a social media presence is crucial for their marketing strategy. It allows you to control everything that is social media in one place, from day-to-day posting to ads management and even customer relationship management.  These intricate features compensate for its more expensive subscriptions. 

Keep in mind though, if you’re looking for white-label solutions, then Sprout Social might not be the best fit for you, unlike Hootsuite, it doesn’t provide it. 

7) Postify: Best Tool for The Basics

Postfity. app is an efficient and cost-effective alternative to Hootsuite, catering primarily to users who manage Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. It stands out as an affordable choice for individuals and small businesses, offering a range of basic features including a social calendar, Instagram story scheduling, bulk import, post preview, and a social inbox. 

This combination of features, along with its user-friendly interface, makes Postfity a practical and accessible option for social media management.

Key Features:

Content Scheduling and automatic posting 
Invite team members and assignment tags
All social inboxes in one 
Live support every day of the week 
AI content for Description, hashtags, and images 

Supported Platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn

Pricing: Postify only provides one type of subscription which starts at $41 on the yearly plan or $44 on the monthly one. 

Postify vs Hootsuite:

Hootsuite supports a broader range of social networks, whereas Postfity concentrates primarily on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. So, if these are the only channels you work with this can be a potential alternative. 

Pricing for HootSuite begins at $105 per month for 10 social media profiles, in contrast to Postfity’s starting price of $41 per month for an unlimited amount of social media profiles. Also, Like Hopper HQ,  Postify only has one subscription type, which means you’ll be able to access all their features, including adding as many team members as you want. 

Consider Postify as a Hootsuite alternative if you’re not present on all social media channels and are looking for an accessible tool.

8) Loomly: Great for Team Collaboration

Loomly is a social media management tool used for branding and content creation. It integrates with popular tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams but has limited integrations for big businesses and some apps.

If you’re looking for a tool that provides AI features, then Loomly might not be the best option for you. Although it shares a variety of useful features, it does not support AI or in-app image editing. 

Key Features:

Scheduled analytics report 
Slack & Teams integration
Automate team workflow
Custom Branding 
FAQ, chat, and email support 

Supported platforms:  Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google Business Profile, YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok, and custom channel 
Pricing: The basic plan starts at $32 a month expanding to $277 for the premium subscription.

Loomly vs. Hootsuite

The main difference between Loomly and Hootsuite will most likely be the unavailability of AI assistance. While Hootsuite provides it to all its subscription plans, Loomly does not offer this feature yet at least. 

Loomly however is a great tool for team collaboration, it provides users with the capability to automate workflows. It also allows you to integrate with communication apps like Slack and Teams, where you get notified every time someone in your team makes a change or adds a comment to a piece of content. 

When it comes to scheduling, with Loomly you’ll not manage to bulk schedule your content to different channels. If you’re a brand that publishes content frequently or several times a day, Loomly might not be the best option for you. 

9) Social Champ: Good for Managing Multiple Projects

Social Champ is a good alternative to consider if you work with multiple projects at the same time. It provides the basic features expected from such a tool plus some related to content ideation and recycling. Similar to what MeetEdgar provides.  

Key features:

Create a Posting Schedule
Bulk Scheduling
AI Content Wizard
Performance Overview Report
Post previews 

Pricing: Provides a free plan with limited features with the cheapest plan starting from $26 a month. 

Supported Platforms: Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Mastodon, YouTube, Google Business Profile and Pinterest. 

Social Champ vs Hootsuite:

Like Buffer, you can access Social Champ through a free subscription but again, this comes with limitations like not being able to schedule for Twitter. Also, you can only have one user and schedule 15 posts at a time. If you have more active social media accounts or work as a team, you’d have to purchase their paid subscriptions. 

On the first paid plan at $26 a month, you can gain access to unlimited scheduled posts, and 12 social media accounts instead of 3, and you may have one extra user. However, on the Hootsuite basic plan, you’d also benefit from unlimited scheduled posts and bulk schedule 350 posts compared to 300 in Social Champ. 
Social Champ also utilizes a social media calendar to keep track of published, scheduled, and draft posts. However, it is not as visually aiding as the Hopper HQs’ calendar which seamlessly shows the posts on each day. 

Wrapping Up:

Hootsuite has been a notable social media scheduling tool for some time, but now you may easily find Hootsuite alternatives that are more feasible and fitting to your needs. This article has brought to light 8 potential options that agencies and small businesses can commit to. 

With cost and ease of use being a primary concern for most, Hopper HQ can be a great alternative to consider. Providing to be the cheapest option as well as having all the essential features like AI assistance, scheduling and autoposting, visual grid planner, bulk scheduling, and much more, Hopper is a perfect alternative to Hootsuite. 

Try Hopper HQ out with its 14-day free trial and take full advantage of an array of social media boosting features

The post 9 Best Hootsuite Alternatives in 2024 appeared first on Hopper HQ.

The purpose of social media platforms has changed in the last decade. Today, internet users spend 2 hours 27 minutes on social media daily and they use various social media networks like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter for shopping purposes. People use social media platforms to constantly search for new products and buy products based on recommendations they see there.

The demand for social shopping has grown, so businesses of all sizes and niches have an opportunity to attract their target audiences on social media, spark interest in products, and convert them into paying customers. 

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Case in point:

Many customers have named American Express the best business credit card in recent years for giving its Card Members the ability to shop on Twitter with #hashtags.

This means the importance of creating a social media sales funnel is on the rise, too.

Before buying your product, modern customers go through different customer journey stages. At each stage of the sales funnel, the customer is at a different knowledge level, experiencing different things.

Luckily, you can reach your goals, increase brand awareness and get more leads with your social media content strategy. To acquire more customers on social media, it’s important to learn more about different stages of the customer journey and create a social media sales funnel that drives results.

What is a social media sales funnel?

A social media sales funnel is a path that your social media followers go through from discovering your product on social media to making repeat purchases.

When it comes to the social media sales funnel, here are four main stages:

• Awareness/discovery
• Intent
• Conversion
• Loyalty

It’s important that you create content targeting all of these stages to get a conversion and then cultivate loyalty.

Research from McKinsey & Company shows that the sales funnel is circular. More and more customers experience it as a circle with them re-engaging at different points with your business.

Despite multiple interactions that customers have with your brand’s social media handles and the lack of a linear model to map the interactions, it’s still possible for you to create content for people at different stages of the sales funnel and help them seamlessly transit from one stage to another.

How to research information for your social media funnel

Every brand has its target audience and every individual buyer’s journey is unique. However, your potential customers may have a lot in common, so it is useful to understand and reflect on customers’ needs to run your marketing efforts.

With the right questions, you have a possibility to better understand your audience at each stage of the buyer’s journey. The intent behind these questions is to figure out how customers are finding you and your brand online.

Here are several questions that help to research information for your funnel:

1. What’s the information your customers need to transit from one stage of the funnel to the next?
2. How do you understand if customers have made the transition from one stage to the next?

Here’s the blueprint for making a funnel:

1. Create buyer personas based on interviews with your customers
2. Identify the segments of your funnel to move people ahead in the journey
3. Create different types of content for different funnel stages
4. Set up Key Performance Indicators for your funnel
5. Measure the changes
6. Test and iterate again

Once you know your customers better, it’s time to create a social media sales funnel. In this article, you will find ideas for each stage. Let’s dive into it!

How to create a social media sales funnel

Having a social media presence doesn’t mean attracting your target audience who show interest in your products or services to become customers. To create a social media sales funnel that brings results, it’s important to take a look at your profile and its content from buyers’ viewpoints.

Once you know your customers’ needs and use social media to solve their problems, you get a chance to remove uninterested people and work closely with your target audience.  

When you have a strong social media marketing strategy and you create valuable content, people are more likely to interact with your content–like, comment, or share it. They can also engage with a brand hashtag campaign or watch your ads. For your business, this means a possibility to focus on interested followers who are about to become your customers.

Here are four stages of a social media sales funnel with actionable tips on how to improve each of them.

1. Awareness/Discovery

Any marketing funnel begins when your people discover your brand. For a social media funnel, that process begins on social media sites.

During the awareness stage, people have a chance to learn more about your business, its values, and its products to understand whether your company aligns with their needs and wants. 

Remember that there’s no need to pitch your products or services during the discovery phase. Start with simple things. Offer value in a way that potential customers remember your brand and come back to learn more.

Long story short: your content should be eye-catching and engaging.

If you grab the attention of your audience, you can tell your social media visitors more about your company and its products to prove that you have a solution for their problems. That’s why your social media profile should be cohesive and eye-catching.

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No matter what social media platform you use, start with making stunning visuals as 65% of the population are visual learners. This means the majority of people perceive visual information better than texts or audio. To stand out from the crowd and boost sales, lay a bet on creative visuals that grab attention.

With a big number of effective photo editing tools, making professional-looking and eye-catching social media posts is no longer a problem for big brands or even small businesses. For example, Photoleap is an all-in-one photo editing app that offers a ton of filters and effects to make artistic masterpieces with photo mixing, blending, and layer editing. Moreover, users can resize their images or choose from a variety of fonts to unleash their creativity while sharing a message.

Example 1: Aiko Reiki

Let’s take yoga trainer Aiko Reiki as an example. She made an eye-catching photo to grab the attention of her audience to her podcast about yoga practice, prove her niche expertise and therefore turn followers into listeners who may ask for her services in the future.

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A post shared by Aiko Ota (@aikoyogareiki)

Example 2: Zoho

Take a look at how Zoho uses a short video to introduce what Zoho Commerce can do for you as an online retailer: 

Example 3: NYX

Here’s another example from a beauty brand NYX, a leader in the beauty niche. The company posts frequently on social channels to get more likes, comments, and shares which also means an opportunity to boost engagement and reach a wider audience of interested social media users.

To tell potential customers about their product variety, the company made a series of product shots. One of their TikTok videos—a simple tutorial on creating wings— got more than 357,000 views million views and generated more than 12000 engagements. 

@nyxcosmetics There’s no such thing as too many #wingedliner hacks!! @Andrea Martin #nyxcosmetics #wingliner #epicink ♬ Art of Self – NYX Cosmetics

2. Intent

Once you reach the right people during the discovery phase, your business gets a chance to interact with potential customers who are more likely to make a purchase. During the intent stage, customers are looking for more specific information about your product or service to make sure your business is right for them. This includes researching why your service or product stands out from your competitors.

Now it’s time to generate more leads and the best thing you can do is to provide even more detailed content about your products and services.

Here are some ideas on creating content that helps people walk through the intent phase:

• Guides
• Explainer videos
• Influencer endorsements
• Product reviews
• Customer testimonials

Example 1: Hubspot

The easiest way is to create image posts with a focus on the product’s features as it doesn’t take much time or effort. When you write captions for these posts, remember to include a CTA that guides users on what to do next, as Hubspot did:

You can also use retargeting ads on Facebook or Instagram to target people who interacted with your website or content in the past. Or you can also include a website to redirect interested users and drive traffic to your site’s pages through social media. Not only does it increase the number of visitors you get, but it also gives space for people who are visiting to explore more of your products and services.

Example 2: Wishfulskin

If you want to stand out from the crowd and wow your hooked followers, one of the best ideas is to post tutorial videos that provide viewers with handy information and market your products at the same time. As a health and beauty, Wishfulskin shares helpful tips and skin care tutorials as reels:

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A post shared by wishfulskin (@wishfulskin)

Example 3: Seattle Coffee Gear

Here’s another example, this time from Seattle Coffee Gear. The company uses its Youtube channel to post informational content that coffee makers will love. By doing coffee machines reviews, viewers get valuable information that solves their problems:

3. Conversion

By the time people reach the stage of conversion, they show clear intent to buy products from you. During this phase, fans become customers if you help them make a purchase.

When building a social media sales funnel, it’s important to optimize your profiles for social shopping and therefore help customers buy from you without leaving the app. In other words, you need to turn your social media profile into a storefront and do your best to help people make in-app purchases, some ideas to help include the following:

• Create product catalogues
• Add product stickers
• Include clickable links
• Provide followers with discounts or promo codes

Example: Freshbeauty

You can also create remarketing ad campaigns that re-engage anyone who has shown interest during the early stages of the funnel and offer a time-limited discount to turn these users into customers.

Fresh is a good example of this strategy; to celebrate Black Friday, the company made a campaign that announced a 25% discount, and within 4 days, the campaign resulted in 8X more content views and it generated 32% of sales from Instagram and Facebook.

When you give a solid reason for interested social media users to buy from you, be ready to receive a big number of questions about your product, delivery time, or payment methods. If you have a customer service team who monitors social media accounts, that’s great. However, you can also include a phone number in the bio section and use call tracking to understand where your interested customers come from.  

4. Loyalty

Practically every business aims to acquire customers. If you have reached more customers on social media, that’s great. Now it’s time to do your best to keep these consumers loyal. Why? Acquiring a new customer is 5x more expensive than retaining an existing one.

Having a loyal following, not only do you get repeat purchases, but you can also encourage people to share positive recommendations with their friends and family. People trust word-of-mouth recommendations.

Never forget about the audience once the sale is over. Continue building relationships so that customers never forget about you.

The buyer’s journey is circular, so nurture relations with first-time visitors to increase brand loyalty. One of the strategies for this phase is to provide valuable content or so-called lead magnets. 

Example 1: Baremetrics

For example, you can offer an ebook and provide your interested social media followers with a lead magnet in exchange for their contact information.

If you’re a B2B company, you can immediately engage a first-time visitor to sign up for a lead. You can also use remarketing ads to offer free trials as a big incentive to start getting interested customers to come back for more.

Here are examples of ads Baremetrics ran for their product:

Example 2: Essie

Another idea is to show love to your customers. Essie values its customers, so the company has created the #essielove hashtag campaign to post photos of how customers are using the product. The hashtag is an opportunity for customers to feel like a part of the bigger community and share their content with Essie’s two million followers.

Example 3: Wise

What is more, you can share customer testimonials to show your loyal customers and therefore set an example for other customers to show appreciation for your business if they are happy with your products or services. For instance, Wise has invited several real customers to share their experiences of using Wise to describe how you can send money for the cheapest fees anywhere in India. Check it out below:

As a business, you will have at least a few happy customers in your industry. Make use of feedback from happy customers to put a quote on the image or create a video testimonial for your social media profiles.

Example 4: Dove x CartoonNetwork

Keep existing customers engaged with the brand by providing them with engaging content. Let’s take this Instagram video from Dove as an example where they partnered with Cartoon Network: 

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A post shared by Dove Global Channel (@dove)

This video generated 1+ million views and drove a 37.3% engagement rate as fans started commenting on the self-esteem project in droves. The action Dove took by fighting against established gender notions resonated with fans. It was the year’s most engaging post from Dove.

Conclusion

Today, customers choose social media platforms to keep in touch with brands, discover new products, or even make purchases. 

No matter your business niche or size, it’s high time to create a social media sales funnel if you market your products on social media. To achieve business growth, it’s important to interact with your fans during each of the four stages of the customer journey. The above-mentioned tips can help your business build a sales funnel for social media that drives results and brings your business to the next level.

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About the Author: George is a writer and blogger at Kamaybloggers.com, a site he started to share cutting-edge marketing insights.

The post How to Create a Social Media Sales Funnel (With Examples) appeared first on Hopper HQ.