In the grand scheme of communications, social media is pretty new to the scene.

Along with social media emerged social media management platforms designed to help brands and agencies manage their social media presences and conversations with customers.

The space is moving fast – and misconceptions abound.

With social media teams juggling so much, it’s tough to keep up with

all the new technology available.

To make this process a little easier, we’ve gathered 11 of the biggest

myths about enterprise socialmedia management platforms…

MYTH 1THERE’S NOT THAT MUCH DIFFERENCE

BETWEEN USING EACH NETWORK NATIVELYVERSUS USING A MANAGEMENT TOOL.

You have loads of free time, right?One of the biggest pain points of social teams is a lack of time. Saving time creating, planning, scheduling, approving, and publishing posts

to multiple networks and promotions on those networks means creating more valuable

time for your team. And when it comes to responding to your community’s questions

and replies, a social management platform lets you monitor posts from a variety of networks in one place, tag comments for reference,

and assign team members tasks to respond.

MYTH 2THERE ARE SO MANY SOCIAL

MANAGEMENT PLATFORMS OUT THERE.BUT THEY’RE ALL THE SAME.

Not all social management tools are the same, and no one platform makes sense for every

brand. The trick is to find the one that works best for your team, your goals, and your hopes

for your social program. Your priorities will determine which SMMS is best, with some

excelling in services and others with strong product offerings. Building your personal checklist for selecting the right SMMS for you will ensure that among the available tools on the market today, you’re finding

your brand’s perfect match.

MYTH 3SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS AREONLY FOR THE LARGEST GLOBAL BRANDS.

Social management platforms are an asset to companies that aren’t in the Fortune 500 (although they work wonders for them, too).

Many smaller companies have equally engaged social communities, which means responding to replies and comments is just as important.

Community management for multiple networks, response workflows, content calendars,

contests, and analytics are vital for all socially active brands. Having this within one tool helps mid-size to large brands scale their social efforts.

MYTH 4YOU CAN TRACK SOCIAL MEDIA

JUST AS EASILY WITH FREE TOOLSAND SPREADSHEETS.

Ah, the spreadsheet. It’s a necessary evil sometimes, but for social media tracking it

doesn’t have to be. What if you could create custom reports with just the metrics that

are important to you, across networks, and share and export those results? Social media

management platforms make this possible.

MYTH 5I CAN GET THE SAME ANALYTICS

FOR MY FACEBOOK PAGE THROUGHFACEBOOK INSIGHTS.

Not so fast. It’s true that Facebook Insights provide heaps of metrics for the Facebook Page admin. But social management tools

take the most popular metrics a step further, helping you visualize and analyze what that data means – for your content, your posting

schedule, and your community.

MYTH 6I CAN’T AFFORD TO PAY FOR DESIGN AND

DEVELOPMENT CHANGES WITH EVERY CAMPAIGN,AND THAT’S WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU ADOPT

AN ENTERPRISE SOCIAL MEDIA TOOL. WE’RENOT EVEN SURE WE CAN AFFORD AN ENTERPRISE

SOCIAL MANAGEMENT PLATFORM.

We agree – paying for even the smallest changes to your social designs is a drag, not just on your

deadlines, but on your budget as well. Social marketing platforms that include usable, flexible social design tools let your team create contests, Facebook apps, web pages, and more – and let you edit and update your live designs, whether

you’re running five or 5,000.

Today’s marketing budgets are being stretched and changed to accommodate a fragmented marketing landscape. It can be tricky to set

aside the expense for an enterprise tool. What you will gain, however, adds real value

to your social media efforts.

MYTH 7WE HAVE AN AGENCY THAT HELPS US

MANAGE SOCIAL MEDIA, SO WE DON’T NEEDA SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT PLATFORM.

That’s one of the beauties of the socialmanagement platform – it makes it easierfor you and your agency to collaborate oncontent. Everyone can log in, use design

tools for Facebook apps and contests, build custom workflows, fill in editorial calendarsand create shareable, customizable reports.

Why not get social with your agency byworking together in the same platform?

MYTH 8USING SOCIAL CUSTOMER DATA ISN’T

REALLY HAPPENING IN COMPANIES YET, SOI DON’T NEED A TECHNOLOGY PLATFORM

TO HELP ME DO THAT QUITE YET.

Data is making the marketing world go ‘round – and it’s happening now. 78% of marketers

planned to either further integrate social customer data in 2013 or get started on that

integration.1 To be able to use social data, you need a tool that will collect this information across networks and initiatives (think: social

promotions and contests) and will allow you filter that data to learn more about

your social customers.

1 Source: Infogroup Targeting Solutions and Yesmail Interactive via MarketingProfs:

“Marketers Upping the Ante on Big Data in 2013” link:

http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2013/9904/marketers-upping-the-ante-on-big-data-in-2013

MYTH 9WE’RE DOING JUST FINE GETTING APPROVALS

FOR CONTENT THROUGH EMAIL, HAVINGFORMAL WORKFLOW SYSTEM WOULD JUST

COMPLICATE THINGS.

It’s tough to achieve zero inbox (and maintain your sanity) when you’re flooded with threads

of edits to posts, tweets, art, and copy. If you’re looking for a way to send the right people a

note to approve something, get feedback, and have a lasting audit trail of the process, social

management systems provide this – without the endless, inefficient back and forth of email.

MYTH 10WE LET OUR FRANCHISES, LOCATION

MANAGERS, AND AGENTS DO THEIR OWNSOCIAL MEDIA, SO WE DON’T NEED APLATFORM TO MANAGE EVERYTHING.

If your individual locations are active on social media, bravo! But what if you could take it to the next level? Social management platforms let you:

Establish workflow that helps preventsocial media gaffes.

Let you publish consistently branded socialdesigns across hundreds of presences.

Show you reports that help your locationlearn what’s working for others and improve.

Easily funnel down creative content thatwould otherwise take more resources and

time for franchises to duplicate on their own.

MYTH 11IT TAKES A LONG TIME FOR AN

ENTERPRISE SOCIAL MANAGEMENT PLATFORMTO GET IMPLEMENTED. WE’RE TOO BUSY

TO OVERSEE THIS CHANGE.

If you work in social media, there’s nodoubt you’re busy. But that shouldn’t stop

you from adopting technology that will help make your efforts better. Implementation time

can be as little as 24 hours to turn on andonly two weeks for full implementation on

some platforms, especially independent platforms that are IT agnostic.

Have questions about socialmedia management platforms?

We’re here to bust myths and give you what your team needs to know. Contact us

to see if what you know is myth or fact.

sales@shoutlet.com | www.shoutlet.com

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